If you read many of the articles out there that you will see that the Brothers were planning to leave for a long time. Just no one knows when they did plan to do so. I think that the slow start of Viva Pinata has nothing to do with them leaving. This game will grow as more people look at it and try it out.
1UP is reporting that Rare founders Chris and Tim Stamper have left the Microsoft owned development studio. The two have reportedly left to "pursue other opportunities", with the departure supposedly having nothing to do with the poor sales reception of Viva Pinata.
Although I agree with Master Trader that the capital is there to boost Viva Pinata if it were justified...more users would always make the whole simExchange more interesting.
I my self am going to say that those in the long are going to see the rise again. This will rise but not as drastically as before. I think that in the long run it will jump back up.
Orkeater, the problem isn't that people don't have the money to buy the stock. People have plenty of money, look at all the short selling--you just sell the stuff you don't think will go up anymore or cover the short positions you don't think will go down anymore. The problem with Viva Pinata is the game way underperformed and only justifies a price around 40 DKP unless the December sales are 4x that of November. I would suggest you close out your long position unless you're betting Viva Pinata had a huge December.
We need some major user boost of some sort like when all the gaming blogs linked this site, now noone has the money to buy the stock.. Am i the only one to come back after like 2 weeks and find they lost a hell of a lot?
@ Baron, instead it looks like it sunk another 5%. I do think this stock will bottom out soon though. 450,000 copies is not that unbelievable even considering the November sales.
BaronDeMaulignac (not to confuse with the other baron), the scenario you describe with the shorts (like a short squeeze of sorts) would only occur if some fundamental change occurred and the shorts had to cover immediately. I think the shorts are pretty sure at this point the fundamentals aren't going to let the stock past 40 DKP. If the shorts want to cash out, they probably won't do it all at the same time--then that just means the marketmakers need to provide sufficient liquidity for them to close out their positions.
There are two factors that will keep this stock afloat. I stand by my quote...sort of. This stock will go below 60...but it won't stay there.
1. Newtbaron doesn't have to order people to buy back their shares. The very nature of short selling dictates that people must eventually buyback their shares from the market. The precipitous drop in this games stock price indicates that more than a few people are making money by shorting this stock. It wouldn't be too much of an overstimation to say that there are, at a minimum 50,000 shares being sold short. When those sellers rush back in, the price will zoom up. Someone is gonna make alot of money playing chicken with the shorts.
2. Got two words for you: Red Steel. Red Steel has probably received the worst reviews of any game on the simexchange with the exception of Superman. It's current DKP is 56 something. Does anyone really expect this game to sell less than Red Steel? This game will bottom out in the mid to high fifties, the shorters will get scared, and then the price will zoom back up and settle in the low 60s.
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