The human race is simply an amazing group of “beings”. If you’re reading this post, you already know that we’ve come a long way from, say, the invention of the Ford Model-T. A long way, indeed, wouldn’t you say, since now the automobile industry is in need of $70 billion bailouts!
But, beyond these inventions – or rather, in addition to these inventions – humans have an amazing ability to mobilize hordes of people to do something. Do you or any of your friends have a Playstation (2 or 3), an Xbox 360, or a Wii? If so, it is quite likely that the owner of the aforementioned gaming console might occasionally (and sometimes more than occasionally) connect to the Internet via the console and play some game with other people around the world. Yup, you can sit in your living room in Tacoma, Washington, for example, and play “Call of Duty” with someone in Tallinn, Estonia. These aren’t things people really think about, but if you do, I’d say that’s pretty impressive! In April 08, NPD Group released the results of a gaming study which stated that 72% of Americans play video games, with 42% of them playing online.
For the “marketing and consumer” world, apparently that 42% is a small number, but let’s do the math, shall we:
Population of US online gamers
Population: 305,519,012
% of gamers: 72%
Total# of gamers: 219,973,689
% of online gamers: 42%
Total# of online gamers: 92,388,949
Population number provided by US Census Bureau
Wow! Now, I work in marketing, and I can totally understand that the goal is to “grow your market”. In my world, if I could access over 92 million people, I wouldn’t be scoffing at that. Ninety-two million Americans play video games online. If each of those people gave 1 penny - $0.01 – we would raise $923,889.49 USD.
OK, let’s bring that number back to the “Lemon Tree” concept… I’ve made a couple of assumptions here. Let’s assume a family of 4 needs about $800/month for food. It may sound like a lot, but next time you go to the grocery store, look at prices considering what you would really want to feed your children. Let’s assume this family makes slightly over the “line of poverty”. They won’t get food stamps, so they will spend the bulk of their budget on the food. Wouldn’t it be amazing to put that $800 back into their pockets for other expenses like, say, electricity, heat, laundry detergent or rent??
Check this out! With the $923,889.49 USD we could raise by getting a single penny from each of Americas online gamers, we could feed 96 families in the US! OK, so 96 families – yippee doo-dah, right? It’s 96 more than we had an option to help before; and that’s with only 1 penny! Make it a buck, and you get to help 9,624 families. That’s only in the US. Last I checked Canadians were even more into online gaming (per capita). I bet we could make a little bit of a dent into our poverty challenge in North America, don’t you think?
Alright, I’ve made my point… now, how can we begin collecting this cash, and making sure it gets to the right people?
But, beyond these inventions – or rather, in addition to these inventions – humans have an amazing ability to mobilize hordes of people to do something. Do you or any of your friends have a Playstation (2 or 3), an Xbox 360, or a Wii? If so, it is quite likely that the owner of the aforementioned gaming console might occasionally (and sometimes more than occasionally) connect to the Internet via the console and play some game with other people around the world. Yup, you can sit in your living room in Tacoma, Washington, for example, and play “Call of Duty” with someone in Tallinn, Estonia. These aren’t things people really think about, but if you do, I’d say that’s pretty impressive! In April 08, NPD Group released the results of a gaming study which stated that 72% of Americans play video games, with 42% of them playing online.
For the “marketing and consumer” world, apparently that 42% is a small number, but let’s do the math, shall we:
Population of US online gamers
Population: 305,519,012
% of gamers: 72%
Total# of gamers: 219,973,689
% of online gamers: 42%
Total# of online gamers: 92,388,949
Population number provided by US Census Bureau
Wow! Now, I work in marketing, and I can totally understand that the goal is to “grow your market”. In my world, if I could access over 92 million people, I wouldn’t be scoffing at that. Ninety-two million Americans play video games online. If each of those people gave 1 penny - $0.01 – we would raise $923,889.49 USD.
OK, let’s bring that number back to the “Lemon Tree” concept… I’ve made a couple of assumptions here. Let’s assume a family of 4 needs about $800/month for food. It may sound like a lot, but next time you go to the grocery store, look at prices considering what you would really want to feed your children. Let’s assume this family makes slightly over the “line of poverty”. They won’t get food stamps, so they will spend the bulk of their budget on the food. Wouldn’t it be amazing to put that $800 back into their pockets for other expenses like, say, electricity, heat, laundry detergent or rent??
Check this out! With the $923,889.49 USD we could raise by getting a single penny from each of Americas online gamers, we could feed 96 families in the US! OK, so 96 families – yippee doo-dah, right? It’s 96 more than we had an option to help before; and that’s with only 1 penny! Make it a buck, and you get to help 9,624 families. That’s only in the US. Last I checked Canadians were even more into online gaming (per capita). I bet we could make a little bit of a dent into our poverty challenge in North America, don’t you think?
Alright, I’ve made my point… now, how can we begin collecting this cash, and making sure it gets to the right people?
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