Trying to find a relationship between the advent of Xbox Live and an inflection point in the growth of console sales or game title sales, but having a hard time finding any sales numbers from that period (2001 vs 2003). Sources would be much appreciated.

Alright apes and autists, let me explain why I believe GameStop has a strong fundamental case without mentioning diamond hands and short squeeze. If Ryan Cohen can successfully execute his vision, this leaky vessel will turn into a rocket ship blasting past the moon to the edge of the observable universe.
On November 16, 2020, Ryan Cohen sent a letter to the GameStop's Board of Directors titled "Maximizing Stockholder Value by Becoming the Ultimate Destination for Gamers". In it, Ryan Cohen outlined the roadmap for GameStop to pivot and become a technology first company. Let me boil this down for you in simple language for you smooth brain apes.
The Mission Statement
"GameStop needs to evolve into a technology company that delights gamers and delivers exceptional digital experiences [...] the successful and durable players of tomorrow will be technology-first companies that specialize in gaming products, experiences and services."
The Landscape

• Explosive Growth in the Gaming Industry
  • "The size of the global gaming market has grown by more than 2.5x since the last console cycle."
  • "The global gaming market expected to be $174.9 billion this year and reach $217.9 billion by 2023."
• Valuable Assets
  • Existing "strong brand" and recent Reddit frenzy is net positive to the brand, increases awareness, and strengthens its base.
  • "Large customer base and 55 million PowerUp members."
  • Large retail and physical footprint.

The Roadmap

• Evolve into a Technology-first company
  • "Technology is changing nearly every aspect of the gaming world, ranging from the way gamers shop to how they interact and compete with one another."
  • GameStop will have to "begin building a powerful e-commerce platform that provides competitive pricing, broad gaming selection, fast shipping and a truly high-touch experience that excites and delights customers." (Ryan successfully executed this vision with Chewy and he can do it again in gaming)
  • GameStop will have to "hire the right talent." (So far, Ryan has recruited 5 rock stars from Chewy and Amazon to join the team, more on that later).
• Create the Ultimate Gaming Platform
  • "Shift to purchasing from mass retailers and other online competitors." (Create a marketplace of wanted products and services, i.e. Amazon, Target, App Store)
  • Provide and expand "larger gaming catalogs" (Capture all games)
  • Create "community experiences" (This could be both physical and digital experiences)
  • Provide "streaming services" (New vertical opportunity for content creation, tournaments, and others)
  • Support "Esports" (Expanding scene that is not going away)
• Transition to Digital
  • "Industry developments in recent years" include "transition from physical hardware to digital streaming" and the "explosion of mobile."
  • Expand "digital content." (This needs to be a focus as it's competing against Steam, Blizzard, App Store, etc)
  • Allow "online trade-ins." (This would be a game changer)
• Cut Excessive costs
  • "Cut its excessive real estate costs" and "identify duplicative, under performing stores and plan to forgo lease renewals."
  • Streamline "Non-core operations in Europe and Australia [...] in order to reduce losses and potentially generate cash."
  • "Near-term increases in cash flow stemming from the console cycle can also help finance the future."

The Financials
Analysts are valuing GameStop as a traditional brick-and-mortar business. If Ryan can properly execute and transform the company, I believe they can become the Target and Chewy of Gaming with potential verticals of streaming and Esports (not factored into this calculation for now). GameStop makes roughly $8 Billion in Revenue, however it is currently valued at a $3.5B Market Cap as it bleeds cash. Target makes roughly $78B in Revenue with $3.3B in Net Income and a Market Cap of $96 Billion. Chewy makes roughly $4.8B in Revenue, losing money but growing quickly, and is valued at $44B in Market Cap. Target and Chewy are valued at 1.25x to 9x Price to Sales respectively. This equates to $10B to $72B Market Cap transposed to GameStop. Obviously, this is very simplistic and does not consider their balance sheet and other factors, but given these metrics:

• GameStop stock price potential is between $143 to $1,032 a share based on a current revenues.

Note this is assuming $8B in Revenue. If GameStop can grow revenues, focus on digital to improve margins, and expand within the growing total addressable market, I see potential for higher prices and achieving Target to Chewy-like multiples.
The X Factor
I believe Ryan Cohen was offered to lead GameStop's transition with significant control and autonomy. Otherwise, I do not believe he would have joined the Board. In his letter, Ryan simply stated that "RC Ventures is not interested in receiving a lone seat on GameStop's ten-member Board. It is not enticing to become an isolated stockholder advocate on a Board that has overlooked years of digital revenue opportunities and presided over massive value destruction without assuming full accountability." With the recent additions of two Chewy Executives to the Board of Directors, a new Chief Technology Officer who was the Engineering Lead in Amazon Web Services, a new Customer Care Executive from Chewy, and a new Fulfillment Executive from Amazon, I believe Ryan is executing his vision and revamping the GameStop team.
Notice his hires are from Chewy and Amazon? Ryan Cohen was obsessed with Amazon’s customer centric philosophy and built Chewy to follow that same model. He is hiring digital and e-commerce focused leaders to manage this transformation. Ryan's customer centric obsession is what allowed Chewy to beat Amazon. If GameStop pivots to digital and follows that same obsession, this will be a great opportunity to win.
Furthermore, I believe Ryan's vision is the right roadmap for GameStop. Digital e-commerce, streaming, and mobile is the future and Ryan fully acknowledges and embraces that future. GameStop will need to revamp and modernize their website and phone app, but I am sure that will follow in the months ahead. GameStop has the financial and brand assets that should weather this storm, but execution will be key. Ryan owns nearly 10% of GameStop, so he has a vested interest in its success and has much more to lose than my stake.
So degens, I say think with your heart and not with your smooth brain. Strap in and sit tight, this rocket ship may turn into a long journey to Mars. Maybe Papa Elon will be our catalyst.
P.S. If we all buy something from GameStop this quarter we can load this rocket ship ourselves.
TLDR; Ryan Cohen is Jesus. Buy and Hold $GME.

