Delistings

@justcrim, why do they have to post it again here? It's in the blog. Just RSS the sucker.

@Arbiter,

The SE would likely have to move to a "America and Japan" only system until better PAL data is available (hopefully someone will start to collect it).
Delists would have to be on the best possible info at the time...the problems you list for a 6 month delist timeline also exist when trying to predict lifetime sales.

By making it a case-by-case basis with a term like "stagnated stocks", I think we'd have a lot more arguing over various stocks being delisted, especially if a press release happens to blow the numbers out of the water (Red Steel). Having a firm timeframe would eliminate that.

@Laoldar,

I agree, I think the definite expiration date make it much easier to make our sales predictions.

@pilias_simber,

Isn't this pretty much what SE mentioned in their blog?

http://www.thesimexchange.com/blogpost.php?post_id=354

Quote:

There will be no stock IPOs on the simExchange for the week of July 9. Part of the reason is to shift trading activity to the futures contracts. As you may have noticed, the simExchange has been emphasizing the futures contracts lately with redesigns to the site.

The reason we have been putting more attention on the futures contracts is that after collaborating with the NPD Group, people in the video game industry, and those who cover it on Wall Street, we have learned that short-term unit sales data is much more relevant to the video game industry. Lifetime global sales are hard to judge and not as informative to the industry because it does not detail when the sales will occur (within a publisher's fiscal quarter) and at what price the games will be sold (to forecast revenue).

Since the site is moving towards a more short-term outlook (sorry, I'm a bit behind in reading the blog!), why not have a fixed date for delist for ALL stocks?

As in, why not list stocks and have players try to predict their sales over, say, a 6 month span? It would be more relevent to the industry, reduce the clutter on the site, and deal with some of the complaints on here about traders focusing on sales-charts-mining. It can be done with any length of time. That way there would be no fuss with individual delists and it would firmly focus players on a shorter timeframe (which many here seem to prefer).

It would make researching previous titles much more difficult, but that would also reward players who take the time to find the data.

I realize I posted against similar ideas like this, but after some thought (and reading the SE blog a bit more), I feel this idea has some merit and should be explored.

@SyrinxPriest,

Sorry about the previous post, the Closing Price Tool isn't working. In between all the web code it says "For example Alan Wake(360) before E3 wasn't very active, but after E3 it has had a considerable change in value."

@ErikAston,

The Red Steel trade is exactly how things happens in the real stock markets. As new information comes to surface, traders begin to trade on the new information and the marketmakers try to adjust quickly. The marketmaker is unlikely to be the first to know the new information but probably always a close second. Legally or not those with the knowledge and those who are fast, observant, decisive, and perhaps lucky are those who are most rewarded.

I understand how in your Red Steel example, one would expect the marketmaker to react faster, this was why the automated marketmaker has been recently updated. However I don't understand why it seems like you believe that those who discovered the report shouldn't be rewarded or were doing something underhanded by trading on the new information that was discovered. There will always be someone who gets their hand on information first and the quick will be rewarded. I also fail to see how this relates to the delisting or suspension of stocks and how it would solve the problem of to many stagnant stocks.

I do agree that ideally there would be no automated market maker but this market is still in its infancy and an automated system is pretty much required for there to be any trading at all especially in the stocks with low volume.

As for the so called high-profile IPOs, I believe that the amount of time a stock is listed on the simExchange doesn't correlate to how overvalued/undervalued a stock is. I think the reason why big names tend to get more overvalued is more of a fundamental problem with popularity than it is an issue of how long a stock is listed.

A great number of stocks are listed very close to their release date and that doesn't make them better valued than the ones that have traded for a long time. In fact listing very close to the release date can only exacerbate the problem, there is very little time to get any pre-release trading and very few get to express their opinion before hard data starts coming out. I believe more active trading over time should make stock predictions more accurate not less.

Additionally having an IPOs very close to the release date puts all the pressure on the admins to pick a reasonable starting prediction and perhaps that is why many stocks are vastly overvalued and undervalued.

