Game Stocks Drop As Wall Street Crashes, Burns

Video game-related stocks have long been seen as a safe haven for investors, but even Blizzard was feeling the crunch today after the record-breaking 777 point drop on the Dow Jones industrial average.

The tech-based NASDAQ index saw a similar slide, dropping 199 points after the US House of Representatives voted down a bill to rescue the financial sector with $700 billion of taxpayer money.

The US gaming industry saw widespread drops, with Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts both seeing major hits. A mess of ugly numbers provided by GameSpot:

The share price of Activision Blizzard (World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero World Tour), the newly minted biggest third-party publisher on the planet, slid 13.8 percent ($2.26) to end the day at $14.12. Former top dog Electronic Arts (Madden NFL 09) saw $3.63 shaved off of its stock price, ending the day down 9.16 percent at $36 even. THQ (Saints Row 2) lost 7 percent, or $0.87, to close at $11.48, and shares in Take-Two Interactive (Grand Theft Auto IV) lost 4.52 percent ($0.73) to close at $15.43--nearly $10 less than its asking price one month ago.

GameSpot further notes that overseas publishers and console manufacturers were not immune from the turmoil, with Microsoft, Sony, and Eidos parent SCi Entertainment all posting significant losses. Publisher Ubisoft dropped a massive $17.92 per share to close at $65.37.