I've had a large holding on this stock since it IPOed and those people who have been shorting this stock know who they are, some have since closed out their positions and ceased arguing about the sales of this stock since AoC sales data was revealed and the price shot up, IMO appropriately.
WoW is starting to get aged, people are ready for something new, this game is aimed at a more mainstream audience than AoC so it's natural to assume that sales will do better than AoC, but for now I will just hold on and wait, like I have for the last however long I've had this stock.
Is this stock the cause of your significant profit yesterday ? :)
When you said "certain people with a ton of cash", are you referring to zukaus ?
The last time I checked his position (May 25), he only have 28.5K stock, down from previous position of 29.5K stock (on May 9). It is possible that he is in the process of covering his short position. Please note that I could be getting wrong data here, since I could only "guess" his stock position.
I agree with you that this stock is probably underpriced (or AoC is overpriced), so I took a little long position on this one. If the price should ever touch 211 DKP like it did on May 29, I will buy them little by little (since my investment style is not "big bang").
I think the rise in price is due to the first evidence for what many people have been saying for a long time about how these games will sell. There are certain people with a ton of cash who have been shorting any attempt to pump up the prices of these stocks, but its much harder to do so when you have sales figures to back up your predictions, I fully expect Warhammer to do much better than Conan, and is currently undervalued.
@apujanata, I believe it the increase in stock price has to do with pretty much what you said - a bullish attitude towards MMOs due to the successful launch of Age of Conan.
Is this software undergoing "Age of Conan" ripple effect ? going from 180 to 380 in one month is surely a big gain. I think I need to compared beta tester # between this one and Age of Conan.
@Thumper, I would agree with every point you make if this was the Warhammer 40,000 universe. However since this is a fantasy game and the people playing WoW have a love/hate relationship with that game, I am not sure what appeal WO:AR would have for anyone but the most intense hardcore players. Sadly, most casual players also have very little interest in PvP and treat MMOs are chat rooms that let you kill things with friends.
The key to this MMO posting any recognizable numbers will be the "no-grind" aspect of leveling. Whether it is "you cannot grind in this game" or "you can grind but you don't have to" is something else to watch for.
I think they're gambling on the MMO population being sick of WoW and it's mechanics and the reason there's so many subscribers for that game being only that there's nothing better out there. Whether this is true or not, I guess we'll see.
If they manage to pull off their "no-grind" philosophy it should end up being pretty big. However most MMOs seem to promise that and none have yet delivered. Regardless, I think this should attract a significant number of PVP players and should be the most popular MMO out there by a wide margin (next to WoW! of course).
Valid point and I think we should not include the fan base to heavily in our prediction. But I still think the current prediction is in the correct range, this game is one of the most anticipated MMO's of 2008 (if you believe the PR talk)
Examples of high popularity:
- Well over 600,000 Beta applications - MMORPG.com counts the hits on its pages for each game and this game has been the most popular over the last year and it hasn’t even been released yet.
A lot of signs point to a popular game, but still a risky bet, all depends on the developer’s implementation of the game play.
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