As a relative newcomer to (active) investment, I’m interested in people’s investment strategies regarding the FAANG, and rationale for trying to pick the next potential members.
In terms of how I rate the FAANG (and Microsoft) currently -
I’m bullish on Amazon, Apple and Microsoft.
Amazon in particular seems set for further massive growth with AWS and delivery innovations. Apple continues to successfully move into new product lines, whilst dominating the top end consumer devices market, and continuing to offer at least some competition to Microsoft in the business space. Microsoft continues to monopolise the business space, and grow Azure. I have confidence all will continue to successfully innovate into new market segments. For example, I think Apple TV will get stronger, and Apple Music will begin taking a bigger bite out of Spotify’s market share.
Whilst it remains mired in controversy, and Biden appears keen to try and reign in their data privacy and targeted advertising, I’m confident on Facebook. I continue to view negative press as a good opportunity to buy the dip. While they could be massively constrained, and customers could just move onto other platforms (as I’ve often heard touted), they continue to have a large moat around social media. Noones managed to knock them off yet. WhatsApp remains very popular (particularly here in Western Europe), and I think there would need to be a new player with a better overall user experience in either category to actually affect Facebook’s moat. People may move to apps like Signal and Telegram in greater numbers. Facebook continues to compete and arguably has pulled ahead of Google in the advertising space. It’s also pivoted well into gaming (with Oculus), and the online marketplace (albeit competing more with eBay and Craigslist, rather than Amazon or Baba). I can see it faring equally well on payments.
Google continues to hold market dominance of the search and mapping space. I can’t see it losing this. It’ll also continue to remain competitive in advertising and operating systems, particularly for advertising revenue when society returns to the “before times” and more people are using it for everyday life. That said, Google has often tried and failed to innovate (see: “killedbyGoogle”). It seems to have stagnated, in the company’s inability to capitalise on some of their innovations. While it still retains some competition in areas like consumer electronics (Chromebools), the cloud and smart tech; it isn’t close to dominating those markets. I think Google will remain a very strong company for some time, and I’d pile in if it looked like a successful project was on the horizon - as we may yet see from self-driving cars and AI.
Netflix will also likely retain its moat for some time to come, given the quality of the product and its user interface. Competition exists, but it’s a long way from seriously eating into their market share. They have had some (expensive) flops, but they continue to generate good content - particularly in documentary making. That said, for me to invest I’d want to see evidence of a pivot into trying to dominate another market segment. While Google has probably tried to compete in too many different areas of the market, Netflix hasn’t at all. Will it eventually look to monetise the targeted data it has collected on its customers?
Outside of the FAANG, Tesla has been a meme stock for its meteoric rise and potential to monopolise the EV space - though it remains to be seen whether it will continue to innovate, and hold this monopoly. If it can, it could well achieve FAANG-level market dominance.
What do people think are realistically the (large, medium or small cap) companies that have the potential to enter this level of market dominance? I’ve seen good cases made for NVIDIA, Square and Roku dominating their markets. Do you think this will be FAANG level, with the same ability to innovate?
There are clear trends that are likely to shape the future - EV and the wider renewable energy market, further environmentally-focused markets like meat alternatives, genomics, medical cannabis, payments and AI. How do people pick companies that are likely to dominate in these areas at this point, when there are so many players in the various areas?
Do you also look at growth stocks in these areas, or areas like sports betting that are likely to take off in the US market, as solid investments (with the obvious risks) - given the potential to become large cap companies and dominate their sectors? I’ve seen the bull case for DraftKings, but much like areas such as genomics and medical cannabis, there are legislative hurdles to overcome, and other companies could rise to fill that space. While DraftKings is leading a lot of the sports betting push, it doesn’t have the largest market share, and when you look at Western Europe, you see how much competition there is; with no clear sector dominance. Are you looking to invest in a company that, by the potential to grow into a big player, could still see a huge return on investment, or are you trying to calculate and determine which companies could completely dominate their markets?

Corsair Gaming ($CRSR)
Redefining gaming, eSports, and streaming
Company Overview
Corsair Gaming is an American computer hardware and peripherals company founded in 1994 and headquartered in California.
They acquired Elgato Gaming in 2018 to expand to the streaming gear market, Origin PC and SCUF gaming in 2019 to expand into the custom-built PC systems and console controllers markets, respectively, and during 2020 they acquired Gamer Sensei and EpocCam, and partnered with Pipeline to grow into the gaming and streaming coaching market.
Corsair went public on September 23, 2020, with its IPO priced at $17, valuing the company at about $1.3B.
Understanding the Business
Value Proposition
Corsair provides specialized, high-performance gear for gamers and streamers. Their products are designed to provide speed and reliability for competitive gaming, high quality content for streamers, and powerful PC components that allows gamers to run modern games smoothly.
Revenue Streams
Currently, Corsair groups its product offering into two segments: gamer and creator peripherals and gaming components and systems.
Gamer and Creator Peripherals:
which represents around 25% of net revenue, includes gaming mice, keyboards, and headsets, streaming gear, and high performance console controllers.
Gaming Components Systems:
which represents around 75% of net revenue includes computer cases, power supply units (PSU), high performance memory products (40% of net revenue), and custom-built gaming systems.
Acquisitions and Partnerships:
During 3Q 2020 Corsair acquired Gamer Sensei, a gaming coaching platform, EpocCam, an app that allows iPhones to serve as a webcam, and partnered with Pipeline, a course-based education platform for streamers.
Industry
Market Size
According to Jon Peddie Research, the global gaming and streaming gear markets is expected to reach $40B by the end of 2020. Before the pandemic JPR estimated the market to grow at a modest 1.05% CAGR until 2022. However, during 2020 the market has grown an estimated 10% year-over-year.
Additionally, DFC Intelligence research estimated that the video-game coaching market surpasses $1B.
Industry Fundamentals
Growth in the gaming and streaming gear industries are driven by strong and robust fundamentals.
Popularity of gaming is increasing:
According to Newzoo, there are an estimated 2.7B gamers worldwide, which are expected to spend $159B on games in 2020 and is expected to grow at an 8.3% CAGR to exceed $200B by 2023. PC and console gaming represents 51% of the total market, and mobile gaming 49%. Corsair has stated that currently there is no interest in expanding to the mobile gaming market.
Tech-driven improvements in game quality:
Advances in computer power have enabled gaming platforms to provide increasingly immersive experiences. This in turn, places increased demand on high-performance computing hardware.
Increasing gaming and streaming engagement:
Some interesting facts reported in the Limelight Networks’ State of Online Gaming 2019 research report include:

• On average, video gamers spend six hours and 20 minutes each week playing video games
• More than 38% of gamers would like to become professionals if it could support themselves
• Gamers from novice to aspiring professionals report missing daily activities due to gaming, missed sleep is the most pervasive
• Watching gamers play video games online is more popular than watching traditional sports for 18-25 year olds.

