@zeromous, coming down to the SKU would be too specific. If a publisher did a second print with some bug fixes (like one that prevents you from running an XBox 360 exploit), that would have a different Stock Keeping Unit number, but would essentially be the same game.
We are forecasting how particular games sell--there isn't really a need to forecast how a particular SKU sells. On a prediction market, you wouldn't want to list them separately as that only divides up the liquidity. There isn't much interest in trading Persona 3 to start with, there would be even less for each Persona stock if you divided it up by regular edition and special edition.
So in practice it would either be trading a Persona 3 stock that includes the special edition sales or just a stock that includes original Persona 3 sales. The former would be better since we are forecasting how the game did. Cutting off the forecast because the game is now a new SKU would shortchange the game.
You missed my first point. How many copies do special editions normally sell? How often do titles jump back to the top of the charts when one comes out? For the most part they won't matter that much for the purposes of this site.
I don't claim to decide "how low is too low". That's your strawman. The admins decide that.
You have yet to show why anyone should even care about this. You started off by claiming that Subsistence shouldn't count for MGS3 simply because it had an online mode tacked on...which really has nothing to do with MGS4/MGO which are seperate titles entirely. The SimExchange has never listed a special edition (or expanded edition, or whatever) as a seperate title so there's no reason to think that they would start unless they say so. Besides, with the focus of the site moving towards short-term forecasting, it's really a moot point. Finally, as I said, these special editions rarely move a significant amount of units and are rarely tracked in sales so they don't seem to be that important for this site.
And yes, some players have made a lot of money playing off small stocks (perhaps you've spoken to one) but that's hardly the point of this site. Penny stocks should disappear (and they are) from this site. While some games will disappoint in sales, I don't think the admins are going to go out of their way to list them.
What you mean like every other imminent overpriced stock that doesn't have any activity? how do you determine which one is low activity? How low is too low and how low activity do you have to be to be delisted? And if so, shouldn't a stock simply be delisted, rather than never listed at all?
I see above that Joe at least understands what Im getting at. I see your comment as just being a straw man (surprise!)- its besides the point and doesn't address the issue.
We're not talking penny stocks here, and well, some of the greatest fortunes have been made on low value stocks without any activity....until suddenly...
@Laoldar, Well there's the problem of games that have their production stopped when a special edition comes out, which then claims all the new sales for the original game. For ex: CoD2->CoD2 GotY, CoD3->CoD3 Gold, Oblivion->Oblivion GotY. So there are many variables, some pointing to keep each SKU separate and others to not keep them separate. Perhaps it really is a judgement call on each game, or each games type of SE. I know that's not fun, but it would make things more accurate.
How often do special edition SKUs move enough product to make a big impression? Do we really need an increase in low-value stocks that won't have any activity?
I get it Joe, it just doesn't make sense to include them as they are separate products. They are tracked separately at every level of retail except well, on the TSE prediction market! How can we give accurate predictions if not comparing apples to apples or in this case, SKU to SKU worldwide (japan + pal + us-ntsc).
I think it makes perfect sense to trade Persona3 and Special Edition Persona 3 seperately. These are separate SKUs with different considerations over the original releases driving their sales! Furthermore, dual media games like Warhawk also have this problem unless we trade editions seperately.
We track metacritic scores, futures by month. How does that make sense, but not to trade long stocks by SKU?
@zeromous, I was just trying to explain the differences between the scenario you suggested compared to my examples. Of course SMW sales on separate platforms, especially home vs portable platforms, should be considered separate in sales.
In determining lifetime sales of games I don't think I agree with separating every version of a game on 1 platform into separate stocks. I don't think it makes sense to say Persona 3 sold X and putting its later Special Edition into its own stock, or doing this for Oblivion & Oblivion GotYE, or for CoD3 & CoDGE, or for MGS3 & MGSS. They still contain the games of the original releases and generally add additions, features, levels, etc.
That's a pretty fuzzy line you're drawing there. All this special case rules to deal with what should simply be a seperate product.
Do sales of Super Mario World count the same for both GBA and SNES? Of Course not.
A seperate SKU should have a seperate stock. It only makes perfect sense where this SE policy (which I have not seen or read anywhere) seems to create confusion and debate.
@zeromous, Those are two separate games. So MGS4 comes with a starter edition of MGO, that is different than Persona 3 FES which contains the whole regular Persona 3 game, as does CoD3 GoTE & Oblivion. Furthermore the games I stated had their SE come out after the main game that was included, you're talking about a starter edition of a game coming out before the main game. I think when games come with a starter edition (of a separate game) or something of that sort, they should be considered separate in sales. GT5 Prologue is a starter edition of GT5, though different than the MGS example you gave, it is the most similar I can think of. I believe in the past with GT4 Prologue its sales were considered separate but I'm not sure, it shall be interesting to see if GT5 Prologue sales are included in GT5 sales or not by both the Industry & the SE. GT5 Prologue while presumably still free for DL, will apparently cost money on Bluray so that clouds things even further.
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We are forecasting how particular games sell--there isn't really a need to forecast how a particular SKU sells. On a prediction market, you wouldn't want to list them separately as that only divides up the liquidity. There isn't much interest in trading Persona 3 to start with, there would be even less for each Persona stock if you divided it up by regular edition and special edition.
So in practice it would either be trading a Persona 3 stock that includes the special edition sales or just a stock that includes original Persona 3 sales. The former would be better since we are forecasting how the game did. Cutting off the forecast because the game is now a new SKU would shortchange the game.