Join the CAG team on The simExchange Video Game Prediction Market

CheapyD

CheapyD

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The simExchange (www.thesimexchange.com) is the prediction market for video games. It is an online community in which thousands of gamers, developers, and investors buy and sell stock in a virtual stock market to predict how gaming products will sell or how great their reviews will be. Trading is done in DKP, a virtual currency.

There are 3 different types of stocks to trade:


1. Global Lifetime Stocks which represent the global lifetime sales of a game or hardware product. For example, if a game is currently forecasted to sell 1 million units (100 DKP), but you think the game will sell at least 1.2 million units (120 DKP), you would buy the stock.


2. NPD Futures which forecast NPD’s monthly data releases. These forecasts include (1) hardware, (2) 10 software titles, and (3) total video game sales. The simExchange settles these NPD Futures when NPD releases their monthly data. For example: if you bought 100 of the Xbox 360 November future at 700k units (70 DKP) and the actual results were 800k units (80 DKP), you would gain 10 DKP per future (total gain of 1,000 DKP).


3. Metacritic Futures which predict the Metacritic score of an upcoming game. For example, if you think a game will get an 85 Metascore, but the current forecast is for a 90 Metascore, you would want to short sell as the Metacritic Future will only be worth 85 if the game actually gets an 85.

First, to sign-up, go to http://www.thesimexchange.com/new_account.php. If you do not get a confirmation email within 10 minutes, please check your spam inbox as sometimes the verification emails may end up there. Although some may be intimidated at first, the concept is easy, if you think an estimate is too low--buy the stock, if you think it’s too high—sell the stock (yes, you can sell a stock even if you don’t own it). But of course, there is a tutorial for those with additional questions at http://www.thesimexchange.com/getstarted.php

After signing up, users can identify themselves with CAG by entering their CAG username in the profile on the simExchange. To do this, users go to the "Account" section of the web site, and then click on "Profile" on the left navbar. On this page, there is a section for users to enter their CAG username. Once a part of the CAG community you will be able to look up your stats and the stats of the other members in the community—including the stats of the other communities.

LET'S KICK SOME ASS!
 
Buy low, sell high will become buy Nintendo, sell Sony.

Seriously, - I'm in. This sounds fun.

EDIT: I entered my CAG name in the "Community Aliases" section, but I'm not showing up in CAG. Should I defect to NeoGaf? ;)
 
[quote name='DesertEagleXIX']Buy low, sell high will become buy Nintendo, sell Sony.

Seriously, - I'm in. This sounds fun.

EDIT: I entered my CAG name in the "Community Aliases" section, but I'm not showing up in CAG. Should I defect to NeoGaf? ;)[/quote]

Is DesertEagleXIX your simExchange username? I will check into this and get back soon.
 
[quote name='Jesse2040']Is DesertEagleXIX your simExchange username? I will check into this and get back soon.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I don't know if the site is case sensitive; I'm "Deserteaglexix" on Simexchange.
 
[quote name='DesertEagleXIX']Buy low, sell high will become buy Nintendo, sell Sony.

Seriously, - I'm in. This sounds fun.

EDIT: I entered my CAG name in the "Community Aliases" section, but I'm not showing up in CAG. Should I defect to NeoGaf? ;)[/quote]

It will take to the end of the day before any new users are added to the leagues.

Thanks
 
There is still time to get your bids in before the NPD results, due out next Thursday (dec 13th)

It is pretty simple, if you think the current estimate of any of the NPD November futures is too high, then sell (yes you can sell what you don’t have), if you think it’s too low, then buy.


Looking forward to seeing more CAG'ers join on. We already got over 12+ and it's climbing every day
 
Dude......yes.

I love that you can trade futures and also the tie-in w/NPD!

There is REAL research data to be had there. I thought it was gonna be half assed, but it's not. The charts are pretty great.

Thanks for posting this. I'm prob. gonna spend a couple of hours on this site to day just looking around before I trade.
 
I'd just like to poke in and mention that, since I've been with the site for over a year now, I'm kicking all of your butts. :p
 
Thanks for the invite Cheapy. I just signed up and have logged some trades. this looks like it's gonna be fun.
 
I don't understand. Are these all just predictions? For instance, if I think Splinter Cell: Conviction is going to sell less units than they've predicted, I'd think I should short-sell it, right? But I don't know if I think they will start PREDICTING Splinter Cell: Conviction will sell less units than they are predicting it now, which seems to me how the stocks are valued.

In which case this seems pointless and arbitrary.
 
Just joined. I'll probably lose a lot since I'm not quite sure how this all works just yet, but it should be interesting at least.
 
I'd just like to poke in and mention that since I've been with the site for almost 6 months now, I'm kicking all of your butts (except charron and sagexsdx). :p

Just teasing, but I expect to get passed up by you guys really quickly as I have a very conservative style.
 