The eSports and streaming flywheel
The rise in popularity and viewership of eSports brings more investment from publishers, sponsors, advertisers, team owners, and leagues to the eSports industry. Increased investment brings more players and increased performance focus of gamers who advance from less engaged gaming to high-performance gameplay, which in turn brings more viewers.
Competitive Landscape & Risks
Competition
The gaming and streaming market is characterized by intense competition, constant price pressure and rapid change. Competition across Corsair’s product offering includes:
Gaming keyboards and mice - Logitech and Razer
Headsets and related audio products -Logitech, Razer, and HyperX
Streaming gear - Logitech and AVerMedia
Performance controllers - Microsoft and Logitech
PSUs, cooling solutions, and computer cases - Cooler Master, NZXT, EVGA, Seasonic, and Thermaltake
High performance memory - G.Skill, HyperX, and Micron
Pre-built and custom-built gaming PCs - Alienware (Dell), Omen (HP), Asus, Razer, iBuypower and Cyberpower
Competitive Strategy
The company follows a differentiation leadership strategy by prioritizing high-performance and professional quality and charging a price premium on their products in exchange for superior quality, high value added features, and superior brand recognition.
Market Share
According to NPD Group, by 2020 Corsair had #1 market share position in the US in its gaming components and systems products with 42% of the market share from 26% in 2015. Their gamer and creator peripheral products are not yet market leaders, however, the company increased its market share in that segment from 5% in 2013 to 18% by 2020 in the US.
Growth Strategy
Move into the Asia Pacific region:
The Asia Pacific Region represents a long-term growth opportunity. According to Newzoo, they represent 54% of the global gaming community.
Complimentary acquisitions:
Corsair has carried out this strategy aggressively since 2018 with the acquisitions of Elgato Gaming, Origin PC, SCUF and Gamer Sensei. They plan to continue evaluating and pursuing new acquisitions that may strengthen their competitive position.
New Markets:
Uses of streaming gear has spread into areas including, podcasting, video blogging, interactive fitness, remote learning, and work-from-home, which represent a promising avenue for continued expansion in this product segment.
Threat of New Entrants
Because of the continued convergence between the computing devices and consumer electronics markets, increased competition from well-established consumer electronics companies is expected in the gaming and streaming peripherals segment (e.g. use of Audio-technica microphones by streamers).
Threat of Substitution
A significant medium- to long-term risk for Corsair’s business model is the evolution of cloud computing and augmented/virtual reality entertainment.
Cloud computing refers to a computing environment in which software is run on third-party servers and accessed by end users over the internet, requiring minimal processing power from the end-user’s system. Through cloud computing, gamers will be able to access and play sophisticated games without the need of expensive high-performance PC systems and components.
According to Grand View Research, the global cloud gaming market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 48% from 2020 to reach $7.2B by 2027.
Additionally, Corsair must be able to adapt its product offering to meet the needs of the evolving augmented/virtual reality industry.
Moats
There does not seem to be any relevant, structural moats, that may prohibit competitors from capturing Corsair’s market share across their product offering.
Other Relevant Risks
Due to the concentration of their production facilities in Taiwan and China, Corsair may be adversely by geopolitical tensions and trade disputes.
Financial Summary
Proforma Balance Sheet
https://postimg.cc/QHgY1ZxL
Income Statement
https://postimg.cc/qNkbGDzN
For the 9 months ended September 2020 compared to the same period last year:
The 49% increase in net revenue is mostly attributed to a large number of consumers gaming and working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company’s gross margin is influenced by its product mix for the period, gamer and creator peripherals have a higher gross margin (25-35%) than gaming components and systems (15-25%).
Proforma Cashflow Statement
https://postimg.cc/XXCzNyRY
Cash used in investing activities consists primarily on the acquisitions of Elgato in 2018, and SCUF and Origin PC in 2019.
Peer Comparison
https://postimg.cc/Whcfd1V6
Logitech International (LOGI) and Micron Technologies (MU)
Why am I posting this now?
I believe they are going to have very strong 4th quarter 2020 earning results. 2020 had record pc sales,and pc video games has reported record numbers of players. They are in my opinion the leading pc peripherals brand for gamers. Q4 Earnings Include both Black Friday and Christmas Sales
Record pc sales:
https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/record-pc-sales-in-2020-as-covid-limits-work-education-to-homes/story/427858.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20data,units%20in%20Q4%20of%202020&text=COVID%2D19%20pandemic%20has%20turned,personal%20computer%20(PC)%20industry%20industry).
Google trends:
https://imgur.com/oKPn6R5
My price target for this earnings: $65 EDIT: (EOM)
TLDR: $CRSR will crush Q4 earnings 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀
Position: 60 Contracts 40c exp 2/19
disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH
credit: u/italiansomali and u/erythaean

Corsair Gaming ($CRSR)
Redefining gaming, eSports, and streaming
Company Overview
Corsair Gaming is an American computer hardware and peripherals company founded in 1994 and headquartered in California.
They acquired Elgato Gaming in 2018 to expand to the streaming gear market, Origin PC and SCUF gaming in 2019 to expand into the custom-built PC systems and console controllers markets, respectively, and during 2020 they acquired Gamer Sensei and EpocCam, and partnered with Pipeline to grow into the gaming and streaming coaching market.
Corsair went public on September 23, 2020, with its IPO priced at $17, valuing the company at about $1.3B.
Understanding the Business
Value Proposition
Corsair provides specialized, high-performance gear for gamers and streamers. Their products are designed to provide speed and reliability for competitive gaming, high quality content for streamers, and powerful PC components that allows gamers to run modern games smoothly.
Revenue Streams
Currently, Corsair groups its product offering into two segments: gamer and creator peripherals and gaming components and systems.
Gamer and Creator Peripherals:
which represents around 25% of net revenue, includes gaming mice, keyboards, and headsets, streaming gear, and high performance console controllers.
Gaming Components Systems:
which represents around 75% of net revenue includes computer cases, power supply units (PSU), high performance memory products (40% of net revenue), and custom-built gaming systems.
Acquisitions and Partnerships:
During 3Q 2020 Corsair acquired Gamer Sensei, a gaming coaching platform, EpocCam, an app that allows iPhones to serve as a webcam, and partnered with Pipeline, a course-based education platform for streamers.
Industry
Market Size
According to Jon Peddie Research, the global gaming and streaming gear markets is expected to reach $40B by the end of 2020. Before the pandemic JPR estimated the market to grow at a modest 1.05% CAGR until 2022. However, during 2020 the market has grown an estimated 10% year-over-year.
Additionally, DFC Intelligence research estimated that the video-game coaching market surpasses $1B.
Industry Fundamentals
Growth in the gaming and streaming gear industries are driven by strong and robust fundamentals.
Popularity of gaming is increasing:
According to Newzoo, there are an estimated 2.7B gamers worldwide, which are expected to spend $159B on games in 2020 and is expected to grow at an 8.3% CAGR to exceed $200B by 2023. PC and console gaming represents 51% of the total market, and mobile gaming 49%. Corsair has stated that currently there is no interest in expanding to the mobile gaming market.
Tech-driven improvements in game quality:
Advances in computer power have enabled gaming platforms to provide increasingly immersive experiences. This in turn, places increased demand on high-performance computing hardware.
Increasing gaming and streaming engagement:
Some interesting facts reported in the Limelight Networks’ State of Online Gaming 2019 research report include:

• On average, video gamers spend six hours and 20 minutes each week playing video games
• More than 38% of gamers would like to become professionals if it could support themselves
• Gamers from novice to aspiring professionals report missing daily activities due to gaming, missed sleep is the most pervasive
• Watching gamers play video games online is more popular than watching traditional sports for 18-25 year olds.

