assist and/or attract new players and leaving old timers behind. It would seem this is not the case. I found this enlightening. I still believe the new ADJUST rule eliminates the potential for the type of gains we enjoy now.
We really appreciate your input - and I'd personally like to take this opportunity to address your concerns.
There's been quite a bit of speculation in the HSX Forums about our motivation for the change. First, let me assure you that we believe modifying the HALT is better for overall gameplay and predictive accuracy. Most importantly, the decision was NOT intended to benefit new players - although I understand why some speculate that it might.
Here's the basis for the decision...we are slowly moving gameplay to a model where real market forces determine prices. The pre-release HALT is contrary to this goal. Indeed, there was some discussion about eliminating the HALT altogether, but we believe having an opening weekend ADJUST is a valuable gameplay feature. Accordingly, the decision was to limit the time between the HALT and ADJUST to about 24 hours.
We see no reason to limit trading activity at a time when real information is available to HSX traders. For example, unlike the wave trading that may occur in pre-release movie stocks, we don't expect significant speculative excesses (aka manipulation) to develop during this time. On the other hand, we believe traders will develop a whole new set of information based trading strategies that will make the game more interesting and exciting on opening weekends.
You wrote, "6pm Saturday eliminates the adjust". Not really. It just means that market forces will make the Saturday HALT price very close to the Sunday ADJUST price. How does this impact gameplay strategy for a trader that doesn't like this change? Not at all if a trader decides to ignore the price movements between the theatrical release and Saturday night. The Sunday ADJUST will be exactly the same as before (2.7x the opening weekend box). However, traders will now have market access after the film is released and will be able to speculate on what the final weekend numbers will be; early birds who get it right will make additional profits and those who speculate excessively will lose - we think these are good gameplay dynamics for HSX.
Similarly, raising max shares is intended to allow market forces a stronger hand in establishing HSX's share price and strengthen its predictive value.
You correctly raise the issue of share price inflation as a reaction to the increased Max Shares value. We are tracking this very closely and note that on average shares have risen about 2.76% due to the Max Share increase. However, the number of short positions in the market has increased three times as fast as the new long positions in the market - this is a healthy sign that the HSX market (and its largest traders) are (on average) very sophisticated about box office valuations and are shorting many stocks that may have been 'inflated'. And, over time, those folks who simply buy and hold overvalued movie stocks will see their portfolios take hits when films are delisted (or adjusted).
We believe we are at a point in HSX's 10 year history where the best and most loyal traders should be allowed more flexibility in trading. That's why we're slowing relaxing some of the long standing rules. However, we are also very much aware that abuses can happen. Therefore we are adding new features to catch anyone who tries to manipulate the market or otherwise reduce the integrity of HSX's long standing history of making stong predictive box office forecasts.
Finally, we are very sensitive to our customers and their view of the HSX gameplay. I can assure you that we are monitoring HSX trading activity more closely than ever - if any of our gameplay changes have unintended negative consequences for HSX then we will respond appropriately.
For now, we're confident that moving the HALT and increasing max shares will enable traders to develop more strategies and improve gameplay for the vast majority of players.
Certainly we recognize that not everyone will like the new gameplay rules, but I hope this reply explains our intent and may allay some of your concerns.
Thank you so much for writing.
Regards,
Rich Jaycobs
