A sad, sad story …

In the very earliest days of this site, I tried hard to work out who makes the Dingoo. Some hints are here, and here, and as best as we can tell, it seems that there are 2 Dingoo companies, and they all belong to one company … or something. Anyway, it’s all quite mysterious and impenetrable. For a machine that’s sold just a few more than a dozen copies (*sarcasm, viewers, sarcasm*), you’d think someone in China’d be trying really really hard to export more of them. The way we see the Dingoo managed from China though, it seems as if no one really has central control of the machine – what with pawed, unpawed, rebranded versions, and fake new models – and now, look at the below, just a few Euro short as well! I wonder if all this seeming lack of awareness about how well the Dingoo is doing outside China has anything to do with the great firewall of China? (Segue: Stop the imposition of a similar firewall in Australia! Click here to stop Senator Steve “Killjoy” Conroy!).

Anyway, this post I found from Geek Never Cook (“I have no mouse, and I must scream!”) doesn’t really shed any more light on who owns, makes, or controls the Dingoo … but we could pass the hat around:):

I have heard a story about Dingoo Games, a mobile game company in Chengdu. I can’t verify the authenticity of the email in the story, and it can describe some kind of real situation of game industry in China. So I public here. Dingoo Game is a small mobile game company in the city I live in. It’s small, but not weak. They have won many prize international and national like nominated for the IGF Mobile 2008 of the “Technical Achievement” category. I found an essay says that when IMGA invite they to attend MWC2008, by lack of money, they refused the opportunity. Below is the email they replied to the IMGA. Hello Jessica, We are DingooGames. I did read your mail, very carefully, and my reply was absolutely serious. I noticed the price you mentioned, of course, it’s 6.300 EUR, am I right? I totally believe that it’s a very low price seems to you, and I know that MWC2008 is a very important congress, and if we attend it, we are very probable to find good opportunities. And after all, we are invited as an IMGA nominee. Yes I know everything listed above, so I can feel your surprise! But I must say: We really have not enought money to attend, please, please listen to my explanation: We are a small company. We have only 11 employees, including me. The average salary of us is 200 EUR, per month. I’m not joking… So, 6.300 EUR is really too high – for us, not to say the tickets and other expenses… We know the congress is very important to us, we want to attend it badly, but, we really can’t. If possible, we need your help. We make good games, but we don’t even have the money to attend a conference. And I think that’s why we are join the IMGAwards. If possible, we need your help. Looking forward to hearing from you soon, Best regards, DingooGames Tang Maybe it’s just a selling strategy to let more Chinese user buy their product because I don’t find the original post. However, it indeed described the embarrassing situation in Chinese game industry. Chinese can get pirated game easily, game company can’t get enough money to develop. Compared with other fallen company, Dingoo is lucky enough. How long can their luck last if things like the mail said, god knows.