The eSports and streaming flywheel
The rise in popularity and viewership of eSports brings more investment from publishers, sponsors, advertisers, team owners, and leagues to the eSports industry. Increased investment brings more players and increased performance focus of gamers who advance from less engaged gaming to high-performance gameplay, which in turn brings more viewers.
Competitive Landscape & Risks
Competition
The gaming and streaming market is characterized by intense competition, constant price pressure and rapid change. Competition across Corsair’s product offering includes:
Gaming keyboards and mice - Logitech and Razer
Headsets and related audio products -Logitech, Razer, and HyperX
Streaming gear - Logitech and AVerMedia
Performance controllers - Microsoft and Logitech
PSUs, cooling solutions, and computer cases - Cooler Master, NZXT, EVGA, Seasonic, and Thermaltake
High performance memory - G.Skill, HyperX, and Micron
Pre-built and custom-built gaming PCs - Alienware (Dell), Omen (HP), Asus, Razer, iBuypower and Cyberpower
Competitive Strategy
The company follows a differentiation leadership strategy by prioritizing high-performance and professional quality and charging a price premium on their products in exchange for superior quality, high value added features, and superior brand recognition.
Market Share
According to NPD Group, by 2020 Corsair had #1 market share position in the US in its gaming components and systems products with 42% of the market share from 26% in 2015. Their gamer and creator peripheral products are not yet market leaders, however, the company increased its market share in that segment from 5% in 2013 to 18% by 2020 in the US.
Growth Strategy
Move into the Asia Pacific region:
The Asia Pacific Region represents a long-term growth opportunity. According to Newzoo, they represent 54% of the global gaming community.
Complimentary acquisitions:
Corsair has carried out this strategy aggressively since 2018 with the acquisitions of Elgato Gaming, Origin PC, SCUF and Gamer Sensei. They plan to continue evaluating and pursuing new acquisitions that may strengthen their competitive position.
New Markets:
Uses of streaming gear has spread into areas including, podcasting, video blogging, interactive fitness, remote learning, and work-from-home, which represent a promising avenue for continued expansion in this product segment.
Threat of New Entrants
Because of the continued convergence between the computing devices and consumer electronics markets, increased competition from well-established consumer electronics companies is expected in the gaming and streaming peripherals segment (e.g. use of Audio-technica microphones by streamers).
Threat of Substitution
A significant medium- to long-term risk for Corsair’s business model is the evolution of cloud computing and augmented/virtual reality entertainment.
Cloud computing refers to a computing environment in which software is run on third-party servers and accessed by end users over the internet, requiring minimal processing power from the end-user’s system. Through cloud computing, gamers will be able to access and play sophisticated games without the need of expensive high-performance PC systems and components.
According to Grand View Research, the global cloud gaming market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 48% from 2020 to reach $7.2B by 2027.
Additionally, Corsair must be able to adapt its product offering to meet the needs of the evolving augmented/virtual reality industry.
Moats
There does not seem to be any relevant, structural moats, that may prohibit competitors from capturing Corsair’s market share across their product offering.
Other Relevant Risks
Due to the concentration of their production facilities in Taiwan and China, Corsair may be adversely by geopolitical tensions and trade disputes.
Financial Summary
Proforma Balance Sheet
https://postimg.cc/QHgY1ZxL
Income Statement
https://postimg.cc/qNkbGDzN
For the 9 months ended September 2020 compared to the same period last year:
The 49% increase in net revenue is mostly attributed to a large number of consumers gaming and working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company’s gross margin is influenced by its product mix for the period, gamer and creator peripherals have a higher gross margin (25-35%) than gaming components and systems (15-25%).
Proforma Cashflow Statement
https://postimg.cc/XXCzNyRY
Cash used in investing activities consists primarily on the acquisitions of Elgato in 2018, and SCUF and Origin PC in 2019.
Peer Comparison
https://postimg.cc/Whcfd1V6
Logitech International (LOGI) and Micron Technologies (MU)
Why am I posting this now?
I believe they are going to have very strong 4th quarter 2020 earning results. 2020 had record pc sales,and pc video games has reported record numbers of players. They are in my opinion the leading pc peripherals brand for gamers. They also have strong support from wallstreetbets.
Record pc sales:
https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/record-pc-sales-in-2020-as-covid-limits-work-education-to-homes/story/427858.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20data,units%20in%20Q4%20of%202020&text=COVID%2D19%20pandemic%20has%20turned,personal%20computer%20(PC)%20industry%20industry).
Google trends:
https://imgur.com/oKPn6R5
My price target for this earnings: $55
disclaimer:I am not a financial advisor. Do not trade based on the information I have posted.
credit: u/italiansomali and u/erythaean

[text is taken from gamasutra and pasted below for convenience. Original article: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JohnWatmuff/20210119/376232/Dont_Make_Your_First_Game_a_Stupidly_Big_Project__The_Benefits_of_Going_Against_Sound_Advice_and_Making_a_Game_in_4_Years.php]
​
It was a major exhale to see my open-world, galactic survival strategy game Lilith Odyssey finally make it to the Steam store on January 8, after 4.19 years in development. I am part of a two-developer studio called Chaystar Unlimited, and we have been working on our game for about 4.19 years, according to my therapeutic excel spreadsheets. We worked on the game in our spare time while holding two ordinary office jobs. Our game has now been featured in a variety of publications and after so much time in development, the attention has been charming and thrilling!
I want to talk about the bright sides of being naïve and stubbornly curious.
Now knowing the extensive struggle that was this project, would we do it all over again? It’s a complicated time to answer that question without having the hindsight of sales data to determine whether making this game was “worth it.” Regardless, in case you are as obsessive/naïve as we were, here’s what we learned.
We Learned to Relax Effectively and Appreciate Small Progress
To give a sense of what 4 years of game development looks like, you can see my source-code commits (on GitHub) — a steady mix of progress and breaks.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but I learned to take lots of breaks. Naturally, I’m an obsessive coder that wants to stay up until 3 a.m. to see my vision come to life. Unfortunately, this is not sustainable, and also clouds my judgement. I tend to *not* reflect on my work while in this state. I still think it’s great fun to “enter the zone” — this process might even channel some deeper artistic output. But between work, countless weekends of game dev, and even small chunks of progress on weeknights, I begin to simultaneously burn out and become anxious. So to keep moving forward, I generally have to take a step back, focus on “life things,” and allow my mind to wander.
These relaxation moments are good for mental health, but they also allow me time to think about my work – do I like what I’ve made so far, would I enjoy this feature? Personally, I found that the key to relaxing effectively is being kind to yourself, allowing your mind and body to recover in a way that is right for you. I did the best/most-focused work when I took time or even weekends off to play golf or invest time in parts of life that make me feel good. Days, weeks, or even months: it’s okay to take a break, because it’s only a break.
Additionally, never begrudge progress. Even if something takes an exceptionally long time, as long as you complete *something*, you are now further along and in a better position than you previously were. Working in a large bureaucracy for most of my professional life has helped me realize this — big changes happen slowly and are often the product of many tiny bits of progress. Take what the world gives you!
A Stupidly Large Scope Helped Us Learn Deeply
Admittedly, Lilith Odyssey has an enormous scope — a very stupid (hasty) decision made early in the process. There are more than 1000 planets to explore, 16 space ships to customize with various parts, 20 alien creatures, procedural characters, procedural buildings, space stations, galactic monuments, and an in-game radio with original songs, ads and DJ segments. And honestly, perhaps the game didn’t *need* all of this. We just felt it would be “cool to have.” But to have all that, staying motivated was a big challenge. It wasn't until roughly 1.5 years of dev, amidst several growing pains, where we thought, “Uggh, why did we choose to make this game so unwieldy!?” But we kept working. What helped was recognizing the development of our skills (i.e. better visuals, better game play, better music) and knowing when our growth was enough to hit game quality markers we could live with (not necessarily the best we could do).
We were aware of all the advice suggesting that a large 3D game is very difficult to complete — but we went for it anyway!
By taking on the challenges of a large scope, we quickly became better learners. I would argue that the ability to learn new things is a skill you can work on, a skill that pays huge dividends in artistic confidence. And part of this skill is recognizing when you’ve learned enough to achieve a solid version of your vision (not its perfected form). For example, aesthetically, our game features a lowpoly/toon-shaded style that looks more playful than technically advanced. I’m sure that other talented devs can do much more. But for our own purposes, this was a sweet spot between looking good enough and moving forward.
Learn, make it work, move on. Instead of minimizing the scope of the game to fit our skills, we challenged ourselves and hit depths of quality that we felt we needed. We deepened our skills in areas of coding, sound design, 3D modeling, animation, world building, and marketing to an extent that a smaller project would not have merited.
The pay off? We believe we made an explorable, immersive, open-world galaxy. Low poly, sure, but we hit the scope. We realized an artistic vision, and explored new territory that we otherwise may have avoided until a later time.
So, if you find yourself facing a large body of work, my advice would be: give it a shot so long as you are prepared to learn. If you try to minimalize your ideas, you may destroy the uniqueness of your art or miss out on finding the inner voice of your work. It takes time to find good art within yourself!
We Overcame Fear of Difficulty By Surrendering Certain Battles
When we started our project, I had never programmed a 3D game before. I am an experienced software engineer with more than 10 years of experience in a non-gaming software industry. But prior to this game, working in 3D greatly intimidated me! I had consistently defaulted to making simpler 2D games. In college, I nearly failed a graphics programming course.
I overcame this specific fear by reading tons of articles about 3D development online, acquainting myself with the proper tools, and repeatedly failing (more on that below).
The grander challenge to overcome, however, is the fear of difficulty (intimidation). As my game dev companion has said, it is the voice of self-doubt in all of our heads that says “this is too hard for you to complete.”
Early on, my game dev partner motivated me to imagine our game as a 3D game. I was extremely hesitant, and even thought it impossible, but I gave the idea a chance. From there on, the two of us developed an internal culture of fearless problem solving. We were committed to learning anything we needed to learn to complete the project. We were ready to fight any battle — but also willing to tactically surrender battles that were far beyond our skills.
The possibility of “falling short” never leaves the mind. Especially in the face of consistent technical hurdles that seem to limit our vision. There were many sobering moments for us where we realized that our technical limitations stood in the way of creating a feature or aesthetic we otherwise would have wanted. Sometimes, we could learn our way through the problem. Other times, we backed down and had to re-concept elements of the game.
We Grew Used to Failure
Our failures have been frequent and massive. For every one thing that went right, I would say that four things went wrong. We learned to accept the failures, identify a different approach, and move forward with a plan. Not all of our ideas panned out – for example, we had a feature where rescue crafts would pick you up if you were stranded on a planet. We ended up deciding that this feature, while super-cool, was not necessary for the larger game play and its exclusion would not affect game enjoyment. We had to give up on various other concepts, and we had to recreate some content with different styles — until we found something that worked well enough. Perfection was not the goal. Our reasonable satisfaction was.
Ultimately, for a small team like ours, game development is an iterative crafting process that requires a balance of rework and acceptance.
Link Up With Others
It’s important to acknowledge that embarking on a years-long project was made easier by having a trusted creative partner. “Frodo didn’t get the ring to Mordor alone, after all, even when he insisted on it.” — words from my game dev partner.
When others are involved, there is more accountability and commitment to see your part of the work through. And when your creative energies are thinning, sometimes all it takes is seeing what your team member has done to stoke your own passion for the project.
For solo devs, I’d recommend working with artists – whether that’s for cover art, sound tracks, or asset modeling – to keep things exciting. Not only can you rely on skills better than your own in certain development areas, but getting quality input from others raises the bar for your own work. In the best case scenarios, there’s a symbiotic cycle of great work inspiring other great work that inspires other great work.
Was It Worth Working on a Game for Four Years?
Yes (but you have to finish it).
We are currently polishing Lilith Odyssey and marketing our title as we look ahead to an early Access launch. By many accounts, we have no idea how successful the game will be from a sales standpoint. So, why was the struggle still worth it?
We better understand our capacities to learn. Our weak spots are animation and rigging, which we look forward to addressing in future work. But we are not intimidated by the difficulty or challenge of trying something new and complex.

