What a rip-off

by Bill Rini on January 21, 2005

I ran across some press release today announcing the availability of Magic Poker Cards. Yes, now you too can change the face of the cards used in your favorite online poker rooms (assuming your favorites are PartyPoker, Empire Poker, PokerStars, and Paradise Poker).

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What an amazing advancement! This is fantastic! And for only $14.95 it’s worth ten times that amount. Wait. What the hell? Fifteen bucks to swap out graphic files? Who are these jokers trying to con? This thing would be overpriced if it were free. It reminds me of those crappy software compliation disks they sell in the discount bin at CompUSA. Get 1000 useless and/or redundant applications (how many basic calculators do you need) for only $9.95.

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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

1 map posters January 28, 2005 at 4:31 pm: What a joke. I can’t believe people buy this stuff.
2 G-Rob January 26, 2005 at 6:21 am: That’s it!

I assume when “Daddy” writes of neing “Sick and Tired” he’s refering to his debilitating mental illness.

If he wants to fight, I say, “let’s go”

I’ll see your stupid card face adjustment and raise you a “Biootch”!
3 Daddy January 25, 2005 at 11:52 am: I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick and tired of GRob’s smart ass comments.
4 Bill Rini January 24, 2005 at 3:59 pm: What’s wrong with trying to make a buck?

Absolutely, positively, nothing. However, I’m one of those folks who happens to believe that the moment you charge for something your accountability goes way up. I think the thing you fail to grasp is that if you had offered this out there as open source, my review (if I would have even bothered) would have been more along the lines of “it’s a goofy little tool for people who have way too much time on their hands.” Instead, you’re charging for it which introduces a value proposition to the equation. I think $14.95 is a rip off. I’ve said as much right here. I’ve weighed the stated utility of the product vs. what my perception of the software’s value and, IMHO, $14.95 compensates you far in excess of the value one would receive from purchasing it. Thus, I think it’s a rip off.

Or let me put it into concrete terms for you; Turbo Texas Hold ‘Em is a good but marginal deal at $80 (come on, upgrade that damn interface, will ya). If the price was $800, it would be a total rip off.
5 KingSlick January 24, 2005 at 3:05 pm: If you use family pictures and crop one member onto the card, while waiting for the next hand you might want to look at the original to pass the time. If you a have playmate’s face on a card you might want to see the rest of her in the original, etc. etc.

Print-Screen captures the entire screen, not the area you desire. Copy/paste would not copy original image associations to the other rooms’ folders.

What’s wrong with trying to make a buck? Isn’t that what you’re trying to do with the top-left section of this blog site (affiliate links)?

Best of luck,

The other joker
6 Bill Rini January 24, 2005 at 1:09 pm: G-Rob’s just looking for fur to start flying :-)

Joker, I think you missed my point(s). Why would anyone have the need to see the original picture of the card while in the middle of play? Wait! I forgot if this was Muffy or Buffy on the K of clubs so I better mouse over and see the original! It’s like 90% of what this program is or does is of questionable value. It has screen capture? You mean like CTL PRTSC? It allows you to copy a deck to a different skin? You mean like copy and paste?

All I’m saying is that you smelled a little action going on in this online poker sector and you threw together a bunch of Win API calls and piggy-backed on a few existing technologies trying to make a quick buck. As someone who was worked in software engineering for over 10 years I think the whole thing is comical. I’m not in a bad mood. I’m just amazed at what people call “commercial” software. :-)

Bill
7 G-Rob January 24, 2005 at 4:22 am: Great post…nice comment.

Very entertaining.
8 Joker January 23, 2005 at 11:14 pm: Thanks for the link, Bill.

By the way, it not only swaps out graphics files. It shows the original image of any face up card clicked on at a table in another window while you’re playin (so you can see the original size and uncropped image). You can make one deck for one room, then copy that deck to any other rooms with just a click of the mouse. It has a built-in screen capture feature so you can grab those cool scuba images from your web site, or maybe at http://www.skins.be

I don’t think most people could make the cards with a paint program, swap the graphics files (or even know where they go), and pull up the original images easily without one program that does it all.

I invite your readers to try the fully functioning demo and decide if they think it’s worth $14.95 or not.

Were you in bad mood when you wrote ‘What a rip-off’ ?

Thanks again for the link,

One of the Jokers at http://www.MagicPokerCards.com