The simExchange: The Crystal Ball of Video Game Sales?

January 13th, 2009 in News, by Head Honcho

The first home video game console, Magnavox Odyssey, brought us the classic video game Pong. Since then all kinds of gamers - from the casual to the most hard core - have enjoyed playing video games and have seen the development of games and consoles through the years.

For the casual gamers, they play games just to pass the time. But for passionate hard-core gamers who spend a great quality of their time playing, video game insiders would do well to tap into their psyche, in order to see if video games being released would be a hit or not.

The simExchange takes advantage of the knowledge of hard-core video gamers by letting them predict the success or failure of an upcoming video game through a data aggregation system.

The simExchange offers a stock market for video games, in which its members use their allotted 1 million DKP (the virtual money used in The simExchange) to buy stock in games that they think will sell more than currently predicted. Conversely, they can sell stock in games which they think will sell less than predicted.

The predictions of The simExchange will most likely benefit video game makers as it will surely aid industry professionals and the press in drawing insight and discovering trends occurring in the video game industry. In fact, Reuters reports that the website “is gradually carving out a reputation as a source of intriguing data for an industry that is becoming increasingly difficult to predict.”

If The simExchange is for the primary benefit of video game insiders, what would be in it for the members of the community? The simExchange offers a list of members’ benefits, some of which are the following:

• The simExchange lets you play in the prediction market for video games for free. You can test your video game predictions and compete against the world or play against your friends.
• The simExchange enables you to find new video games through the “wisdom of crowds.” By aggregating the opinions of thousands of gamers, the simExchange saves you time in identifying the most anticipated games simply by checking out the stock price or trading activity for a game.
• The simExchange enables you to learn about new video games through the “wisdom of crowds.” News articles, images, and videos submitted to the simExchange are organized by their worthiness.
• The simExchange is a great opportunity to learn about the stock market in a risk-free entertaining game.

The simExchange is indeed a great website to know more about the video game industry. While the prediction of the crowd is not always fool-proof, the website has gained a reputation for spotting hot trends right on target. Priya Ganapati of TheStreet states one incident wherein The simExchange members correctly predicted the hot release of one game - BioShock - when experts said otherwise.