Ubisoft Entertinament’s (EPA: UBI) TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) for the Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, DS, and PSP will debut on the simExchange on Monday, March 12, 2007. The games will be categorized under the Action genre.

Shares will open for purchase at 45 DKP (forecasts 450,000 copies sold globally) for the Xbox 360 version, 35 DKP for the Wii version, 60 DKP for the PS2 version, 30 DKP for the DS version, and 25 DKP for the PSP version.

TMNT is the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game based on the CGI animated movie TMNT that will be released in theaters the same week. The game’s story follows the movie, in which the turtles have grown apart after defeating Shredder in the first live-action movie. A tech-industrialist named Max Winters has been wrongfully fired from his job and pursues a new career in world domination—amassing an army of evil creatures and the Foot Clan.

Aspects of the game play like Ubisoft’s recent Prince of Persia series of adventure games. The turtles are acrobatic with the abilities to run on walls, hang from ledges, and swing on poles. Each character also has unique abilities: Michelangelo can use his nunchucks for some helicopter hover action and Donatello can use his bo to pole vault over obstacles.

You play as one turtle but can switch between turtles anytime. You can also do combo moves in which you call the help of other turtles, such as performing a long jump or special attack. The combat is fairly simple, with two buttons for attacking, one for jumping, and one for blocking. You can chain together combos, which are important because you are always outnumbered. The game offers replay value through replaying levels to unlock new features.

The game is scheduled for release in North America on March 20, 2007, in Australia on March 22, 2007, and Europe in March 23, 2007.

The game listing was submitted by jayen.

Owen Bloggers, written by current MBA students at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University, featured an article on the simExchange today. The article introduces the simExchange and contributes to the discussion on game stock structure. The author, Justin Patterson, concludes with remarks about the simExchange as a new “barometer for demand of upcoming releases.”

The simExchange has been appearing in some more places around the World Wide Web. Check out RotoNation’s take here. Rotonation is a blog specializing in fantasy sports games. Game Industry News, “daily news of the computer game industry,” has republished our press release here.

Forecasts for World of Warcraft’s expansion, The Burning Crusade, increased by 269,600 copies (+4.02%) yesterday following news that the highly anticipated expansion has “sold approximately 3.5 million copies” and “established the new one-month record for PC-game sales.” The game has been released in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. Sales are likely to leap once the expansion is released in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Trading on the simExchange is currently forecasting the game will sell 7.00 million copies globally (700 DKP share price).

Blizzard had announced on January 11, 2007 that its World of Warcraft active subscribers had reached 8 million globally with strong growth coming from the game’s introduction in China. China alone accounts for 3.5 million subscribers. Yesterday, Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft has acquired an additional 500,000 players, for a total of 8.5 million subscribers.

Due to the expansion’s unavailability in Chinese speaking markets, number one ranked trader Zukaus notes that there are “only 5 million available buyers” for The Burning Crusade, which translates into “an amazing 70% of available buyers have already purchased [Burning Crusade] within two months of its release.” Zukaus calculates that 2.45 million copies could be sold to existing Chinese subscribers if the Chinese market carries the same 70% adoption rate.

Other players discussed how much higher the adoption rate may increase, weighing factors that new players likely did not buy The Burning Crusade yet as they cannot make use of many of the features beyond level 60. Joe80 speculates that 500,000 of the 2.5 million subscribers who picked up World of Warcraft since March 2006 “have no reason to buy Burning Crusade for a while." This sentiment had pressured shares of WoW: BC for several months as traders wondered how many players would buy the expansion knowing they could not make use of much of the new content.

Shares of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC) were trading up 2.11 DKP (+0.30%) to 700.00 DKP in this afternoon’s trading.

Discussion of the simExchange heats up on Midas Oracle following an introduction of how game stocks on the simExchange work.

Robin Hanson, widely regarded as a top mind in the development of prediction markets, points out that the simExchange game stocks do not cash out on any date. Hansons states that such a market relies on “traders of good will to enforce such a connection” between stock prices and game sales. Hanson draws the conclusion that such a connection may be lost once players realize this.

Keith Gamble, a PhD candidate in Economics at Berkeley, follows up in a post titled “simExchange a Keynesian Beauty Contest.” Gamble anticipates that the simExchange's response to Hanson’s comment would be the comparison with equities made in the original explanation of game stocks.

Gamble points out that a significant difference in the logic is that real equity shares in companies (stocks on the NYSE or NASDAQ) have real intrinsic value while game stocks do not. If a company’s stock fell low enough, a buyer (like a private equity firm) would swoop in, scoop up the company, and sell off the assets for an arbitrage that would make money regardless of how the stock market was feeling (just like Michael Douglas in Wall Street). This is something traders can do in real equity markets if the market participants become irrational and stop following the rules.

Instead, Gamble describes the simExchange as an example of a Keynesian beauty contest. John Maynard Keynes is one of the most important economists in history. Keynes described the stock market in an analogy about a beauty contest in which one must pick the most beautiful faces to win. Since everyone knows "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," your best chance of winning is choosing the faces that the average person would think are beautiful--not the faces you think are beautiful. According to this theory, rational investors need not evaluate a stock by its company's fundamentals, they only need to evaluate how other investors evaluate stocks.

There are always market participants who ignore fundamentals in the real stock market. There are some traders who buy in bubbles just hoping to sell their stock to the next fool. There are other traders who just look at charts to see patterns and formations.