It also may only be your opinion that Halo 3 and Smash Brothers have been pushed to hugely overvalued levels. I admit I have avoided shorting the high profile games partially because I knew they were going higher, but I also I believe many shorts like myself have ignored the high profile games not because they aren't overvalued, but because there were even better opportunities in many low profile games like Death Jr. that were even more greatly overvalued with far less risk. At one point I believed that Death Jr. was over 80% overvalued, there is no way that Halo 3 or Smash brothers are 80% overvalued even at these current levels.

However things are definitely changing with the new marketmaker moving things very quickly and perhaps some high-profile pigs will be the next to fall. It feels like the easy money in released games is starting to dry up and I've begun looking at shorting several big name titles. There is one in particular that I have been building a large short position in since the change over.

Overall I believe the any problems with stagnating stocks as well as overvalued big names may have already been solved with the new marketmaker. I still feel we should all just let this new market shake out for at least a couple of weeks before we go out on a delisting witch hunt.

@ErikAston,

I agree that trading could be adversely affected by delisting but if people are making money on so called "old, stagnant stocks" then they are being traded and not stagnant. I'm also not sure why you believe energy and time spent analyzing released games is worth less than unreleased titles, or that it somehow devalues the prediction ability of the market. Watching all the data and keeping up with industry news probably makes the prediction ability of the average person much better.

Additionally getting reliable sales data on released games is still a very difficult thing to do. The simExchange seems to do a very good job of cobbling together a large number of available sources including NPD, Chart Track, Media-Create, VGchartz, as well as the numerous developer interviews and press releases which hit the internet every day. Collectively I believe we tend to come up with some good research and numbers which are probably very close to reality and I think that is some very useful information. I think people clearly want data on released games, just look at the focus on the futures lately.

You also bring up some interesting points on the IPO process. I have to say I believe it would be much better to IPO games as far as possible before release to get more trading in rather than right before release or even 6-8 weeks before. I believe ideally it would be best to IPO a stock as soon as there is some sort of official announcement, although I know this would be difficult to do. More trading would make for a better prediction.

I'd like to throw out my opinions on delisting. I believe there is value in watching how a particular game trades before, during, and after its release and I have to say I am with xaustinx and I believe no stock should be delisted. I agree with many of his/her points, but I am also concerned with how regular delistings would affect trading.

Right now one of the biggest things I have to consider before starting a position in a stock is if I will be able to close the position in the future. For example right now I cannot just throw all my DKP into shorting Hoshigami and cornering the market, because if I try forcing it all the way down myself I'll be stuck with thousands and thousands of shares short with nobody left to cover from later.

With a series of regular delistings I would no longer have to worry with how to exit a position and could buy or short with total impunity. I believe myself and many of the higher ranked players could easily abuse this system, particularly because the marketmaker is now so extremely volatile a single individual can easily move a stock drastically.

It seems to me that the main motivation to delist stocks is to clean up the clutter and to focus people's attention on to other stocks. I think the clutter can be solved by allowing users to sort stocks in different ways besides by console and alphabetically, perhaps adding an option to sort all stocks by release date or IPO date would be helpful. I also don't think delisting stocks would help put any more attention on other stocks. Any stock that would be up for delisting would already be a very thinnly traded stock and the attention has likely already been diverted elsewhere.

Perhaps some simExchange vetrans also will remember how long all of the Eragon titles remained untraded and greatly overvalued. For months the longs focused their attention on stocks like Kirby and Metal Gear: PO and the shorts were pushing down titles like Ridge Racer 7 and Elebits. Those who had the foresight and patience to short Eragon made a killing when more information became available. Any shorts may have had their trades unfairly cancelled if the Eragon stocks were delisted due to inactivity. There are several other instances of a stock moving after prolonged inactivity aside from the Eragons, for example both Neverwinter Nights 2 and Red Steel were two of the very first games listed and they both made their moves after being dormant for many months.

I believe we should all just let the market settle down a little bit before calling for delistings. The new marketmaker has only been in effect for a little over a week and many stocks are still moving very dramatically. If there must be delistings I feel there should be some very strict criteria that must be met. Overall though I believe delisting has more drawbacks than advantages.

