October 2009 NPD Sales Data

@zeromous,
Or it's possible you just got twice as many downbids as you thought you did! jk. I welcome almost any discussion on TSE over none.

@apujanata,

I think that there is probably less than a hundred everyday players. Even less playing seriously enough to not simply play favorites.

Casual players perhaps a few hundred?

It is not uncommon for a low ranked player such as myself to be responsible for most of the day's top volume.

BTW by masterminding marketing information I mean, that TSE often reflects the collective belief of this small group.

Surely it would be nearly impossible and counter productive to actually collude TSE and I certainly didn't mean to imply that.

@Joe80,

Right, because I'm totally trying to change the goal of TSE, that is when I'm not ignoring points regarding the goal that is.


TSE is bullocks in terms of real, hard useful data because TSE does not represent the market, only collective sum of a hundred to few hundred people (most of which are weighted by 10-30 super traders). That is all I am saying.

@zeromous,
You cannot change the goal of something based on the performance of its members. You're just saying whatever you can to ignore the point about the goal of TSE.

@Joe80,

Delusion of grandeur does not make it so.

@apujanata,

I'm saying that 10-30 users hold most of the wealth of the game, not that you sit around a table to devise winners and losers.

I'm saying that 10-30 users hold most of the wealth of the game.
I'm saying that 10-30 users hold most of the wealth of the game.
I'm saying that 10-30 users hold most of the wealth of the game.
I'm saying that 10-30 users hold most of the wealth of the game.

Apu: please don't take my post personally. I am not saying you or anyone conspires anything! In fact you know very well it is an impersonal statement, but you obviously choose to construe it that way again. We have had this discussion before, which you will likely conveniently not remember. If you wish to continue to quote me out of context in order to make your point, this conversation will quickly go downhill for you.

I'm saying that 10-30 users hold most of the wealth of the game. A small group of people overwhelmingly hold most of the volume in this game. Statistically TSE is worthless, even for valid marketing information becase it is based on the aggregated results of only a small handful of people based on the exact same information!

My point was in the TSE is nowhere near being as complex as necessary to be an accurate predictor of real-world results. To believe that it is, would be delusional to me.

It is a game, in which a bunch of industry nerds, create fake money by playing, making bets on the industry results.

It does not mean futures are accurate. It does not mean they should be either. It definitely does not mean that stocks are accurate either.

Case in point is Lich King. With or without China, it cannot possibly sell 20 million copies. It is just an example of how one single trader can ensure bogus information is provided to supposed interested parties.

All we ever discuss is how inaccurate futures results come out to be, so why not just accept reality that if anyone is coming here to get really useful and work on making TSE fun.

Once you have critical mass of a tens of thousand active traders, then TSE can take itself seriously as a serious stop for marketing data and overall index of the industry.

@zeromous,
It doesn't matter what goes on because of the # of current traders, that doesn't change the goal of the site.

@zeromous,
Even if you disagree - the point of TSE is to predict sales for the industry, that is it's goal and what it strives for.

@Joe80,

I am referring to the (disappointing) results of said futures, which are what they are.

I respectfully disagree on your view of the TSE and futures in particular but everyone is entitled to an opinion. I pity to be the industry marketing manager at Blizzard telling my boss TSE predicts 20 million sales for Wow: Lich King.

I consider TSE to be more a game and the market behaves like it. It isn't sufficiently complex (ie not enough players/volume) to give a rational perspective of gaming sales in reality.

@zeromous,
I think if a game had its release date changed the trades made would be reversed.

@apujanata,

Apujanata: It will only depress the value if a game is nominated too early for futures. How can you have accuracy for a game that hasn't even begun to sell yet.

* The longer a game is traded for any reason, the more volume/profit is generated.
* My idea assumes there is enough support for a game to be nominated for future (ie, We're pretty sure NSMB will come out in October, but instead Nintendo shifts it to Novemeber at the last minute).
* How does this depress stock unless someone has insider information?

Seriously, sometimes I wonder about this place.

>The point of simEx is making money (YES!)
>nd each future investment give better result when you are accurate (Dude, wait what?)
>since if you can accurately predict #10 of each NPD, you can make lots of money. (not quite!)

