The Gray Gamers

Where do venture capitalists see us consumers heading in 2009?

Some interesting predictions, such as:

3. Games 2.0

Grade: A. This year was a breakout year for social networking games, web based games and free to play games. I see this growth driving several of next years predictions as well, as you’ll see below.

Why?

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. It isn’t just Facebook and MySpace that will benefit though. Smaller social media sites that have built enough of a critical mass to have a self sustaining community will also see growing usage over the next year.

Jeremy Liew, being a venture capitalist and all, is a bit more optimistic about trends than I am. He makes some good observations and I like how he encourages easier ways to pay for what we want to play.

Did you know:

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.