@pilias_simber,

The different suggestions for delisting criteria are as follows:

1. The Stock is 1 year old or older, has moved less than 5% up or down in the last 6 months, and has less than 5 percent of total shares trading in last month.


2. The game's stock price has not moved significantly for 3 months.

The game has been released in all regions where it is going to be released and dropped off the top charts.

There is no current discussion going on that might affect the price of the stock on The SE.

3. If a game no longer sells at retailers that report sales to the NPD, then they should be delisted whether they are active or not.

I'm sure a mixture of some of these or some new listing might easily be added as well, but that is what has been suggested so far as criteria.

@pilias_simber,

I agree on going with a system that puts less stress on the admins. Also, I can get more DKP by submitting stuff maybe :P.

So far looking over the idea for delisting we seem to have a couple general systems.

System 1: A set series of identifiers based on a stock's activity on the Sim Exchange, a stock is then nominated to be delisted.

System 2: Allow Kult to list stocks as he did this time along.



Personally I am in favor of option 1 because it puts less work on our Admins, allowing them to remain focused on improving the site instead of having to do maintenance tasks that the community at large can much more efficiently do.

What does everyone else think?

@justcrim, Sorry, I missed this post while I was typing a few of my own earlier.

I would certainly agree that this criteria would be one of the most objective ways of deciding whether a stock should be delisted. I think that a system for submitting this information should be simple, and the admins can add small DKP rewards to submissions like this if they are used. I think this system could work similarly to the system for submitting games to be listed, except that it is functionally the exact opposite idea.

I support the delisting of the games in your post.

However, someone previously mentioned several games that have recently been released in Europe (Trauma Center Wii, I think?). I object to delisting games like that, because a game being unusually popular or unpopular in a different region is a much more legitimate reason for trading.

I think the difficulty of your system would be shouldered mostly by the community level 3+ members submitting the game for delistment along with the cited source.

Even without a cited source, if a lot of people agree that a stock should be delisted through bidding, I think your idea would make delisting a lot more efficient while remaining a somewhat democratic procedure.

I think it would be easier and more organized to have a delisting area of the site where people can voice their dissent against delisting on a specific stock's delisting submission rather in a news post like this. That way, administrators can more efficiently understand which games players want delisted.

@Inspecta,

In a perfect world what you say might work. The reality is that when VGChartz numbers are posted, and there is no other information to go off of, even with their track record of being 20-100% off in their predictions, the stock follows what the posted numbers say and anyone who voices dissent gets 10+ downbids, even if they are in the top 15, or they get utterly ignored.

I can tell you that people ARE following VGChartz info right now at no risk because everyone else is doing it too, and its these stocks that are past the point where the rest of the industry cares about them that are being abused in this manner.

I am not suggesting we ban or prevent VGChartz information from being shared, I just think that by ending the life of stocks at an average of 3-6 months into their lifespan (for most games) the focus would shift from these to games that are either about to be released that might make the top 10 of NPD, or games that are doing well that were just released, which is more relevant to the rest of the industry and attracts new players.

Remember we got the Digg story for having the most accurate predictions for the NPD numbers, we have lost our focus and now pretty much only trade stocks based on VGChartz info. If this continues we'll likely lose new players because they won't have the money to get into the race and the site will die.

@Deltaneutral,

First opinion of yours I 100% agree with :P

@justcrim, oh only the first sentence of my reply had to do with your post =).

As for how we can delist them, I think Brian just continues posting candidates for delisting when they feel the stocks are inactive. If anyone thinks the stock is still useful, they can speak up about it and if that reason is valid, the delisting for that game is delayed.

I don't think we need to develop any complicated process for this. I'd rather we come up with a better IPO system and a way of determining which games are listed as futures contracts each month.

@Deltaneutral,

I am not saying we need to focus on these specific games. I am saying we need to focus this topic more on how we can delist them.

@justcrim, VGChartz seems to be a significant reason for delisting stocks. I think they should continue talking about it as long as it continues to relate to delisting stocks.

After reading what they've said about it, I think it's even a better reason than reducing clutter. I certainly feel like delisting is a better idea than when I first read the original post about it.

