The Wire! Your thoughts?

[ItsMagicITellYou]

I think its wonderful and brilliant. It honestly is going towards advancing magic and provoking thought. This is the kind of stuff people dreamed about, and now its so accessible! I for one, think Theory11 did a BRILLIANT job with it.

[Albert]

Hmmm, this program does seem interesting. Now, I can't really make a comment on it until I see the kind of things 'non-professional' magicians will actually contribute. Then I can see just how seriously they take magic. If Theory 11 releases something like the Brick Pass through this program, I will seriously doubt it's efficiency.

Let's see how well they can take this program ;)

Although... since I'm not a big fan of Theory 11, I might be a bit critical of it :awesome:

[Mark]

I have mixed feelings about it. Basically, it's just a secondary store, yet with charts and probably less filtering going on.

Online magic sellers like T11, Ellusionist, The Blue Crown and such have always been giving people a chance to submit their creations (we do too yet people haven't used it yet, probably because it's slightly more hidden). The Wire isn't any different, apart that it is more public.

I just hope they will still keep filtering everything on a high level because else it will be a mess like never before. I can see them decide to filter less as they keep 40% of all profits themselves. More tricks = more money.

It does definitely look good though. That is, if ignoring all the flaws (which I hope they will solve soon).

[Fin]

Definitely worth keeping an eye on and if it ends up producing just a handful of good releases then I'm all for it. But for now I'm afraid you'll have to wait guys and gals. Findini's "The Average Pass" won't be due for release for at least another couple of years.

[la0o9]

hmmm, the idea itself sounds very interesting, but knowing the quality of some of the effects and the handling of the people around the world( who, if they were like me before, would be overconfident with themselves, and submit completely bad to lukewarm stuffs), i can't wait to see how this will turn out.

[Kelan]

I despise theory 11, but it's still a pretty good idea.

[Mark]

I wonder why it actually took four years to set up though. It's not thát much of a big thing. And.. I'm officially going to say that I find it a bad thing, possibly even the worst thing to happen to the art (yes, indeed, I just said that). Why?
The Wire is very much like the iTunes of magic downloads: whether it's good or bad, as long as it's original, it will get posted.
So the filtering will be way crappy. It will be mainly about the video and audio content being original so that they are legally allowed to publish it. :thinking:

[MeandmagiC]

sounds like a big commercial based, rubbish thing to me.
it its gonna work, its gonna work for 2 months, then everybody leaves it, or there will be many rubbish videos on it, causing an overflow, and losing the logic in it. they need to come up with a superawesome browsing system that will never fail, because they will not end up "feeding" you, but people will end up "feeding" them, with videos. So it is all gonna end up in one big mess where you search for an original, well-performed idea or concept.

my question is though, is there a quality check? (maybe by Theory11? I am not saying they can check REAL quality ;) :D )
otherwise, you may end up paying ten bucks for some rubbish :O


Off topic:
http://www.theory11.com/wire/calen-morelli/scribble-30/

with rubbish, I mean something like this.... come on, I thought of that when I got my first w**** xD

[Mark]

my question is though, is there a quality check? (maybe by Theory11? I am not saying they can check REAL quality ;) :D )
otherwise, you may end up paying ten bucks for some rubbish :O
There is not. You can set the price yourself to whatever you like. Sure they might tell you that it doesn't seem worth it but if you want to have it published, they will... unless there is a legal reason not to. That is, according to what Zach said in this week's Insider.

I think that if people feel the need to sell crap, you should have them do that themselves rather than supporting them in doing so. :thinking:


Off topic:
http://www.theory11.com/wire/calen-morelli/scribble-30/

with rubbish, I mean something like this.... come on, I thought of that when I got my first w**** xD
Rick Merrill won't be happy with that product. It's something he does all the time. :hm:

[MeandmagiC]

Rick Merrill won't be happy with that product and he has all reasons to not be happy with it. It's something he does all the time. :hm:

ah well, knowing the secret is one thing, performing it well is another :P
I think this is something everyone can come up with,
did Rick sell it?

[ItsMagicITellYou]

but it took them 4 years [apparently] to develop this. they would have thought of all the flaws and issues and thats probably why it took so long to come to fruition. Obiv its not gonna be perfect, but i think it has a really good chance.

[Mark]

ah well, knowing the secret is one thing, performing it well is another :P
I think this is something everyone can come up with,
did Rick sell it?
Rick basically won the FISM with it (he didn't put this particular effect in the FISM-routine but I know he has performed it and all the required techniques were still used in the FISM-routine). He didn't sell it but he still performs it.

but it took them 4 years [apparently] to develop this. they would have thought of all the flaws and issues and thats probably why it took so long to come to fruition. Obiv its not gonna be perfect, but i think it has a really good chance.
For four years of development, there still are some major flaws that need to be sorted out, i.e. the big 'Search for an Artist'-bar. Seems like they should've waited another year, lol.

[MeandmagiC]

For four years of development, there still are some major flaws that need to be sorted out, i.e. the big 'Search for an Artist'-bar. Seems like they should've waited another year, lol.

