The point of TSE as a prediction market is to make up for the fact that hard information on video game sales isn't made available. It isn't a bookmaker which needs to "pay out" at a specified time. TSE is a market.
If a payout based on concrete information is made important to you then stick to just the futures. In terms of the GLS stocks, a video game can potentially sell for an infinite amount of time, especially in the digital age. No data made available will ever have any finality about it.
Sales are sales, the distribution channel is irrelevant.
Subscribers should certainly not be counted as 'sales' but in the case of WoW, at least when it was on The9, a subscriber would first have to acquire a CD-Key to allow them to buy the game. That's as good as a sale in my book.
On the other hand, as games trend towards a free-to-play / microtransaction / virtual goods model then "sales" will become even more irrelevant.
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The point of TSE as a prediction market is to make up for the fact that hard information on video game sales isn't made available. It isn't a bookmaker which needs to "pay out" at a specified time. TSE is a market.
If a payout based on concrete information is made important to you then stick to just the futures. In terms of the GLS stocks, a video game can potentially sell for an infinite amount of time, especially in the digital age. No data made available will ever have any finality about it.
Sales are sales, the distribution channel is irrelevant.
Subscribers should certainly not be counted as 'sales' but in the case of WoW, at least when it was on The9, a subscriber would first have to acquire a CD-Key to allow them to buy the game. That's as good as a sale in my book.
On the other hand, as games trend towards a free-to-play / microtransaction / virtual goods model then "sales" will become even more irrelevant.