That's some circular logic there... Just because you can predict accurately the Top 10 doesn't mean you have the timing to place your orders in order to maximize your money.

Honestly I hear some strange ideas about stock trading around here.

@Joe80,

As for games cashing out at 0$....

Game is nominated for NOV Future in JUNE.
Game is pushed to MAR
NOV Future tanks to approaching 0$. Some lose, some win.
End.

@zeromous,
Who are the results not surprising to?

I think we should only allow games with official release dates into the futures, as each game gets its official release date it can be added. It's just as bad to have games as futures in a month without knowing if its releasing early, middle, or late in a NPD period. You get inaccurate results that way.

Starting trading in July for Futures that expire at the end of Oct is too early for some games. But 1 month is too short as well. So unless we can all agree a game will almost definitely make top 10, we should wait until it has an official release date.

I'm not sure what you mean about a game slipping. I think we're better off trying to be as accurate as possible rather than hoping for a rare chance at shorting a game that ends up cashing out at $0. When has that ever happened? Usually a game will have it's trades reversed.

@zeromous,
If a game slips, there is two better / more logical choice :
- stock transactions are reversed, which means nobody win, nobody lose.
- it is cashed out at #10 # of the respective month (best scenario), since any value lower than #10 (including zero) meant it was cashed out at #10.

As someone who used to short futures, of course I would be very estatic if I can get $0 payout for those kind of stocks, but I am not sure other players would like it :).

@Joe80,
Perhaps I am not clear in stating it, but I DO take responsibilities in this "fiasco", since I am one of the person suggesting games. Hence the word us, not you or them.

NBA2K9 360 show up on Oct 08 NPD Top 10, as #9. PS3 version show up as #17. I agree that Brutal Legend not showing up on Top 10 is a surprise, and very difficult to predict beforehand.

Once we got result from Sept, in which Guitar Hero 5, especially Wii version, show a very significant drop compared to previous version, I believed that DJ Hero will not show up on Oct Top 10.

Gran Turismo Mobile bombing is predictable, based on the fact that most of PSP games are not selling well, and the fact that it is week 2 to 5 for it in Oct 09 NPD.
Mario & Sonic bombing is predictable because it is for winter games, which is not as marketable as summer games (first version).
Tekken 6 is iffy, could be surprise success like Street Fight, could also be standard, means bomb.

When I suggested those three game, I was thinking of Sep, not October. Even for September, my suggestion has very bad (0%) hit rate, since GH5, Beatles and M&S Winter didn't even show up on both Sep & Oct NPD Top 10. This 0% hit rate is the cause of my post. I didn't aim my post at you or any one else's suggestion, I aim it to me. I posted it to have discussion on how to prevent it from happening in the future.

I think you have hit upon a solution :
- not request games to be nominated for futures so early, like asking for Oct futures by July 18, more than 3 months before NPD Oct release.
This solution might not be feasible for simEx, since simEx are gauging interest in games way before release, and having futures only one month before NPD release might be cutting it too closely.

- The other solution is for us to do formal voting on 10 games list, like the one you made for Sep and Oct. Each and every one of us vote for games we are confident to show up in Top 10, and only games that have the most vote are getting IPO as future. We should aim for at least 5 people to vote before finalizing the IPO short list (choose 5 out of 10).

These kind of thing are only important if you think that we should improve the futures. Do you agree we should improve it, or are you happy with the current situation ?

I think we need to improve our futures suggestion procedure in the future. This is a very bad month for us, since only 1 futures are in the Top 10, while the remaining 5 does not show up in the Top 10, and therefore are cashed out based on Rank 10 #. Brutal Legend 360 is very close, rank 11, so choosing it is not a bad choice.

We should have chosen Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus as October's futures. I proposed Wii Fit Plus GLS and Future IPO, and unfortunately, it is not implemented.

Since I didn't have X360 and PS3, I couldn't do a proper suggestion for games on them. But I believe NBA 2K10 would have been a better choice compared to GTA PSP or DJ Hero.

Also curious why nobody suggested borderlands.