Yes indeed,
I tried to search for names, but it seems you nneed to fill in his/her complete name!
that is really useless, its not a search engine, its a find engine....

[Albert]

Well, after a bit more research, I've found out that The Wire wasn't simply a bigger and more public promotion to the concept of 'submit-a-trick' open to the public. This really does suit the name of the iTunes of Magic.

I personally really don't like this idea now. Now, Theory11 isn't just public, it truly is commercializing magic for pure profit as they get 40% of the profit of each sale. Especially since they are going to approve of all tricks, whether it's good or bad, as long as it's original, it will get posted. How awesome! T11 doesn't do much work and it allows poor suckers to buy the trick and get money off of it. If that's not going commercial, if that's not manipulating the art's great secrets for profit, what is? It can have the worst method only good for the camera, be original, and be put up as $20. Suckers will fall for that.

Also, reminder about its rating system. Regardless of if one buys a trick or not, one can still rate it. What does that say? 1 person who submits a trick and gets an approval can get 30 of his friends to go and like the trick (or a 5 star review) and Ta-Dah! It's a wonderful trick now! So many people will buy it thinking that it's great. This is just like the YouTube bot situation. The bots favourite random stupid videos, people think that the channel is great, subscribe more, and those channel owners get profit. This is what one can truly call manipulation of their products, of their customers, and of the industry, being one of the biggest representatives of online magic.

Well, I can't finalize on any thoughts until later on, but that's how I see it.

[Kayne]

Hmm, It seems the wire has only known theory 11 artists posting their videos on there. Like Blake Vogt, Calen Morelli, Andrei Jikh. Don't see many other people.

[Kieran Oloughlin]

I think it is a wonderful idea, it would be a good way for the magicians all over the world who DESERVE to be known who dont. I think there should be a resonable filtering system so that one doesnt have to go through pages of rubbish. There should also be the option of posting a review and rating ech product so when searching you can choose form a menu of terrible, bad, alright, good, great, and how did you do that! as well as an option to look at recent ones which are not catogorised yet.

Also I am concerned about the tutorial levels, because these will be homemade videos the tutoirlas could be terrible and you could get no where after paying money for a good effect. (This happened to me after I bought Cris's falling elevator)

[la0o9]

for now, even if i want to, i can't go through pages of garbage... having a hard time looking for a way to open the list of effects( i only see the 4 newest and the 5 most popular)

[Mark]

Hmm, It seems the wire has only known theory 11 artists posting their videos on there. Like Blake Vogt, Calen Morelli, Andrei Jikh. Don't see many other people.
Don't forget that the Wire was only released very recently. Each of those products were submitted before the Wire went live, so obviously it only has T11 artists and some close friends so far. This will definitely change though. Hopefully T11 is sorting out its filtering, because the "whether it's good or bad, as long as it's original, it will get posted"-filter will definitely be making a mess of the place.

There should also be the option of posting a review and rating ech product so when searching you can choose form a menu of terrible, bad, alright, good, great, and how did you do that! as well as an option to look at recent ones which are not catogorised yet.
Those options are already there (although the latter one still is a bit bugged). :)

[Kayne]

Pfft, It is going to be hilarious watching all of these horrible variations uploaded into the wire and such. Magic has been nearly sucked dry to the bone with all this public market tricks it is all now just REALLY small variations or just pointless sleights that actually are just.. stupid. Closest thing you will get to originality is Darksleightz of course.
As said before, T11 is only doing this for the money. They barely care about the actual art anymore.
The magicians code is dead. For a while now :S
I'm going to have fun watching most of the amateur variations posted onto T11. Emphasis on variations :P.

[la0o9]

yeah, very little people follow the code anymore... magic is publicly reviewed, and there's no stopping it, the art is close to death now, and many many companies are trying to kill it off completely

[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]

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]

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:




40% is a lot. Granted, it will get MUCH more publicity then if you sold it yourself, but still, it is a bit steep.
Theory 11 getting 40%, that is actually a pretty fair rate. If any of you have gone to a company and tried to publish your own effect, using their camera crew, editor, etc. you are looking at around a few thousand dollars of your own money to produce a top notch DVD with artwork, advertising and everything else that goes into it. Most of us including myself do not have that kind of money up front to take a gamble. Other companies that I know of do not charge you anything up front, but will then tell you that the production value was like $4,000 and that you do not receive a dime until the profits have surpassed that amount. I know a few guys who haven't made a cent yet who have released material through Paper Crane because of issues like this. Not putting them down...that is just how business works sometimes. Most of the time you as the artist get a percentage of the profit, AFTER you have broken even with the company.
Yeah, but then again Theory11 isn't filming, editing, producing, covering any expenses at all for your publication. You're doing all the work here and T11 is providing you with a service and charging 40% for it. I don't know, I'm on the fence about this.
It has potential to sell but even Ebay only charges you 9% for your product.
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. :thinking:

[Kieran Oloughlin]

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 ----------

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"! :thinking:

[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. :hm:

[Kayne]

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