Get the Jump on Game Stocks With Virtual Market

The simExchange is the sector's first online prediction market and aims to complement the monthly sales data released by market research firm NPD Group.

"The simExchange shows a lot of trends," says Brian Shiau, a Princeton economics graduate, a game fanatic and an avid investor who started the site in November. "If you looked at BioShock on our site before its release it would have been clear you have a big winner on your hands -- something that Wall Street analysts missed."

"Our market plays into the wisdom of the crowds," he says.

And for investors looking to make bets on game stocks, the simExchange could become an important tool in their arsenal, says Shiau.

"The simExchange is not a vision of the future, it's not a time machine that will tell you exactly what the sales will be, but it is another data point for retail investors who don't have anything [else] to go by," he says.

Although many trade publications and gamer blogs exist to dissect every move in the game business, they're written by gamers for gamers.

For investors, the sites filled with minutiae about clips, game play and demos can easily cause information overload.

The simExchange, however, gets straight to the question that Shiau believes will help investors the most: How many copies is a game likely to sell?