@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.
The hero units and unit abilities were what I really liked about Warcraft III and I think what sets Blizzard RTS games apart from the rest. I hope they don't de-emphasize active unit abilities, or this could turn out to be more like a C&C game.
The article sounds like later units still have many active abilities, such as the Zerg Queen. I think the unit abilities in WC3 were also what encouraged people to tech and build a variety of units, rather than just mass hydralisks and goons like in the original SC.
Amid all the hype for Diablo 3, you may have missed hearing about the StarCraft II developer panel helmed by Blizzard's Rob Pardo at this weekend's Worldwide Invitational in Paris. Joystiq was there to catch all the details on the latest build of the game. See what team Blizzard had to say about the newfound power of the Zerg Queen, the upgraded Protoss Mothership and the reason behind de-emphasizing heroic classes.
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.
An online SKU search for Starcraft II on Best Buy, Circuit City, and Gamestop's web sites reveal the same supposed release date of December 3, 2008. Though with no confirmation from Blizzard, it's far from official.
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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.