On the Subject of Something

TheSimExchange

The last time TheSimExchange was talked about on this blog, I had just joined the site and was getting used to how to earn money and invest correctly. Like most new players, the big name stocks seemed like good buys, after all Gran Turismo 5 was sure to sell plenty. After awhile, though, it became clear that this was the wrong mentality, that sometimes eternal forces (in Gran Turismo 5's case the miserable sales of the PS3) acted on a stock so that even the big name stock would go down. Take Metroid Prime 3 for example, many would think it would do great, but the series has not sold as many copies as some would think, the same thing happens with many big franchises, lots of hype and good reviews but they still don't sell as much as some would think. After a couple months on the exchange I am currently #4 among all players in net value, but that is not the ultimate point of the exchange, making the right predictions and looking through heaps of sales data and charts now is fun, rather than before where doing such things would seem boring. Also, this site can actually make you interested in stocks and economics, after joining the site things such as market makers, mutual funds, and the idea behind Keynesian economics will likely peak your interest as you seek to find out more about how the markets in real life (such as the New York Stock Exchange and different countries economies) work/function.

One other thing that makes this site great is that the administers on the site actually listen and respond to player feedback and are constantly improving the site with new features (just this past week they implemented a new market maker and refined the way comments are posted). Also, this site is a great place to find recent and important news affecting the games industry or news about individual games themselves. Players can submitted articles, images or videos that are then bidded up or down by other players, which means the most important (or most popular) news receives the most bids and appears on the "valued" user submissions page. This is great because after awhile you don't have to visit 10 different game websites to get your news on the industry, you can just visit the 'valued' section of the exchange and see what news is making headlines.

Also, you can see how news affects a stock's price, whether the announcement of a delay causes the price of a stock to go up or downs. This can help publishers and developers as how a press release or a preview by a prominent game site or magazine affects a stock price can represent how this feature or news will affect the game once it is released.

In the end, this is a great site that everyone should visit and join, as more players participate the stock estimates become more accurate, since the concept of 'the wisdom of the crowds' works best the more people that participate. To prove the point of 'wisdom of the crowds' look no further than the futures part of the exchange, where the sales of certain games and the current generation consoles (Wii, PS3, Xbox360, PSP and Nintendo DS) during a certain month is predicted. In the March futures, thesimexchange beat one of the leading analyst (Wedbush Morgan) in the prediction of sales in March for every consoles, that is viewable Here. So hopefully as more people join the site these futures predictions and the predictions of lifetime sales of a game become more accurate, which will help people in the industry as they will be able to tell what games the public thinks will do well and what games won't.