Consumers Seek Cheap Thrills
Even in a recession, people will still want to be entertained.
The Great Depression saw resilience and even growth in movie ticket sales as one of the cheapest ways for people to entertain themselves.
As this economy tightens through 2009, we’ll find growing numbers of “time rich-cash poor” consumers seeking today’s lowest cost methods to entertain themselves.
In general, this will benefit two categories of consumer Internet companies.
First, social media and social networks. These are free and endlessly entertaining. As mainstream media companies cut costs, the relative value and quality of user generated content increases.
MySpace, YouTube and Facebook all rank in the top 10 Web sites by aggregate time spent according to comScore. The most popular applications on Facebook and MySpace are all games, entertainment and lightweight communication, and these can provide endless hours of entertainment for users.
Second, games. Games are one of the most cost effective means of entertainment available. While a $10 movie ticket can provide 90 minutes of entertainment, a $60 computer game can easily provide 50-100 hours of entertainment.
Free-to-play web based games make this math even more compelling, whether they be casual game portals like Pogo, virtual worlds like Gaia or massively multiplayer games like Runescape. The Web site with the highest amount of time spent per visitor in October was Pogo.com with 444 minutes/visitor. Number two was Yahoo, with just 291 minutes/visitor in the same period.
Games in general, and free games in particular, can provide a lot of cheap thrills.
Photo by pogo.com.
Jaclyn on January 27th, 2009 2:44 pm
Even in an economy where money is tight, i still feel it’s important for all people to find some sort of entertainment even if it’s playing a game of go fish with your family or friend’s. you have to have some sort of release at the end of a busy and hectic week. my fiance and i only “go out” on special occasions such as holidays and birthdays. the rest of the time we watch movies we own, play cards or play games on the computer.
cassy on January 27th, 2009 5:30 pm
we cant stop the down economy but we can find enjoyment for our self and for me it is important,entertainment is a good idea to relax our self and forget the economic problem, like me i play cards with my friend or going to the park just to enjoy and relax from stress!
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