• We gained creative confidence. It sounds lame, but in art, and in life, self-belief matters — and it exponentially opens up new doors. We have tons of limitations, but we also know that we’ve got the grit to work through a problem and the tactical wisdom to abandon a costly battle.
• We know how to balance our lives. Practicing kindness to yourself and taking mind-clearing breaks will open the capabilities of your person. Learning to balance your inner self, can give you the stability and endurance required to wander across larger oceans — and do much more than you thought possible.

​
I'd be happy to address any of the points above or answer any questions about hunkering down on a project for 4 years. I attempted to write an article with genuine perspectives about gamed dev -- the same kinds of discussions and prompts I see in this subreddit that have helped me along my journey so far. Cheers all and best of luck on your work!!

I saw u/Unlucky-Prize post about the technical factors for $GME and felt inspired to make a post about the reasons why I‘m long this stock, which is the fundamentals. I don’t do options or techincal analysis so please refer to other posts for that info.
$GME had been on my radar for quite some time but I finally dipped my toes in two weeks ago. The basis for that wasn’t the potential for a short squeeze or short interest but the underlying fundamentals behind $GME. I had posted a long comment in a previous thread and will expand on that to explain why I’m bullish long term for $GME. I hope this helps. This post is meant to be a personal opinion and not advice to buy or sell Gamestop.
🐻 Case:

1. Digital sales will make Gamestop the next Blockbuster.

The digital game sales argument, like all 🐻 arguments, are weak. The shift to digital will possibly occur in the next console cycle. So maybe the 🐻 are right, but they’re right in 8 years which means they’re wrong now. Additionally digital sales growth has decelerated and are returning to pre-covid levels as more people go back to stores. This trend should continue if the pandemic improves. Additionally game publishers don’t care about the fractionally larger margins from selling digital direct. They only care about moving as many units as quickly as possible. If they could sell the games on floppy disks they would. Go read the public filings for any game publisher and they will tell you that they only care about selling what customers want and guess what, they still want physical.
Blockbuster died because Carl Icahn got involved, killed Blockbuster’s attempt to pivot to a Netflix model by offering an online rental service and Blockbuster’s old business model relied on late fees. Icahn insisted that Blockbuster's greatest asset was its physical location and late fees, killed the pivot and forced them to triple down on their old strategy. Carl ended up losing 98% of his investment in Blockbuster. There continues to be demand for physical movie rentals as evidenced by Red Box locations and Netflix still has a few million dvd by mail subscribers.
Gamestop has also recently started to pivot away from software sales into other areas and now software sales now make up large minority of Gamestop's total sales. They're pivoting more towards physical goods and not just Funko Pops but also plan to expand more into new areas like PC gaming and hardware.
Everyone knows that they signed a revenue agreement with Microsoft where Gamestop will get a cut of the lifetime revenue from Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. This shouldn't sour the relationship with Sony or Nintendo. If anything, Sony and Nintendo should be compelled to offer a similar revenue share agreement because Gamestop will inevitably push Microsoft products if Gamestop stand to profit more from it. This will be a bigger deal in later years as console availability increases and consumers actually deciding to cross shop consoles as opposed to getting whichever new one is available right now. Sony and Nintendo won't stop selling products through Gamestop because of this agreement with Microsoft, it's too large of a sales channel to give up.

1. Gamestop will go bankrupt

This is highly unlikely to happen. Gamestop managed to survive the single worst brick and mortar retail sales environment in modern history and ended the year with a cash surplus of a few hundred million. Now its the new year and the beginning of a new console cycle. This console cycle should last as long as the previous ones which is close to a decade, plus or minus a few years. During that time, they will be printing money hand over fist selling consoles, new games, used games, accessories, protection plans, etc.

1. Brick and mortar retail is dead. Gamestop locations are shutting down left and right, this must mean they're going bankrupt.

