From next-gen.biz: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8024&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=2
He talks about the industry's perception of the casual market from about half-down the page (shown here) but it goes on for too long to post the entire article.
"1. The So-Called Casual Game Market
Where the DS and Wii, Xbox Live Arcade and Wii Virtual Console succeed is in a space that many marketing people have gone to a lot of effort over the last few years to define as the "casual game" sphere. The assumption is that people who are not particularly interested in videogames as such, or at least don't think they are, can be lured into playing less demanding games, and paying a small amount for the experience. This distinction is positioned against the "core" gamer; the dedicated fan who will buy and play anything simply because it's a videogame. Although it's these people, who like real, demanding videogames, who really drive the medium, they're such a small segment of the population. Imagine if you could market and sell videogames to everyone! Five bucks from a hundred people is just as good as fifty from ten.
And all right. That's a little patronizing and backward, like saying that since kids have short attention spans there's no use crafting layered, fulfilling stories for them. But fair enough: there's an untapped market. And it's not like videogames have to put people off. In blind taste tests, most people preferred New Coke. Then when they were told what they had picked, they flipped out and didn't believe it. The product's reputation was so bad that they simply could not imagine themselves enjoying it.
The real problem occurs when the categories bleed over from demographics to design. It's one thing to say that Tetris or Pac-Man or Katamari Damacy has a "casual" appeal (meaning that people who do not regularly play videogames can pick them up and enjoy them). It's another to draw lines in the sand and deliberately solicit one or the other audience: casual games for casual gamers, and core games for core gamers. Not only is this not addressing the underlying problems; it's helping to further entrench and divide the industry – and often along bizarre lines. "
This is one section of one part of a 3 part article. For those interested:
Part one: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8022&Itemid=50
Part two: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8023&Itemid=2
Part three (from beginning): http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8024&Itemid=2
