Electronic Arts’ (NASDAQ: ERTS) Theme Park DS for the DS will debut on the simExchange on Wednesday, March 28, 2007. It will be categorized under the Strategy genre. Shares will open for purchase at 60 DKP (forecasts 600,000 copies sold worldwide over lifetime).

Theme Park DS is a remake of the 1994 PC game Theme Park. You create a theme park from the ground up with attractions and shops to entertain your paying customers. As the boss of the park, you will also need to manage the fees, rides, inventory, shops as well as the working staff, while researching for new attractions for your visitors.

Theme Park DS uses both screens to keep you updated and in the action at all times, and Wi-Fi connectivity allows you to unlock more attractions as well as exchange messages with other players and visit their parks.

The game was released in Japan on March 15, 2007 and in North America on March 20, 2007. The listing was submitted by Jayen.

Konami’s Lost in Blue 2 for the DS will debut on the simExchange on Wednesday, March 28, 2007. It will be categorized under the Adventure genre. Shares will open for purchase at 10 DKP (forecasts 100,000 copies sold worldwide over lifetime).

The sequel to Lost in Blue has the player take the role of Jack or Amy, two kids marooned on a deserted island. Your goal is to survive by crafting tools, gathering food, and fighting beasts with your DS stylus. There are twice as many activities than in Lost in Blue, including diving into the sea and archery to kill beasts.

The game was released in Japan on March 15, 2007 and in North America on March 20, 2007. The listing was submitted by Jayen.

Atari, Inc’s Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai - Another Road for the PSP will debut on the simExchange on Tuesday, March 27, 2007. It will be categorized under the Fighting genre. Shares will open for purchase at 30 DKP (forecasts 300,000 copies sold worldwide over lifetime).

Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai – Another Road is a new fighting game carrying the Dragon Ball Z franchise. The game is developed by Dimps, is the sequel to last year’s DBZ Shin Budokai, and features elements of both the Budokai and Tenkaichi series. For those new to the series, Dragon Ball Z is one of the most popular anime and manga series in history.

The game features a story mode, arcade mode, Z trial mode, and network mode. Story mode takes the player through a new story with Trunks in an alternate future from Dragon Ball Z canon. Arcade mode pits the you against computer-controlled opponents to win Dragon Balls. Z trial mode tests how long you can survive against multiple opponents or how fast you can take out a number of opponents. The game also features 24 characters from the Dragon Ball universe.

The game was released in North America on March 20, 2007 and will be released in Japan and Europe later this summer. The listing was submitted by Liquid J.

Electronic Arts’ SimCity DS for the Nintendo DS will debut on the simExchange on Monday, March 26, 2007. It will be categorized under the Strategy genre. Shares will open for purchase at 90 DKP (forecasts 900,000 copies sold worldwide over lifetime).

SimCity DS is a version of SimCity 3000 designed for the Nintendo DS. This is not a direct port of the game as EA has redesigned the game with the Japanese market in mind. For those new to the series, SimCity games have the player take the role of a mayor of a city. You decide how to zone the land, build roads, provide schools and watch your city grow. You will have to solve problems like traffic congestion, fire hazards, pollution, and the like.

The game is played using the stylus. It features the classic build from start mode and the objective based scenarios in which you enter an already running city with a problem that you must fix. The game also features gameplay unique to the DS, such as blowing into the DS’s microphone to putout fires and signing with the stylus to put your laws into effect.

The game was released in Japan on February 22. The game will be released worldwide in the summer of 2007. The listing was submitted by Jayen.

Alex Kirtland’s UsableMarkets has published its usability review of the simExchange. Please check it out. UsableMarkets is a blog focused on prediction markets from a usability perspective. There is a lot of great stuff there if you are interested in learning more about prediction markets. Also see Kirtland's earlier article on the simExchange as a prediction market focused for specific applications.

Stocks vs Futures

UsableMarkets kicks off the review with the ongoing discussion among the academic community regarding using stocks verse futures in a prediction market. As you know, the simExchange video game stock market lists stocks for upcoming video games that relate to the total copies a game will sell over its lifetime, similar to how real stocks relate to the total income a company will earn over its lifetime (the net present value of free cash flows, of course). These are different from futures that represent risk over a discrete time period (for example a contract that will expire next Friday and cash out).

UsableMarkets makes two points, that game stocks are (a) hard to predict because the lifetime of a game is unknown at the IPO and that (b) “when a game nears the end of it’s life span, trading will necessarily fall off.”

On point (a), just because something is difficult, I don’t think it shouldn’t be attempted. The number of copies a game will sell over its lifetime, over the next 4 months, this month, this week, or today are all useful data points. Ascertaining such predictions requires analyzing the same evidence and using the same lines of reasoning. Certainly there is a larger margin of error when predicting events further out, but the goal is better relative performance. Can trading on the simExchange predict lifetime sales better than another method?

I also believe gamers think of game sales in terms of lifetime sales. People remember that Halo 2 sold over 7 million copies. They don’t remember how many copies it sold between months 2 and 4 of release. They are thinking Halo 3 as an 8 million copy seller, not a 3 million copy seller between weeks 3-6 of release.

As for point (b), this has been the intention of the simExchange. Once a game nears the end of the lifespan and the total global sales has been predicted to a certain degree of accuracy, there is no longer a need to continue trading it. When the lifetime sales of a game is fully priced into a stock, players will cash out and turn their attention to new games in the same way growth investors cash out of mature companies by selling their shares.

An important premise to note is that part of the simExchange’s goal is to provide an entertaining stock market game that is also educational. My hope is that the simExchange will provide a realistic exposure to gamers and interest them in learning more about investing. This principle of education has been the core to the simExchange design.