I think some people are getting a little side tracked here. This discussion shouldnt be about effectiveness of the game's predictions, VGCharts, or anything but delisting games. I too have gone a off track, but I would like to see more discussion on how simexchange can effectively delist games where everyone can be happy. Maybe someone can take all the options posted so far and we can vote on them.

No one has really said anything about my idea other then giving me 4 up votes.

@Laoldar,

I don't care if people day trade, my issue is that the source for these large movements isn't any type of speculation at all, its regurgitating sales info posted on VG Chartz.

@pilias_simber,

If you want to stop day trading, delisting stocks won't do it. That will only cause people to trade other stocks.

If you want to stop people from day trading to cause large fluctuations, implement a commission system that will punish people for changing their positions often.

Oh and that 20% fluctuation based on vg numbers? Is that not the price of the stock moving towards its lifetime sales as players respond to sales data? Would you rather that it stays over/under priced?

@Laoldar,

Part of the problem is that VGChartz is given priority over any other source of information, when they have a proven track record of being between 20-100% off on their predictions.

VG Chartz has become the source of all information on all the stocks that move these days and no one bothers to trade anything except the stocks that are moving 20%+ in a day because someone posted what the VG Chartz sales data is for that stock. The emphasis in now on 6 month old stocks and there isn't much of any predictions going on at all.

@Inspecta,

Very well put, I completely agree. Too many people bad mouth VGcharts on here as habit...for players that trade stocks not in the NPD top 10/20, what other options do we have? Occasional press releases? And how about how historical sales data?
If the info is bad, the player will pay for it. No one has ever claimed that VGcharts is better than NPD or mediacreate, so I don't understand all the bitterness towards them.

@Inspecta, agreed. The problem is there is no way to judge if trading on VGChartz data results in good predicting as there is no way to ultimately judge the global stocks without NPD, MediaCreate, ChartTrack, and all the other professional firms around the world releasing their data. We don't know the real information for the long term. In the short term, in comparisons I have seen, VGChartz data does not stack up well to NPD data. This would only imply that the VGChartz data is worse as sales become sparser.

But that is all beside the point. The main point is we are not predicting if we are just data mining other sites. VGChartz isn't a prediction site, it just posts estimates of past sales. Copying those numbers here isn't predicting.

The real test of our predictions will be seen on July 19 when NPD provides sales data for the game futures we are trading. This is one instance where we can see how our game predictions stack up directly against "real data." We have been doing pretty well on consoles each month.

@Deltaneutral, I must admit that happens a bit too often. However, I do not think that should be a problem in the long run.

Either VGChartz is a good source of predictive information (relative to "real" information, as people who ignore VGChartz data would say) or it is a bad source of predictive information.

If VGChartz is a good source of predictive information, those who make trades based on it will prosper in the long run. They will be rewarded with more virtual currency and will make more predictions, likely using VGChartz. As VGChartz is a good source of predictive information, this will increase the accuracy of the predictions here at the simExchange.

If VGChartz is a bad source of predictive information, those who make trades based on it will be penalized in the long run. They will have less virtual currency with which they can make fewer predictions. Their effect on the market will be minimalized, as they lose more money and people making rational trades gain their money. As people making rational trades gain more money, this will increase the accuracy of the predictions here at the simExchange.

In either scenario, it is beneficial in the long run to allow people to post about and make trades based on VGChartz information.

@justcrim, HEAR HEAR!! I think what needs to happen is more people using the wiki summary and release dates so we can keep track of when worthwhile games are coming out.

We also need to not try to list every insignificant game that will be coming out because that is what makes us play catchup.

Part of the problem is there's sooo much stuff in the pending games lists now.

As for post launch numbers, I don't think anyone is saying they are useless. What Deltaneutral and Pilias_simber are saying are useless are the supposed sales numbers that are like 4,000 units sold a week on VGChartz several months after a game is released. At that point, we have no idea what veracity there is to the numbers and no one, gamers or developers, care about how many units a game like Eragon is selling at that point.

@Inspecta, I'm definitely on the same boat of thought as you in terms of predicting being the fun part and the key to the game.

