@JoshuaJSlone, "But then, simExchange users seem pretty bullish on PC gaming. If the wisdom of the crowd is believed here, all of Blizzard's upcoming games will crush their predecessors."
Not quite - the simExchange tends to be bullish on Blizzard games, not PC games in general - it just happens to be that all of Blizzard's games currently are PC titles. There tends to be a bearish attitude towards PC games otherwise - we have seem numerous examples of this bearish attitude coming back to bite people in the behind.
@lstormy10, Yes, going by Wikipedia's list of best-selling PC games (worldwide), 16 million would make it the #2 PC game ever, behind The Sims.
But then, simExchange users seem pretty bullish on PC gaming. If the wisdom of the crowd is believed here, all of Blizzard's upcoming games will crush their predecessors.
@prozac00, Any and all sales are included for GLS stocks. GLS stands for Global Lifetime Sales - displaying that every stock includes any and all sales around the globe.
Futures, however, are only currently for the U.S. because the NPD data that is used to settle the futures is currently only U.S. physical disc sales (no digital downloads are currently counted in NPD data).
In addition, if you believe that Starcraft II will sell more than the current prediction reflected by the stock price (16.87 million copies), then purchase long positions - if you have not already.
Personally, I don't see Starcraft II selling as much as the stock price currently is predicting - as the original only (though only sounds kind of funny in this context) sold 9.5 million copies as of last year.
On a side note, I would like it if you could provide some more insight into the Korean gaming scene in terms of how other, different titles (that are listed for a GLS stock on the exchange) have performed or are performing in regards to sales as Korea is one of the important smaller markets in the gaming industry.
My question is...do these charts include international sales? I think there really should be an effort to include charts not only from the US but from Korea, Japan, China, Europe; the major markets for games.
Hell I would say that not including data from these markets is essentially artificially distorting the accuracy of any of these predictions.
PC games would be much higher in value. PS2 games would have much higher and longer peaks.
I live in Korea. I work in the industry. I can see the fear in the faces of all the people I meet about releasing ANYTHING around the time Starcraft 2 launches.
If you include international sales...the current price for this stock especially is woefully undervalued.
I have a feeling this stock is going to hit 1850 - 1900 DKP by the end of this weekend and then crash back to 1600 - which is still far too high. We'll see... this Blizzard Event will push this stock around, though.
That said, I hope I'm wrong and people are sane :)
What about Halo and GTA? There is more global support for Starcraft than any game other than WOW. Starcraft came out in 1998. It's over 10 years old now but people are still playing it! I go online and play it once in a while. Big global tournaments are still being played. The ability to modify it has allowed many different variations to appear, keeping the game fresh. 15mil is a stretch but I can see closer to 10mil.
SC cannot be compared to any mainstream 10mil+ seller because...
A. Most female players won't be into it B. Most casual gamers won't be into it C. Not enough community building
This is what games like The Sims and MMO's present to the consumer and why WoW and other broad scope games have reached 10mil copies. That and almost every 10mil+ seller is on console.
But whatever, you live your pipedream of SC2 hitting 15mil copies sold.
Starcraft was never that advanced back in the day...but guess what, bells and whistles don't matter. Starcraft was a success because it had amazing gameplay (including constant patching to keep the multiplayer balanced), a great sense of humour, not cutting edge tech (it helps if more people can actually run the game) and excellent free multiplayer (including how incredibly open the custom multiplayer maps could be, which allowed players to re-create different movie battles, in a way).
Starcraft outsold other RTS games because it didn't take itself seriously, yet it was polished. It wasn't pretentious, but the strategy was deep.
Just wanted to point out that a game's success isn't based on how "shiny" it looks...it's all about the gameplay. Heck, Starcraft players will buy it just because the resolution will be better...you don't need better looking units.
WoW has sold 10mil in 3-4yrs and has a way broader audience then a futuristic RTS a genre that's never been particularly received well.
Have you seen the SC2 videos and screenshots? The game is not THAT much better then the first one, nothing spectacular has been seen and very little tech advancements.
Compare it to the recently announced Dawn of War 2 screenshots. Or even Company of Heroes which is now 2 years old.
@decidence, Sometimes the sequel is just better. I might call this the Terminator 2 clause. I wouldn't primarily base it on numbers from SC. One thing i would weigh into consideration is the ammount of PC gamers, has it increased or decreased? WoW really changed the way to look at PC gaming. I would be more apt to use that as a case for argumentation as opposed to SC1.
2
"But then, simExchange users seem pretty bullish on PC gaming. If the wisdom of the crowd is believed here, all of Blizzard's upcoming games will crush their predecessors."
Not quite - the simExchange tends to be bullish on Blizzard games, not PC games in general - it just happens to be that all of Blizzard's games currently are PC titles. There tends to be a bearish attitude towards PC games otherwise - we have seem numerous examples of this bearish attitude coming back to bite people in the behind.