This is part of the reason stocks on the simExchange are called “stocks.” When we launch a derivatives market for options and futures, we will call them “options” and “futures.” Probably a rumor slightly overshadowed by the black Xbox 360 Elite, but yes a derivatives market on the simExchange is coming. Remember: stocks do not expire and cash out on a regularly scheduled basis. Futures and option contracts do.

Order Book

UsableMarkets moves on to review trading on the simExchange, applauding the inclusion of basic and advanced trading modes as Midas Oracle also noted. However, Kirtland questions the wording of available offers on the basic trading mode, noting it may be confusing to present the order book concept in non-order book form.

This goes back to the educational aspect of the simExchange. Understanding that many players have no trading experience whatsoever, they may have no idea what is an order book. More commonly, the confusion for players is how prices and quantities come about for them to buy and sell. “How come I can only buy 499 shares at 823.76 DKP? Why 823.76 DKP? And why 499 shares?”

Many new players are unaware that markets work through the bids and offers of traders in a market place and that such bids and offers are then organized in an order book. I believed it is more clarifying for players to understand that they can buy and sell at certain prices and quantities because another player is offering that to them. This empowers players with the correct knowledge that prices are determined by market demand and not by pre-cognizant gnomes, robots from the future, or supernatural forces.

Furthermore, I don’t think it is confusing for a player to be presented choices in order book terms when they aren’t looking at a standard Level II Quotes order book because most players don’t know what a standard Level II Quotes order book looks like (the order book you see if you enable Advanced Trading).

Short Selling

Next, UsableMarket notes that the simExchange has a very simple interface for short selling, but does not simplify the concept of short selling. Again, educational value dictates how the simExchange handles this issue. Short selling is borrowing stock and selling it, hoping to buy it back at a cheaper price later and pocketing the difference.

UsableMarket implies it would be simpler to create opposite contracts. But this wouldn’t be short selling anymore. Imagine if players told their broker they wanted to short sell by buying opposite stocks because that is how they did it on the simExchange. Short selling is different from buying a put option or writing a call option—these concepts should not be confused and we would not be doing players any favors by mixing them up. I do not believe short-selling should be simplified at all as it is as fundamental as buying. People should be informed that short selling is a legitimate action to take in their investing, especially for the purpose of mitigating risk.

Trade confirmations

“Are you sure you want to buy?” The simExchange had played with this idea early on but players thought they would just be annoying. Many players fire off numerous trades in a minute from their portfolio page and can’t have some noobie warning cramping their style. My own philosophy is that a confirmation should only pop up if the player is taking a rare and possibly damaging action. Trading, however, is one of the most common actions a player will do on the simExchange.

Following user requests, the simExchange has added a persistent login feature. If you are tired of having to type your username and password every time to receive your simExchange joy, you can now click the “Remember me” button when you login next time.

The simExchange will then remember you the next time you come to the site using that web browser. It won’t know you if you get on a different computer, but it will allow access to anyone getting on from your browser so make sure to log out if other people use the machine (say a public computer at school or the workplace…are you playing from your workplace?)

This morning, G4TV.com featured the simExchange in The Feed. The article introduces the simExchange as a way for the many self-declared video game experts appearing on Internet forums to “put [their] fake money where [their] fake mouth is.” G4 TV is the leading television network for video games.

Sega’s Full Auto 2: Battlelines for the PSP will debut on the simExchange on Friday, March 23, 2007. It will be categorized under the Racing genre. Shares will open for purchase at 38 DKP (forecasts 380,000 copies sold worldwide over lifetime).

Full Auto 2 brings the action of Full Auto racing games to the PSP. This version was developed by Deep Fried Entertainment while the PS3 version was developed by Pseudo Interactive and was released last year. This is not a direct port of the PS3 game.

Full Auto games are combat racers in which players drive cars and shoot at other drivers with an array of weapons. Full Auto 2: Battlelines features 15 cars, nine of which are new. You can customize your car with a choice of 18 different weapons such as M60 machine guns and heat-seeking missiles.

The single player includes 56 events with multiple modes and objectives. There are 15 destructible environments for racing. One unique feature of this game play is that you can shoot down a column to create an obstacle for the drivers behind you. There is also multiplayer game play over ad hoc networks featuring several modes.

Full Auto 2: Battlelines was released on March 20, 2007. The listing was championed by shrapnelmagnet.

Sony Corp’s (NYSE: SNE) Lair for the PS3 will debut on the simExchange on Thursday, March 22, 2007. It will be categorized under the Action genre. Shares will open for purchase at 100 DKP (forecasts 1 million copies sold worldwide over lifetime).

Lair is a new IP from Factor 5 made for the PS3. The game involves riding around on a dragon and pwning your enemies with fireballs. You control you dragon using the motion sensing features of the SIXAXIS controller. Moving the controller up or down will adjust your dragon’s flight altitude. Moving the controller left or right will steer your dragon in that direction.

The game features multiple stages in its combat. From a distance, you can launch fireballs at your enemies (other dragon riders). Once you close in, the game enters a melee mode where you can execute combo attacks. The game also features God of War style fatalities in which you play a minigame to execute your target.

Ground combat will involve massive armies. There is a morale meter that fills up when you kill the troops of the opposing army and depletes when your troops are lost. To win a battle, you must fill up the morale meter.

Lair is scheduled for release on May 7, 2007. The Listing was submitted by wompywomperson.

By popular demand, there is now a channel specifically for video game industry news. Submit articles that aren’t about any specific game here, such as company news, sales information for multiple games, developments in the industry, etc. Articles in this channel will also appear in the most valued articles and recent articles channels. Currently, this channel is only organized by the freshness of the submission.