However, what I disagree on is that trading after four months having any predicting ability involved. For older games, we are no long predicting how well they will sell--all we do is look up data that is available elsewhere and say, "The stock price is higher than what X site says has already been sold, everyone SELL!" Then it becomes a game of who looks up something from another site (generally VGChartz which we really shouldn't even be relying so heavily on), takes a position, and cries short sell the loudest.

That really isn't fun and I haven't had to predict anything in a while to make money. I just see who posts a comment about already available sales information and then short the stock down to that number.

@pilias_simber,

Oh I forgot to add.

Right now all the trading we see going on is basically a couple people are looking up sales info on VG Chartz and everyone trades the stock up or down based on that information. There isn't really any speculation we're just following VG Chartz up and down after the initial launch period.

This really should stop and part of the process of changing it is to delist stocks after they age because it will put the emphasis on stocks that matter more to the larger industry instead of crap everyone has forgotten about.

@Inspecta,

Honestly I think we need to decide whether we want The Sim Exchange to be another VG Chartz where the community votes on how they see stocks going and goes for the long term sales of the stock, or whether we want to be something different, where we use available data to try and predict how stocks do, especially in it's initial launch period, and put less emphasis on how stocks are doing months after release, when no one cares about them anymore.

At the moment all the focus on in the area no one cares about and that is limiting the growth potential of The Sim Exchange because it doesn't provide any relavant information that cannot be found elsewhere.

@feelmyring, I think it would be difficult to create any kind of "committee process" for nominating games to be delisted and processing all that within the community. I would like the wiki summaries and release dates to take off before we venture into something even more complicated in terms of approvals.

@Inspecta, this is a good solution if we really wanted to ever relist stocks. However, I think the point is we wouldn't ever want to. OK...so Red Steel had some news that made it tradable months later. Can anyone honestly say they were holding the stock the whole time because they were banking on that?

More importantly, does it even matter for us to move the stock following a press release like that way later when nobody in the industry even cares about Red Steel anymore? That isn't predicting anything!

I strongly think the future of the simExchange should focus on trading games before they are released, when publishers are still judging how they should market the games and before anyone knows how well the game will sell. There isn't really a point to trading games far after the release as the impact of the game is largely determined already.

In the long-term, it'd be better if we could trad games well in advance so that publishers like Nintendo can determine if they should can games like Project HAMMER based on our trading. Trading four months after a game's release really isn't helpful for anyone.

I think there is a much much simpler way to solve this!

If a game no longer sells at retailers that report sales to the NPD, then they should be delisted whether they are active or not. Of course, if they are active, go ahead and keep trading them for all I care, but I believe that if the actual sales numbers of this game cant go up any further, then why continue to trade the game based on it's total sales?

A quick check at http://www.bestbuy.com (I believe they report to NPD), shows the following games (from this list) no longer for sale NEW.


Children of Mana (DS)
Eragon (PC)
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (PC)
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Xbox)
Smackdown! vs RAW 2007 (Xbox 360)
Star Trek: Legacy (Xbox 360)


These are just games I couln't buy new on Best Buy's national web site. And although I am all for delisting, if people do have a problem with delisting games, there shouldnt be any problems with this system. We can all agree that if the game is no longer for sale, the total sales numbers cant go up.

Just like with Psychonauts, the hype came after the game was no longer sold, and the only way to get it was used at Gamestop. Those used numbers do not count toward total sales, and therefore we should not allow the game to regain interest based on the hype like that.

Of course this system would be the hardest to do, but I would think they could just add a submission link to delist a game from level 3 members, and just need to give evidence that the game is no longer for sale. Then the Admin can maybe post monthly about which games are getting delisted, and when, giving people time to sell off, or buy in, what ever they want to do.

@feelmyring,

I am against anything that would only allow the top users to get a say in what gets delisted. I think the entire community should get a voice.

As far as the other point goes, I have already stated previously that there should be some way to determine when a stock is a candidate for delisting.

My criteria for delisting a game would be as such:

In order to nominate a game for delisting the following criteria would need to be met:

The game's stock price has not moved significantly for 3 months.

The game has been released in all regions where it is going to be released and dropped off the top charts.

There is no current discussion going on that might affect the price of the stock on The SE.