Rational traders can join them in their irrationality or wait out a bubble. They can also risk exposure to more irrationality as a short seller as they know, eventually, fundamentals will take over. This occurs not because the New York Stock Exchange cashes out the stock at a lower value based on the company’s 10-K (because it doesn't), but because a build up of traders who do conform to valuing stocks by fundamentals eventually force a downward correction.

Many players realized early on that share prices on the simExchange are completely based on what other people are willing to pay:

On December 14, 2006, Dazz12345 said, “But it doesn't matter how many people [buy the game] it only matters how many people think that that every WOW player will buy it, therefore upping the price!”

On December 21, 2006, jsmrekar said, “This stock doesn’t have much to do with the real game. It is based on what people purchase the virtual stock. Meaning, if the game does well and everyone sells their stock, the stock will tank.”

Surprise from this revelation is expected as one goal of the simExchange is to help gamers learn and develop an interest in the stock market. When they started, many players did not know stock prices are based on market forces--the prices people are willing to pay for them--and instead believed stock prices are the result of calculations by a computer. However, playing the simExchange quickly teaches players how a market works.

Empirical evidence of trading on the simExchange has demonstrated at least some efficiency. One example experienced players point to for noobs is the correction in Viva Pinata (Xbox 360) stock following the emergence of November sales figures back in December 2006. The stock had risen on expectations that the game would be a sleeper hit from the very strong reviews it had received. However, sales figures came in much lower than expected and the stock plunged.

A recent example was the tumble in Kirby: Squeak Squad (DS). The game had very strong sales in December 2006 and traders had expected this to be a breakaway success. However, sales had quickly dropped off in January and traders rushed to sell off their shares to maximize the DKP they could get back.

One example of an undervalued stock correcting to the upside after a news event is the sharp rise in Call of Duty 3 (PS2) shares following surprisingly strong December sales. Traders did not expect a First Person Shooter (FPS) traditionally designed for the PC would do well on the PS2; however, when data of the contrary emerged, the stock quickly corrected upwards as traders realized they are guaranteed gains at market prices.

Players who did not trade in the direction implied by the news lost DKP while those who did gained DKP. As predicted by market theory, eventually, these players learn to trade with sales figures or they run out of money. However, like the real stock market, the simExchange is not immune to bubbles. If people become irrationally exuberant for a game, the stock may be priced very high. This is all part of simulating a stock market.

Additionally, as in any game, the admins can wield the awesome power of Non-Player Characters (NPC), in this case market makers with infinite money, that can encourage players back to rational trading.

Konami Corp's (ADR: KNM) Death Jr. and the Science Fair of Doom for the DS will debut on the simExchange on Friday, March 9, 2007. It will be categorized under the Adventure genre. Shares will open for purchase at 30 DKP (forecasts 300,000 copies sold globally). The game is scheduled for release in North America on May 7, 2007. The game listing was submitted by jayen.

Take-Two Interactive’s (NASDAQ: TTWO) Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories for the PS2 will debut on the simExchange on Thursday, March 8, 2007. It will be categorized under the Action genre. Shares will open for purchase at 150 DKP (forecasts 1.5 million copies sold globally). The game was released in North America on March 6, 2007. The game will be released in Europe and Australia on March 9, 2007. The PSP version was released on October 31, 2006 and is Listed. The game listing was submitted by jayen.

Take-Two Interactive’s (NASDAQ: TTWO) Major League Baseball 2K7 for the Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Xbox, and PSP will debut on the simExchange on Wednesday, March 7, 2007. The game will be categorized under the Sports genre. Shares will open for purchase at 45 DKP (forecasts 450,000 copies sold globally) for the Xbox 360 version, 35 DKP for the PS3 version, 40 DKP for the PS2 version, 10 DKP for the Xbox version, and 20 DKP for the PSP version. The game was released on February 26, 2007. The game listing was submitted by FriskoKid.

Today, the Freakonomics Blog featured the simExchange in a post relating to discovering new games and learning through a prediction market. Freakonomics is the New York Times Bestseller that discusses a different angle of economics, posing the questions:

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime?

The book discusses “the hidden side of -- well everything.” You can read a summary of the book and the authors here.

The simExchange has upgraded its old RSS 2.0 feed to an Atom feed hosted at Feed Burner. The advantage is that you can now view just the summary of a post or the complete content from your feed reader if it supports this feature. However, some readers, like Safari, will only display the complete content while others, like FireFox, will only display the summary. The feed should now also be more up to date with the blog. If your reader does not support Atom, the feed should be translated to RSS 2.0 on the fly. Please let us know if you have any problems with this new feature.

Sony Corp (NYSE: SNE) has settled its lawsuit with Immersion (hat tip to rikitikitik), the company that owns patents on rumble technology. The parties have entered into a business agreement in which Immersion will provide rumble technology for PlayStation products. This paves the way for Sony to remedy one of the strongest criticisms for the PS3. As a result, PlayStation 3 (PS3) shares increased 70.0 DKP (1.59%) to 4,480.00 DKP, translating into a 700,000-unit rise in the global sales forecast to 44.8 million units.

The stock still faces downward pressure from the recent announcement that PS3s in PAL regions will lack hardware for backward compatibility (ability to play PS2 games) and instead will rely on software emulation (hat tip to zukaus). However, PS3 shares may find additional support from Phil Harrison's recent comments that the PS3 will one day feature DVD upscaling (hat tip to csinning).