I was the one who brought it down to around the 1500 mark, on relflection i should have gone further but i had no real idea of where this stock should be not knowing the Diablo franchise. Just that the game shouldnt be ranking up there with The Sims and Starcraft. So i didn't get a big position as such, only 650 stock shorted, but i will be watching this stock very closely from now on.
@drl21, I got in at around 600 and sold at somewhere in the 1100+ range and think this whole "Diablo 3 is going to break all kinds of records" thing is stupid, hence I'm shorting now.
Since were doing the disclosure thing, I might as well let you know that I'm the one who brought the price down from 1400 last night just by shorting. It was pretty funny. Note: i wasn't necessarily trying to manipulate the market, I just don't believe it will sell that much. It was pretty funny to watch it jump from the number one spot on the highest increase list to the number one spot on the highest decrease list, and to know that it was mostly because of me.
I would also go with Apujanata's advice. Its rock solid.
In the interest of full disclosure (which I do not personally mind apu) I actually divested today at 800, taking a large loss so I could use this opportunity to short much, much higher.
That's probably good advice, but some you have to have some flexibility in the face of new information. Regardless, it doesn't matter at the moment because the stock is still above all of those. I swear a bunch of people got really excited over the announcement and started buying without stopping to think about it.
@drl21, If you wanted to profit in this stock, I would suggest that you don't change your original estimate. When doing shorting, I always advice getting bigger margin. Staying with 5-10 or 5-9 is better than going with 5-8.
It's ok, I appreciate the sentiment of the up-bid more then the actual up-bid itself.
In addition you make some very good points to suggest that Even I may be over estimating the sales a bit. I think based on those points I'll adjust my neutral zone down to 5-8 instead of 5-9. Sell if it's above 8.
BTW, I have compiled a probably useless list of people who has gone long or short significantly (as percentage of their networth or just total amount of DKP invested in Diablo III) : Long : ChrisZhong, sunblaze, Eclectus, Sieglove, Tioneb. Short : vGinfidel, apujanata, JoshuaJSlone, drl21, Zeromous.
One interesting note : Even though it didn't show up on zukaus's profile, I think (I could be wrong here) Zukaus went long on this stock. The current holding is very small (only 460 stock, if my calculation is correct, and not made wrong by other stock fluctuatino at the same time I tried to calculate Zukaus's holding of this stock).
To Zukaus, I hope this kind of thing (analyzing your position on a certain stock, and discussing it on forum) does not bother you. If it bother you, please tell me, and I will stop doing it in the future. I will still discuss obvious things about you, like which stock have shown up on your profile, but not "hidden" things, like your position on Diablo III.
I couldn't agree more drl21, and I'd bid you up if it weren't for my bidding being suspended (Apparenly bidding down 3 legitimately useless posts from the same person is a crime).
Where revenue is useful, is determining future movement in the industry and directly influences marketing and sales efforts/decisions in quarters to come. Simply to say more people have PCs only increases the potential market as you pointed out- but gives no indication as to why people are not buying games on PC.
Truth is, to the avg. consumer there are many reasons to not buy games on PC:
*Draconian and faulty copy protection *more reliable performance from dedicated chipsets *state of the art technology costs more than equivalent consoles.
I know all of the above will keep me from purchasing Diablo3....having not been too crazy about Diablo one and two, you can count out my PC as a potential licensee. If it were on PS3 I might at least buy it for posterity.
So, the question is how many others feel like I do, and conversely how many others actually liked Diablo 1&2 will not buy because of current PC gaming market conditions? How many of the last 6-8 million that bought diablo 2 will not buy diablo 3 for whatever reason? The folly is to assume that everyone and then some will buy the successive title.
This is an example why sales growth over the course of a series (1, 2...3 etc) is not linear, but a bell curve.
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