Gamestop's average lease durations are actually quite short. A lot of brick and mortar shops have lease duration lasting a decade but the average lease duration for Gamestop is just 2-4 years. This allows them to close underperforming stores and open new ones very quickly.
Gamestop's saw e-commerce grow by 250% last quarter. The company has been and continues to pivot towards a "digital-first, omni-channel ecosystem for games and entertainment"
🐂 Case
This MOASS could be long and protracted like Tesla in all of 2020 as many continue to bet against Gamestop, instead of a sharp spike like Volkswagen, where Porsche played a large role in spiking the share price. Keep in mind that at 1x sales, the share price should be $80-100. Compare that with another retailer Chewy, which has a p/s of 6-7x. Pet products also has a much lower TAM than gaming.
This isn’t even factoring in a complete turnaround that RC has to be planning. Look at the newest board composition. Newest members are Reggie (my body is ready), the head of cloud 9 esports, and the current president Petsmart and Chewy. board member. Ask yourself, are these the people that would join the board of a company that is expected to die in 5 years due to digital game sales.
This has moved beyond a short squeeze yolo to a long term hold. If RC succeeds in transforming this into the next Chewy, you’re looking at a 20x multiple. This is based on fundamentals and industry tailwinds. I added 10k shares weeks ago and added 20k shares at $38 because this thing is going much higher and idgaf about a few bucks in share price right now. Also don’t attempt to time the market because you could be left behind at the launchpad.
Simply put, if I told you there was a business that served a $200 billion total addressable market with very discerning and loyal customers with a lot of disposable income to spend on this market. They have over 5,000 retail locations all across the world. Last quarter, they saw Ecommerce grow by nearly 300% and ended a year where many other brick and mortar retailers went bankrupt with hundreds of millions of dollars in extra cash. This company has a database called PowerUp consisting of tens of millions of customers that pay them a yearly premium membership. They're starting a multiyear pivot into several new growing areas and have new board members that are industry leaders in each of those respective areas at the start of a new product launch cycle that will last a decade. A young visionary founder who made his billions by creating a customer centric experience that defeated Amazon, who is well known to focus on one idea to the point of obsession, just became this company's largest shareholder and now controls the board. I tell you this company trades at .5 sales. Would you short or long this company?
TLDR: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 But not because of the MOASS.
Edit: I forgot I had 5000 shares in my YOLO account so position is actually 35,000 GME

Alright apes, let me explain why I believe GameStop has a strong fundamental case without mentioning diamond hands and short squeeze. If Ryan Cohen can successfully execute his vision, this leaky vessel will turn into a rocket ship blasting past the moon to the edge of the observable universe.
On November 16, 2020, Ryan Cohen sent a letter to the GameStop's Board of Directors titled "Maximizing Stockholder Value by Becoming the Ultimate Destination for Gamers". In it, Ryan Cohen outlined the roadmap for GameStop to pivot and become a technology first company. Let me boil this down for you in simple language for you smooth brain apes.
The Mission Statement
"GameStop needs to evolve into a technology company that delights gamers and delivers exceptional digital experiences [...] the successful and durable players of tomorrow will be technology-first companies that specialize in gaming products, experiences and services."
The Landscape

• Explosive Growth in the Gaming Industry
  • "The size of the global gaming market has grown by more than 2.5x since the last console cycle."
  • "The global gaming market expected to be $174.9 billion this year and reach $217.9 billion by 2023."
• Valuable Assets
  • Existing "strong brand" and recent Reddit frenzy is net positive to the brand, increases awareness, and strengthens its base.
  • "Large customer base and 55 million PowerUp members."
  • Large retail and physical footprint.

The Roadmap

• Evolve into a Technology-first company
  • "Technology is changing nearly every aspect of the gaming world, ranging from the way gamers shop to how they interact and compete with one another."
  • GameStop will have to "begin building a powerful e-commerce platform that provides competitive pricing, broad gaming selection, fast shipping and a truly high-touch experience that excites and delights customers." (Ryan successfully executed this vision with Chewy and he can do it again in gaming)
  • GameStop will have to "hire the right talent." (So far, Ryan has recruited 5 rock stars from Chewy and Amazon to join the team, more on that later).
• Create the Ultimate Gaming Platform
  • "Shift to purchasing from mass retailers and other online competitors." (Create a marketplace of wanted products and services, i.e. Amazon, Target, App Store)
  • Provide and expand "larger gaming catalogs" (Capture all games)
  • Create "community experiences" (This could be both physical and digital experiences)
  • Provide "streaming services" (New vertical opportunity for content creation, tournaments, and others)
  • Support "Esports" (Expanding scene that is not going away)
• Transition to Digital
  • "Industry developments in recent years" include "transition from physical hardware to digital streaming" and the "explosion of mobile."
  • Expand "digital content." (This needs to be a focus as it's competing against Steam, Blizzard, App Store, etc)
  • Allow "online trade-ins." (This would be a game changer)
• Cut Excessive costs
  • "Cut its excessive real estate costs" and "identify duplicative, under performing stores and plan to forgo lease renewals."
  • Streamline "Non-core operations in Europe and Australia [...] in order to reduce losses and potentially generate cash."
  • "Near-term increases in cash flow stemming from the console cycle can also help finance the future."

The Financials
Analysts are valuing GameStop as a traditional brick-and-mortar business. If Ryan can properly execute and transform the company, I believe they can become the Target and Chewy of Gaming with potential verticals of streaming and Esports (not factored into this calculation for now). GameStop makes roughly $8 Billion in Revenue, however it is currently valued at a $3.5B Market Cap as it bleeds cash. Target makes roughly $78B in Revenue with $3.3B in Net Income and a Market Cap of $96 Billion. Chewy makes roughly $4.8B in Revenue, losing money but growing quickly, and is valued at $44B in Market Cap. Target and Chewy are valued at 1.25x to 9x Price to Sales respectively. This equates to $10B to $72B Market Cap transposed to GameStop. Obviously, this is very simplistic and does not consider their balance sheet and other factors, but given these metrics:

• GameStop stock price potential is between $143 to $1,032 a share based on a current revenues.

Note this is assuming $8B in Revenue. If GameStop can grow revenues, focus on digital to improve margins, and expand within the growing total addressable market, I see potential for higher prices and achieving Target to Chewy-like multiples.
The X Factor
I believe Ryan Cohen was offered to lead GameStop's transition with significant control and autonomy. Otherwise, I do not believe he would have joined the Board. In his letter, Ryan simply stated that "RC Ventures is not interested in receiving a lone seat on GameStop's ten-member Board. It is not enticing to become an isolated stockholder advocate on a Board that has overlooked years of digital revenue opportunities and presided over massive value destruction without assuming full accountability." With the recent additions of two Chewy Executives to the Board of Directors, a new Chief Technology Officer who was the Engineering Lead in Amazon Web Services, a new Customer Care Executive from Chewy, and a new Fulfillment Executive from Amazon, I believe Ryan is executing his vision and revamping the GameStop team.
Notice his hires are from Chewy and Amazon? Ryan Cohen was obsessed with Amazon’s customer centric philosophy and built Chewy to follow that same model. He is hiring digital and e-commerce focused leaders to manage this transformation. Ryan's customer centric obsession is what allowed Chewy to beat Amazon. If GameStop pivots to digital and follows that same obsession, this will be a great opportunity to win.
Furthermore, I believe Ryan's vision is the right roadmap for GameStop. Digital e-commerce, streaming, and mobile is the future and Ryan fully acknowledges and embraces that future. GameStop will need to revamp and modernize their website and phone app, but I am sure that will follow in the months ahead. GameStop has the financial and brand assets that should weather this storm, but execution will be key. Ryan owns nearly 10% of GameStop, so he has a vested interest in its success and has much more to lose than my stake.
So degens, I say think with your heart and not with your smooth brain. Strap in and sit tight, this rocket ship may turn into a long journey to Mars. Maybe Papa Elon will be our catalyst.
P.S. If we all buy something from GameStop this quarter we can load this rocket ship ourselves.
TLDR; Ryan Cohen is Jesus. Buy and Hold $GME.

