Octopus Overlords

This may not belong in this forum, but it seemed like the best match.

Curious to know if others here are invested or have invested in game companies?

I had a brief and unsuccessful stint in THQ a couple of years ago, and a very successful purchase of some NVidia stock before they were known.

Being the avid gamer I am, I should have bought EA many years ago (though future does not look so hot now) and probably Activision in retrospect. I knew gaming would become more and more mainstream, yet for some reason I didn't buy many game companies.

I still think in terms of investing, there are a lot of undervalued companies, and that most analysts STILL don't have a good grasp of just how big the game industry will be 2, 5 10 years out.

Hardware is much tougher I think...yeah, I got in NVidia when they were nothing, and they went up about 150% in a year, but they also dropped like a rock not too long after that. The whole ATI/Nvidia/Intel battle makes for some real investing drama.

Anyhoo, I am now thinking Activision is priced very reasonably considering the prospects. Any other gamers out there with opinions, sound off!

I've got significant investment in one hardware company in particular. But since it's my employer, and since I don't like to have too many eggs in one basket, the majority of my portfolio is in non-technically related investments.

~Neal

I was in and out of Nvidia a couple of times around 2001, and made a decent profit. I tend to keep an eye on the hardware sites and look for major shifts in who is making the stuff that they're excited about.

I once tried to use my touch-of-death when it comes to stocks to put Take 2 out of business. Since I actually wanted them to fail, however, they didn't and I wound up selling at a 50% gain right before they tanked and were subsequently sued by their shareholders.

While I'm no investing genius, EA appears to be the only reliable company on the publishing side. Too many other companies are failing or have failed - and it doesn't even matter whether their products are successful in the eyes of an average gamer. The economics of the industry are brutal, and the techie geeks the create and raise such companies often find themselves overmatched once they meet with a modicrum of success.

Hardware is even dicier. Margins are razor thin, and often are dependent on the rise of a killer app. NVidia and ATI have both shown that without new a version of DirectX (complete with added features), a new line of cards is a hard sell. Most other components have been reduced to commodities imported from China.

EA reliable? You guys crack me up. Do some research. Not only is the FTC investigating them, but there are definate accounting irregularities there and rumor has it, a correction will be issued soon. I'd pull my money out of EA if I had any there.

Want to know where to put your cash? Take Two Interactive. Trading around $20-25 range, could easily spike to double that with the lineup, and what is in the pipeline.

As for THQ, I lost a few thousand on them many years ago myself. Seems a few of us did.. LOL!

I had Electronic Arts, Nvidia, and Adobe (kind of counts). I got very lucky with all of them but knew it was only luck. I got out of consumer software and hardware for the most part. My play [read: stock] money is in healthcare and porn currently. Rwwar.