There is something I'm a little unclear on.

From what I can tell, if lets say that the current price indicates that 1 million 360's will be sold in whatever month. I sell it short and when the NPD number comes in at 700k, I end up paying back my shares at 700k and keeping the difference.

But what about these lifetime unit sales ones. If I short it, at what point are things cashed in, or do they necessarily depend on someone buying them.
 
[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']There is something I'm a little unclear on.

From what I can tell, if lets say that the current price indicates that 1 million 360's will be sold in whatever month. I sell it short and when the NPD number comes in at 700k, I end up paying back my shares at 700k and keeping the difference.

But what about these lifetime unit sales ones. If I short it, at what point are things cashed in, or do they necessarily depend on someone buying them.[/quote]

Lifetimes tend to cash in, if at all, when activity stops on them. At that point, we assume that the stoppage is because we all more or less agree on the price. The game gets flagged for cash-out, Brian posts a list every so often, and if nobody protests the stock is cashed out.
 
I signed up and so far, this is reminding me why I don't deal with the real stock market... I'm confused.
 
Im still confused by all this.
We buy if we think its gonna sell more then the projected and sell if we think it will do worse then projected?
 
[quote name='InuFaye']Im still confused by all this.
We buy if we think its gonna sell more then the projected and sell if we think it will do worse then projected?[/quote]

Exactly.
 
[quote name='Charron']Lifetimes tend to cash in, if at all, when activity stops on them. At that point, we assume that the stoppage is because we all more or less agree on the price. The game gets flagged for cash-out, Brian posts a list every so often, and if nobody protests the stock is cashed out.[/quote]
Follow up question:

Do you know what his sources are? It seems that between the top 10 NPD and developer/publisher press releases, there really isnt a lot of public information on software sales. Does he actually get detailed NPD from somewhere?
 
[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']Follow up question:

Do you know what his sources are? It seems that between the top 10 NPD and developer/publisher press releases, there really isnt a lot of public information on software sales. Does he actually get detailed NPD from somewhere?[/quote]
Well, we know he's an NPD subscriber, since if a game with a month sales stock doesn't hit the top 10 we still get its number. For lifetimes, we tend to use VGChartz for a ballpark estimate (they tend to be fairly far off), then use NPD and studio press releases to get closer. Sadly, we don't have any more info than anyone else, which makes it so funny when we beat Pachter. :)

Games sell for years after release though, so it's impossible to perfectly determine lifetime sales. Which is why there's been a push away from lifetime stocks; it used to be exclusively lifetime, which in some ways made things tough and other times made it more interesting. It's an imperfect system, obviously, and I wouldn't trust our lifetime predictions to within 10,000, but we do pretty well regardless.
 
This was not a good thing for me to find the weekend before finals. What the hey... I'm in!

What if there's a game I'm looking for that's not listed? Or rather... how do I find it??
 
Its all about the NPD, which there arent enough games in. I wanted to sell Uncharted short due to poor marketing and a 7k first day showing in Japan that just became known early this morning, but it wasnt there D:
 
I think I'm too cynical for this. Nearly everything looks overvalued to me. I cant find anything to buy with my Time Trust points, but I get the feeling I should buy something when it fills up so it doesnt go to waste.
 
I think I understand this now, but I'm not doing so well. Most of my choices have been either slightly gaining or slightly falling to even out, but it looks like short selling My Sims on DS was a bad choice. Whoops. That'll teach me to deal in games I know nothing about.

I haven't spent any of my actual money yet, just my Time Trust since I don't see anything that seems profitable enough to put my funds into. Hopefully I can use my time trust to cash out on my failing short sells if they get too bad.
 
WOO-HOO!!!!

I signed up yesterday, so today is my first day that I consider to be of note, and I'm up 200K already!!!! That's a 20% portfolio increase my first day and I only spent HALF of my 1 million they start you with!! I guess you can call that a 40% increase on day one woooooo!!!! GO CAGGERS!!!
 
[quote name='Mr Unoriginal']What is the bid +/- thing next to news stories?[/QUOTE]

The bids on content are for noting the article, image, and video submissions you think will be valuable to other members of the community. The idea is like voting, except you are not just voting for the submissions you like, but the ones you think everyone else will like. Bidding on content costs you 100 DKP to ensure you aren't just bidding on everything but you gain 100 DKP for each subsequent bid in the same direction you bid. For example, if you up bid on an article, it would cost you 100 DKP, but if three more people up bid the article, you would gain 300 DKP, so you would be profiting 200 DKP based on your bid for the article.

For more information, check out the tutorial on bids.
 
I signed up a few days ago, have made some trades, but I dont think I am in the CAG community even though I have the same name in profile section...
 
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