The Wire! Your thoughts?

[ItsMagicITellYou]

close to death? from what i see, its more alive than ever. and with so much new technology and great minds coming forth, i dont think it will ever die. itll change, yes. before it was big on stage, now its big on street, and im sure itll swing back and forth,but i think its more accessible than ever, both to watch and perform.

[Albert]

Originally Posted by ItsMagicITellYou

close to death? from what i see, its more alive than ever. and with so much new technology and great minds coming forth, i dont think it will ever die. itll change, yes. before it was big on stage, now its big on street, and im sure itll swing back and forth,but i think its more accessible than ever, both to watch and perform.

I'm sure he meant 'die' as in the secret of magic is way too publicized, which is what's happening. Imagine magic being so common that it's entertainment and amazement value drops; that's real death of magic. It might be alive more so than ever in terms of how much of a common knowledge its secrets will become, but that's pretty bad for us magicians.

[Kieran Oloughlin]

I dont belive it will die, yeah it gets exsposed but there are so many possibilties thatr can be created and some one may invent a slieght that changes magic that area of comepetly for those who learn it and use it.

There is aslo enough stuff on the market for it to be really hard for all of magic to be exsposed

[Kayne]

I dont belive it will die, yeah it gets exsposed but there are so many possibilties thatr can be created and some one may invent a slieght that changes magic that area of comepetly for those who learn it and use it.

A deck of cards does have many possibilities. But all those possibilities have been sucked almost completely dry due to the exposure of the market and also how everyone is creating so many ideas. It's extremely hard to create something original these days now.

[Albert]

Originally Posted by Kieran Oloughlin

There is aslo enough stuff on the market for it to be really hard for all of magic to be exsposed

This didn't make sense to me. This means that the level of exposure on the market is relatively low; is that what you are saying?

[Mark]

T11's defence mechanism is rather flawed:

Originally Posted by Jonathan Bayme (T11 CEO)

Our royalty rate on The Wire is the best in the industry, by far. Unparalleled. Unheard of. Murphy's Magic, the largest distributor of physical magic DVD's, typically purchases units at 40% of retail cost. On The Wire, you'll be receiving 20% greater than that - 60% on every unit sold. We provide the platform, the marketplace, an enormous audience, payment processing, and the bandwidth. To compare, it's a valid point that Apple provides developers 70% royalty (10% greater than us), but the iTunes App Store is run at break even, not for profit, to support sales of iPhones and iPad's. We don't make iPhone's. So as a business, we have to be make cents. That said, you can also publish your effect or move for FREE, and we encourage that route as well.

Reminds me of Apple when the famous antenna issue was discovered, that they took many other smartphone brands and showed they all had the same issue. No one agreed with that action. T11 just does that, but with other magic sellers.

Of course they would still make a lot of profit with 70%. Not to forget that it's only just a section. They still got their playing cards, tricks and far-overpriced gear to make profit, similar to Apple.

I am pretty sure we are the only company that actually breaks even, which is why we give 99% of the profit to the artist, which equals 90-95% of the related incomes. The Wire is the best in the industry, by far? Unparalleled? Unheard of? If that's the research they will be doing on their releases, it will be the crappiest place soon. Unparalleled, indeed.

Also, I just realized they can't go all that hard on the filtering, which is actually what every magician is hoping for. But if they would go hard on it, the Wire will be just like their normal tricks section.

[Kieran Oloughlin]

Originally Posted by Kayne

A deck of cards does have many possibilities. But all those possibilities have been sucked almost completely dry due to the exposure of the market and also how everyone is creating so many ideas. It's extremely hard to create something original these days now.

No i dont think it is, its just you need inspiration and need to use an idea that you have not seen before, so you mainly need to be creative. Also there is many awesome sleights that you can learn nowadays so if you learn them youd find it much easier

---------- Post added at 05:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:06 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Albert

This didn't make sense to me. This means that the level of exposure on the market is relatively low; is that what you are saying?

No, what I mean is that there is hundreds possibly thousands maybe even tens of thousands of magic books on the market some new some old, some weel known other not so much. So I am saying that due to the large range of material it would be very hard for every trick to be exposed for free.

[Mark]

T11 can't keep up with any of the deadlines they put to this concept. The official release moment already was a failure, and now it is a day ago that members should've been able to submit their products but this still is not the case.

Instead, the site keeps saying "Within 24 hours". That's like waiting for a train and the signs keep saying it will arrive within 5 minutes... but it never arrives and eventually gets cancelled till the next day because of technical difficulties. Good thing I'm one of the few passengers who needs to catch another train.

To realize this concept is something what some people have been waiting for for the past four years, makes it even worse. Classic example of rushed and commercial magic stuff. I'm pretty sure an extra year wouldn't have hurt much. Apparently, they needed it too.

[Fin]

Sounds like they got excited, or greedy, or both.. Like when they release computer games too soon and they are so full of bugs you can't play until they release the first patch!! Gah! I had that problem with Battlefield Bad Company. It was possibly the most depressing and frustrating couple of weeks I've ever experienced, except maybe for the "month of the in-growing toe-nail"!

[Kayne]

Wow the prices are so pathetic on some of the tricks on their. Most of them are for 15 bucks. One of them was being able to light a match with your hands.. Err.. Something hidden in your hand for 15 bucks hmm ok then >.>
Another for a restoring balloon effect which is actually pretty obvious. T11 taking 40% off the product is ridiculous. That is why the effects are so expensive.
"Magic is an art, not a business"
Theory11: "Derrrr?"

[la0o9]

yeah, except for a few of T11's artists( and a single person i know who isn't one of theirs), the effects can be seen through or worked out quite easily, if you've already got the method, and will have to practice it anyways, why not just do it and figure the trials and errors out yourself?( i mean... for me, it was the Dribble Pass, i watched around 4-5 different tutorials, and it wasn't until i saw the whole move done slowly and at an exposed angle by my senior that i was able to do it... around 4-5 days of my school life contains more info than all those useless videos combined- the time i took to fine them and watch them was around 1 month)
Theory11 is ALL about money, lots of their stuffs used to be good, but since they changed the logo, everything is just about business and not about the art anymore.

[Mark]

I think the original idea behind Theory11 was pretty good, indeed. Eleven top magicians teaching all kinds of (mainly card) magic, somewhat underground, nothing wrong with that.

However, it was hyped far too much with the whole 'What is Theory11?' thing going on before its release, which made the whole online magic community go gaga. Scratch 'underground' because it instantly turned into a marketing term instead. There was nothing underground about it apart from when it wasn't released yet.

Then, some of their artists left for the reason it went far too commercial, no control over whatever tricks they sold through the site because it ended up all over the internet for free, etcetera.

Suddenly, Theory11 had less than 11 artists and apparently Jonathan Bayme thought: "You know what, since we're not Theory11 anymore anyways, let's make it Theory10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.", all up to 44 today (and they can't even keep up with the list, their latest artists aren't on it yet). The original mentality of Theory11 seemed to have changed completely, although I reckon it's something JB has had in mind since the beginning already as he was responsible for the major hyping in the first place.

Maybe it's just the younger generation who is in charge, I dunno. It's odd to see that Jonathan Bayme and Dan and Dave pretty much have the exact same approach, all three of them being in their mid-20's. I am just glad that I'm not like that. What would masters like Marlo, Vernon, Elmsley and Jennings have thought if they would be still alive.

PS: It seems like The Wire has been in the making for much longer than 4 years. They have Yugoslavia listed as a country, but Yugoslavia broke apart about 20 years ago.

[Kayne]

Yeah. I was extremely surprised I saw Lennart Green on Theory11. My mouth when :O