Alright, listen up my fellow autists. I was drafting this DD up to put in my private archives, but this place isn't autistic enough anymore. Apes are too alpha with their diamond hands and I'm here to bring you some plays to put tendies on the table like good ol days.
I'm here to talk about what's for some reason an under followed stock. $SE
BUT WHAT IS $SE?!?!?!? Sea Limited is a leading E-commerce, digital payments, and mobile gaming company based in Southeast Asia NOT COMMIE TOWN CHINA (disclaimer I'm long $BABA). They operate through those three segments and benefit from synergies between them.
Let's start with E-commerce It's the middle of a fucking GLOBAL PANDEMIC. I bet your house is filled with cardboard boxes up to the ceilings. At least mine is. I'm buying a lot of shit online, because I'm working from home, trading in my PJs and making FAT STACKS off $SE. While I don't live in Malaysia, I use Amazon. It's the future. Look at the entire brick and mortar retail industry over the last 5-10 years cough GME cough. Things aren't so hot. You can get things cheaper and exactly what you want.
I feel this part of the thesis is pretty self explanatory. Do you believe people will continue to buy things online over the next 10 years?

• Yes -> buy $SE
• No -> Go buy GME lol

But how are they doing? FUCKING GREAT. I have access to some proprietary app data I'm too lazy to smuggle off my work PC, but let me say. Things are UP. Downloads, DAU, session length, all the metrics. BOOMIN. Don't believe me? Here's how they've been doing vs. local competitors ($BABA owned Lazada) and a private company rumored to be involved with a one of those special purpose tickers (Tokopedia).
$SE mainly competes in its e-commerce segment in the Southeast Asia market. It's key countries are Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Brazil. As shown here using google trends, we see that Shopee is now claiming the top spot in relative search interest in many of these markets.
Gaining Share/Interest over competitors in recent years
^{Shopee Blue - Lazada Red - Tokopedia Yellow
Source: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=shopee,lazada,tokopedia}
Current Growth Rates
Digital Payments. $SE also has a digital wallet app. This is Southeast Asia. They don't have JP Morgan pulling from everyone's pockets. Everyone's got a phone and uses this in tandem to purchase things online. Did I mention that $SE has both B2C and C2C shopping apps? Want to transact with local business? Process payments and handle your small business checking through $SE. Makes it easy to track and receive payments from customers. Fucking great. Basically lets the company pull a sliver from every transaction going on in their markets.
Not a compelling YOLO worthy investment on it's own but bolsters the package, just like how stuffing a sock bolsters my cock.
Mobile Gaming. What's that? Boom Beach is for dads? I know. Doesn't matter, the rest of the world loves this shit. Their mobile gaming division is called Garena and their biggest game is a battle royale called Free Fire:

Garena is a leading esports organizer. It hosts esports events around the world that range from grassroots local tournaments to some of the most viewed professional esports competitions globally. Garena’s largest global esports tournament of 2019, the Free Fire World Series, achieved over 130 million cumulative online views.

Somehow, this shit fills stadiums.
And growth don't stop.
Why it's interesting? Recent IPO (relatively). This thing is less than 2 years public and absolutely on a tear. Market cap of $140 billion is especially compelling. Consider that the e-commerce growth is the fastest in the world in their markets..
It's a company you value on the top-line. So in a region with 8-10% GDP growth, and 10%+ ecommerce growth it's easy to make a case for 20% top-line growth on right there. Now lets consider an increasing shift in spend from brick and mortar to digital of 10% (you make 1 out of 10 purchases online more than you did last year) and gaining market share. 50% growth isn't hard to achieve on this piece of the business alone. And that's ANNUAL.
How to play it? LEAPS. Shares are for apes and frees up cash for FDs on pull backs (if it drops more than 10% hammer the ask on all the 20% OTM 60 DTE you can get).
TL;DR? EDUCATE YOURSELF AND READ IT. THERE WILL BE MORE TO COME.
$SE $350 2023 Cs - This is the way

TLDR; EGLX.to is the single best pure-eSports play in the world.

Look I have an incredible track record of getting lucky picking stocks in the new reddit dominated market (PLTR, U, AI, BB, etc) and I want to tell you all about my next big one: Enthusiast Gaming.
While our community has nearly quadrupled in size, I still believe EGLX is one of the most underappreciated plays out there.
Since writing my first DD on EGLX, a few things have transpired:

• The stock has gone up like 80%.
• EGLX signed a massive deal with Samsung and Samsung will be the official sponsor of their 7 eSports teams.
• EGLX has strengthened their balance sheet by $50M, taking care of the cash risk I identified in the original DD.
• The stock price has formed some significant resistance, and has a solid foundation above $6.
• Call of Duty has had their best year in franchise history, and was crowned the best selling game of 2020 -> Great news for a company who owns 1 of 12 professional COD esports licenses.
• One of EGLX's streamers, xQc, found his way to the top of WSB... indicating people on that forum follow EGLX, but they just don't know it yet.
• Their recent bought deal is set to conclude this week, and I am hoping for big news on their Nasdaq application to follow shortly thereafter.
• Last and probably least, I was personally right again and won big again, in both BB and GME. And yes I realized my gains in both. So for whatever it's worth, I have proven my track record again.

Get in before the Nasdaq listing if you like money.
Positions: I currently have 40% of my portfolio in Enthusiast Gaming.
I hope the mods don't mind, but I wanted to repost this DD I wrote about a month ago, because it seems like none of the noobs know about the Enthusiast Gaming eSports revolution. So here it is below:
---------------------------------------------------------
LINK to original post - POSTED JAN 6TH 2020:
Greetings friendos.
It's 12:20 AM where I live and since I can't sleep, I have decided to finally write a DD on Enthusiast Gaming that I have been thinking about for some time... EGLX is a stock that I believe can make you 5-20x gains in the next year. I have been watching this stock since like $1.50 during the darkest days of COVID, and I am kicking myself for not getting in until $4 just before Christmas. But I am now a proud shareholder preaching the gospel.
What the eff do I know?
For some background information on my own stock picking prowess and why my ideas might be worth considering, I previously wrote super early DD's on Palantir, Telos and C3ai before making money in all 3 of them. I have a large number of people who have sent me thank you messages on reddit for my DD's on those companies.

PLTR - I was in at 10.50 Telos - I was in at 20 C3ai - I was in at 95

​
As a final qualifying note, in addition to getting incredibly lucky at picking random stocks, I also work in the gaming and digital marketing spaces, and I believe that I am somewhat qualified to comment on the merits of an esports and influencer company such as EGLX.

Who the heck is Enthusiast Gaming?

