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Noog New user 3 Posts 
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I was looking through the DVDs and direct downloads on theory11.com and I noticed that I didn't see a single review under 4 stars. Should this worry me or am I being paranoid? Thanks for your opinions.
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TheGreatRaymondo Special user Manchester, England 969 Posts
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Noog,
No - you are not being paranoid and yes you should be worried. Infact we should all be worried! Why? Because the 'hype' that now surrounds any new magic trick or effect launch is verging on the ridiculous. Unfortunately, I now genuinely feel that we simply cannot believe what the Internet based magic dealers and vendors are pushing at us anymore. The amount of judicious editing and contrived spectator responses get more hysterical with each launch. Reviews: Take them ALL with a very large dollop of salt. Even those from some of the more respected magicians also. Why? 'Peer Reviews' I believe they are called which basically means 'you scratch my back and I will scratch yours'. In other words if you give my latest creation / reincarnation / version / add on / upgrade et.al a good review then I will do exactly the same for you when you release your next money spinning 'effect'. If you are in the club you want to stay in it - so the circle continues at the expense of the general magic consumer. And the best of the lot is the... 'pre order'! Here's the deal: No one has ever seen this trick before, no one out there has ever performed it or been witness to ANY performance of it - but hey trust me, this is truly a mind bender a 'reputation maker', it will 'kill' your audiences! Really it will! - remember I'm your Internet based magic dealer! Would I tell you lies? Well, would I? Of course not! I can show you a youtube link so you can actually see it! So on that basis... give me your money weeks before we have the trick in stock, probably before it is finished never mind refined and the bugs ironed out and we will send you one when we get round to it! Tell me, how often do any of us buy any other product or service on that basis? So why do we allow it to happen on the purchase of magic products and effects? I wish I had the answer. To briefly summarise: Forget any review or promotional video on a dealers website. Simply ignore it. It is truly worthless. It has no value. Wait the 2-4 weeks before real, hard reviews, thoughts, ideas and input from real people, real users, real magicians who work the streets, the bars etc begin appear on great sites like this one and others. Then and only then will you have any real knowledge or understanding of what is real. Noog. You are not paranoid I promise you. But you should be worried. We all should be...
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have not yet deceived us...
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Mystical Matthew Elite user 468 Posts
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Quote:
On 2011-06-13 08:17, TheGreatRaymondo wrote: You can't trust what you read on this site either. I don't know if you've noticed this, but the one person who has the guts to speak up and say "this trick sucks" usually gets pounded on by a whole host of other "real world users" who I also believe are "in the club". I once posted some concerns about an expensive piece of professional equipment that I purchased that was directly marketed towards the magic community. Not only was I blasted into the stratosphere, but the owner of the company that made it actually threatened me with litigation. Whether or not he had any grounds isn't the point. I run a business and it's a headache I don't need. My point is that anyone with credibility that's too vocal is quickly put into their place both via public ridicule and, at least in some cases, through private threats. I've bought many a trick based off glowing reviews I found on this site that obviously had to be from friends of the creator. Heck... I was actually approached a couple times to write these kinds of reviews. No, I won't tell you who made the requests out of respect for the fact that I hope they've cleaned up their act. |
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TheGreatRaymondo Special user Manchester, England 969 Posts
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Hi Matt,
Thanks for the feedback and input. Your own personal experience confirms the thoughts and suspicions of many other people in the magic community. the 'Club' most certainly exists and again when you have been flamed, threatened and ridiculed for simply voicing your opinion underpins and confirms this. I do however, believe that the vast majority of 'normal' magicians who frequent this and other such sites are starting to wake up. The promo videos are so far off the reality these days that most people have been burnt (in actual fact conned)by such lies (which in truth that is what it is). The final straw for me was The Hawk 2.0 - the hype from the dealers (all of them!) was thru the roof! I think it is more than fair to say the trick or 'effect' did not live up to the hype and justify the relatively high priced charged for it - nowhere near. From that day on I decided to do as much research as possible before hitting the 'order' button. I have saved myself a lot of money and dissapointment since. Ultimately one way or another the truth will surface regarding how good or bad a newly released trick is. I just wish more of us regular / normal guys would voice our opinion regardless of the 'Club'. I do and will continue to do so.
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have not yet deceived us...
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whiteoakcanyon Special user 899 Posts
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You should be concerned by any site that only posts positive reviews. I work in ecommerce retail and we are adding reviews to our site in the near future. I should make clear that the business I work in is in no way related to the Magic industry. How to best handle poor reviews is an interesting topic. We have decided to post everything including the good and bad. Bad reviews are an opportunity for the company to quickly identify if we have missed something in our evaluation of a product. If we have inadvertently started selling a poor quality product then it is a service to us to find and remove that product from our assortment. If a reviewer has given a poor review to a good product, we will respond politely to the review. This will be in cases where the user may have not assembled the product correctly or is using the item for something it was never designed to do. ALL reviews will be posted as long as the item is sold on our site. The only way reviews have validity is if you post the good and bad!
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henri loik Regular user Near Chicago, Illinois 136 Posts
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Quote:
On 2011-06-13 08:17, TheGreatRaymondo wrote: I noticed this on ellusionist too. DOesn't matter, I don't like that style of magic very much anyways. If you film trailers like theory11 you can make any color change look amazing. I also see that now a lot of the advertisements are: A: IMPROMPTU if you happen to carry a deck of cards around with you all the time then yes it is impromptu. But in that case why not carry half dollars and sponge balls around too? While I am not a professional magician, I can imagine that when a pro magician goes to work he probably has a lot of stuff setup. I'm sure people expect a pro magician to do more than just impromptu card magic. B: NO GIMMICKS I just don't get this one. Why does that really matter? Unless a gimmick takes hours to make, what's wrong with a gimmick? And why does everything have to be on DVD? I love books! If you don't believe in learning magic from books listen to the magic newswire podcast with Denny Haney. I'm not going to repeat what he said. |
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Bardo New user England 45 Posts
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My favourite is: \'You can use a borrowed deck\' Just how many normal, average, every day people walk around all day with a pack of playing cards in their pocket so a random magician can turn up at any time and borrow them to perform a trick to you?
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| The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » From Soup to Nuts » » No bad reviews on theory11.com? (0 Likes) | |
Posted: Jun 12, 2011 08:24 am 
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