Once these criteria are met, anyone may nominate a stock for being delisted. An entire page could be made like the futures page for nominees.


The community then gets to vote on which stocks they think should be delisted. Multiple listings of a game count as 1 game. We then set a certain number of games that would be delisted. I am personally in favor of delisting 1 game/ weekday or 5 games/week in a similar fashion to new IPOs, but that can be discussed separately.

@pilias_simber, I think you hit the problem right on the head. The whole point of the simExchange is to predict--not to track. Right now, there is an over emphasis on just data hunting how an old game has been selling months afterwards. This is trivial as people who have NPD subscriptions already know the answer for US sales. Those who have Mediacreate subscriptions know the answer for Japan sales. And likewise for other regions. It doesn't really matter if X game that came out 4 months ago is overvalued or undervalued by a few DKP as no one really cares at that point.

@kspraydad,

And that should say 'within - or + 20%' not that only + or - 20% are the available choices...

SE...give us edit power!

@boontje,

I don't think a the current price is necessarily the price to close out at...

My attempt at fairness:

Freeze trading and call for a delisting and this starts a 1 week clock.

In that week players in the top 250 of SE can 'bid' on what they believe the 'final' value should be. This bid can only be + or - 20% of the freeze value.

Result: those that are short will try to move it down...those that are long will try and move it up...those that are just participating in making SE better will bid based on available knowledge at the time.

After one week the players are paid out and the stock remains accessible for archive purposes but is no longer tradable.

My .02

Criteria for delisting...

Stock is 1 year old or older
Stock has moved less than 5% up or down in the last 6 mos
Stock has less than 5 percent of total shares trading in last month.

All 3 criteria must be met.

@Alpha,

As was mentioned in the Blog, if we really want The Sim Exchange to matter more to the larger industry then we should put more emphasis on the initial sales of games. A couple thousand sales 8 months after a game has sold don't matter nearly that much in the grand scheme of things, the couple hundred thousand moved in a single month by the game in it's launch month are what the analysts, and the companies watch the most.

It just makes sense to retire very old stocks, it frees up old money and allows you to reinvest it in more relevant stocks. There is only so much money to go around and honestly who really cares about those old stocks anymore? They are mostly minor titles that are coming close to a year old, many of them are looking at sequels coming soon. Do we really need to continue to sink our DKP into them to fight over 1 or 2 DKP? Or would that money be better suited for games that are coming out now?

@xaustinx, "Removing stocks and cashing out is essentially starting a trend of betrayal for those of us who have chosen to play the long game in lieu of a quick and hearty return on guaranteed sellers."

I think part of the point is to get people to stop sinking their captial in these stocks that don't move and get everyone to focus their attention on just a few games to get more accurate forecasts.

As Charron has pointed out in the past, the community may not be big enough to support the 330 so stocks that are currently listed on the simExchange. As many of us have noticed, there are tons of stocks that are wildly misspriced but have not corrected because they have fallen to the wayside and been overlooked.

A prediction market should not function as a lagging indicator where people go shorting stocks months after the lack of sales should've been priced in.

The problem with the stocks is that there really is no information on sales if the game isn't a big seller. We then rely on VGChartz's speculation on very small unit sales, which are dubious at best.

I think it is better overall to start cutting the "unwanted fat," prevent the listing of new fat, and get people focused on trading the futures contracts that are most relevant to the industry.

I agree with the idea to keep the stocks in an archival state where they can still move following information on their sales.

@xaustinx,

Excellent points, I never even considered that. Perhaps by moving old stocks to a new category, we can reduce the clutter caused by low-volume releases while still allowing for the possibility of a pice adjustment in the future.

For the vast majority of titles, this will not happen and if people think that a stock price is still off the mark, they should make a post explaining why. However, you do have a valid point in that it is lifetime sales and sometimes that information might not be available (at least for low-selling titles).

@xaustinx,

I am with you on this one. There must be a better way to remove the noise. I would suggest an inactivity routine that would place stock into an archive state but with the ability for it to hit current stock if for an as yet unseen reason the stock moves again in volume from a number of sources for example.

Good idea. As the site grows, I think that this will be necessary to remove the clutter.