Enthusiast Gaming is a giant network of websites, esports teams and streaming influencers in the gaming space. Actually, they proclaim to be the single largest esports platform in North America. As of yesterday, they have officially announced that all of their collective followings put them in the top 100 web companies operating in America. Note, the only downside here is that they are getting that number from a huge number of mid sized platforms, not one single super popular site like twitch or youtube.
>Source: https://www.enthusiastgaming.com/news/

Does anyone even watch video games?

Yes. They do and will continue to. Actually us North Americans are very late to the party. The League of Legends world championship is already as popular as the super bowl. These viewers are coming primarily from Asia.
>Facts: https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/league-of-legends-vs-superbowl-viewer-numbers
Furthermore, the hyper focus on gaming as a cultural cornerstone is in fact coming to North America. I hope you don't actually need convincing on this point, but here is a fact for you:
Prior to COVID, studies were already showed that over 90% of all children in America were gaming in some capacity.
>Source: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/video-games-saints-or-psychopaths-082814#:~:text=More%20than%2090%20percent%20of%20American%20kids%20play%20video%20games,of%20Americans%20over%2050%20play.
Now for comparison, most of us now adults grew up while gaming became a thing. If you are a similar age to me, you know when we were growing up, it was like 20-40% of boys gamed, and maybe 1-5% of girls gamed. This dramatic cultural shift is staggering. Obviously, this trend has been solidified this year with COVID. These gamers will and are translating to not only playing, but also watching games. That's Amazon's Twitch platform is growing fast AF. Watching video games is big big big money.
>Twitch facts: https://www.businessinsider.com/twitch-viewership-grows-faster-than-previously-forecast-2020-9#:~:text=That's%20a%2026.2%25%20increase%20from,gaming%20streams%20are%20gaining%20popularity.&text=We%20forecast%20that%20the%20number,next%20year%2C%20to%2044.0%20million.

Who are their competitors?

Actually this is where I think it gets particularly interesting. As a huge gamer and esports believer, I have been looking to find esports investments, but having a real hard time finding pure esports plays. There aren't many companies out there to invest in that are strictly set to capitalize on esports. Frankly, most of the stocks I have found are seemingly doing dick all. I would encourage you to google esports companies. You will mostly find a bunch of garbo sounding companies that are somehow valued at $25m-$50m market cap, but their websites are broken and aren't even up-to-date. Really the only "esports" companies to invest in are the tech majors like Microsoft, Amazon, or Facebook, and the video game companies like Sony, Nintendo, ATVI, EA etc. Sure these are all great companies, but none of them are strictly focused on esports and none of them are new or cheap enough to turn into a ten bagger.
*** IF YOU ARE SKIMMING, THIS NEXT ARTICLE IS IMPORTANT**\*
Forbes recently released a report on the top 10 most valuable esports companies. Obviously, EGLX is on the list, or I wouldn't be mentioning it. But get this, EGLX is not only the ONLY publicly listed company that forbes identified, but they also have the highest revenue by a long shot.
>SORCERY: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2020/12/05/the-most-valuable-esports-companies-2020/?sh=2e4769ae73d0
EGLX is honestly positioned as the supreme pure esports play in the world right now.

Who the hell is leading this little company?

Well my number one most important metric when assessing a little random undiscovered company is who is captaining the ship? The best way to tell if a small cap stock is a scam or the real deal is to see who is involved. In fact, the biggest reason I chose to invest in the above mentioned companies was because of who was leading them (PLTR = Theil, C3.ai = microsoft ties and the dude from oracle, Telos = a former US general)
Good news of course, EGLX has an A+ grade with leadership legitimacy.
Adrian Montgomery, the former CEO of the Aquilini Sports and Entertainment (AKA THE VANCOUVER CANUCKS) is running EGLX. These guys are the real deal and they aren't fuckin about in some scam company. If they can run the Canucks, they can run an esports team.

But how do they profit?

EGLX does not own games or huge streaming platforms like twitch. So you may be wondering how they actually make money? INFLUENCER MARKETING. That's how. They are generating money through ad placements and influencer marketing on their huge platform. (And remember, they are in the top 100 US online companies in terms of reach.)
Facebook and Google are already soaking up ungodly amounts of money through online advertising and taking over the world. But paid ad placements only go so far. I don't know of a good source off hand, but I am telling you subjectively that influencer marketing is one of the "next big things". Companies are paying people with major social followings to review and talk about their shit. This is a very very big industry. I truly believe influencers are going to overtake hollywood and MSM. You shall see... No sources here. Pure opinion.

Is it actually making money?

Shit loads actually. This year EGLX is talking about increasing their total revenue from $9m last year to $120m this year for like a 1100% annual revenue increase. Obviously, if their proforma numbers turn out to be bogus the stock will collapse. But, referring to the fact that the owners of the Canucks are running this company, I am hoping we are not all being lied to and frauded out of our money.
https://www.enthusiastgaming.com/financial-statements/

How do you know I will make the tendies though?

***IF YOU ARE SKIMMING, ALSO READ THIS PART**\*
EGLX is currently trading at a $450m CAD or about $300M USD market cap. That is absolute peanuts compared to any other hype stock in the memesphere. With $120m annual revenue, that puts them at about a 3x price to sales ratio, which really isn't that bad at all for even a boring a blue chip. For a growth stock, it is extremely low.
But if you dig into their investor presentation, they are actually claiming they will raise their Revenue Per User from $0.40 to $3 in the next 2 years, or a nearly 750% revenue increase, not accounting for growth in the size of their social reach. If you include reach growth, it could be nearly 10 times revenue growth. By that point, the current market cap would be a fraction of their annual sales.
This stock is absurdly undervalued if the promises being made by the leadership come true.
>Go look: https://www.enthusiastgaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/EG-Presentation-November-2020-Nov-27.pdf

Final Fun facts:

- They own the best Overwatch team.
- They own the Seattle Call of Duty team, which happens to be among the nerdiest cities in America.
- They claim to have the best Fortnite players, but idk that game is trash so I couldn't really say if it's true or not.
But wait there's more!
Saved the best info for last.
The stock tripled in the past month. Why?
Because EGLX is still only trading on the TSX and they have applied to list on the US stock exchange.
They have appointed KPMG as the auditor for the application, and having nice big reputable firm involved certainly increases the odds it will get approved. Furthermore, I actually emailed their investor relations folks and asked when they expect to hit the US markets. Surprisingly, they responded and told me they expect their application to be approved Q1 2021.
Once this puppy hits wallstreet, I see it breaking $1B USD in no time, which would be a 3x return. $3B-$5B doesn't seem unreasonable if the current market insanity persists through 2021.
We have the opportunity to get in on this company before those darned Americans pump it to the moon.
CANADIANS HAVE THE UPPER HAND IN THE STONK MARKET FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OUR DAMN LIVES. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT.
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PS: Risks. Risks. I think it's almost certain that these guys will issue more shares to raise some capital. They are kinda acting like the want to pump their own stock with unnecessary positive announcements, and honestly, they are pretty low on cash. Think they only have $9m on hand or something small like that. Too lazy to look it up again. Just watch out for dilution. My bet is that they will do it after listing on the US exchanges and mooning. But honestly I am not too worried in the long run because they need the cash to compete in this space.
PSS: More risks. If the us exchange application gets denied it will be bad bad news for my TFSA.