P3D Re: Magic eye marketing

[Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998
>From: ron labbe <ron@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: photo-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: P3D Magic eye marketing
>
>>(Larry Berlin) writes:
>>What's bogus about the prediction is that they insured the same curve by
>>doing nothing different or better in the marketing department.......
>........ With the patent issue added on top, why try swimming upstream?
>
>
>A perfect example of someone reporting as fact something that is pure
>conjecture. Sorry, Larry- I worked with the "*magic eye* folks"... First,
>their reason for obtaining a patent was to protect themselves from
>lawsuits. Second, the "marketing department" was the publisher, who was
>printing less and less books as a result of the resellers' decreased
>demand. People were sick of stereogram books! The market had became
>flooded! Third, just who is the "everyone else" that were A) forced to pay
>unwarranted license fees or B) making far better stereograms "than magic
>eye ever dreamed of" [hello?!] and C) quit as a result of litigious pressure?

*******  Sorry Ron, but I'm speaking from experience too. I too have talked
with the folks at Magic Eye and a number of other publishers. If you got the
story only from Magic Eye, it's no wonder you may not have the full story... 

Their reason for the patent may have had some basis in self protection, but
the letter they immediately sent out to every known publisher at the time,
to *Stop and Desist* was not my imagination, and had little to do with
preventing law suits... Various other publishers spoke very frankly with me
about all of these issues in detail at and just before that situation took
place... They were aware of the impending patent ahead of time too, so the
letter wasn't really a surprise. That Patent DID have a very serious
negative impact on how the *popularity curve* took place in the USA. It
reduced book choices, persuaded the best artists in the medium to quite
working in stereograms and resulted in the poorer quality books from ME
being about the only ones available anymore. Their images were consistently
less detailed, less sophisticated in use of the medium and poorly marketed,
despite the big business approach, or maybe because of it....

The publisher, who was not at first a part of their progress, followed all
the same formulas that had been used in Japan. Instead of learning from the
curve and doing something *different*.

In some ways I like Magic Eye, afterall they effectively got the whole thing
started, but overall, I believe the patent to be among the worst choices
they made.

I don't believe there was anything but minor technicalities in their patent
either (and I'm not alone in that opinion). Their images never matched the
quality of certain other artist's work. They would have done better and for
a lot longer, to encourage the many start-up businesses rather than
forcefully shutting them down. They desperately NEEDED the creative input of
those many other persons, yet they failed to realize it. 

They are another of those businesses who do great things when starting out,
only to slide downhill when things grow a bit. Perhaps some of the advice
they were given was responsible... I admire many things about them including
bravery in face of the idiocy of big business methods. They did work very
hard... 

>
>BTW, I'll not say Magic Eye SIRDS were the best, but a lot of much worse
>material helped fuel the downward spiral. I will say that it was Magic Eye
>that put printed stereo images in more homes than anything else I can think
>of: their first 3 books were on the NY Times bestseller list, and the
>syndicated strip was in over 200 newspapers (still in many). Go ahead,
>criticize their "marketing department". They wish they'd had you on board.

*****  They had the opportunity... and guess what... too big for their
britches at the time. They really *needed* those *other* artists a lot more
though... And it probably would have still gone down hill, but not as fast
or nearly as far.

Larry Berlin

Email: lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.sonic.net/~lberlin/
http://3dzine.simplenet.com/


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