It's funny going to friends' and acquaintances' places and seeing Halo, Fifa, Forza and Cod. Seriously, every other time that I see a console, they only have a few mainstream games, which is all good, but surprising. I thought they'd all have random games.

My flatmate plays cod all the time (though I have more than 100 ps3 games right next to the console) and my best friend 45% Fifa, and 55% Football manager. Nothing else!

All my brother plays is CoD (and that at least 3hours per day...).
And belive me I've tried to get him to play other games, he could borrow any of mine and has acces to my ps+ on his ps3... but you know somehow playing CoD all day long is way more interesting....

They cared about Need for Speed last gen.

these are casuals in my book

I would add Mario, MarioKart and WiiSports. And NHL - I'm Canadian.

call of duty is so mainstream that has become the game for casuals, I always get a kick out of the 8-12 year old kids who try to impose their gaming knowledge when they've only playe CoD, any other M-rated shooter and anything with zombies.

I'd give sports games a pass, if they're really a devout sports fans then I can consider them a core gamer of the sports genre; I have friends who dissapear off the face of the earth whenever Madden, NBA 2K, MLB: The Show, or Fifa come out

I think those are the casual gamers who buy what the TV tells them to buy =)

A 40 year old dad with a life, who plays off and on, may get into Call of Duty with his kids.  But no way does he do GTA at this point.  GTA is for the early 20s and college guys, and teens who get it despite the M-Rating, who don't have much lives and want to pour hours on end into something like GTA.  Sports may be another option.

Mainstream and casual gamers are two WAY different things. Mainstream gamers only play games like COD or Madden, casual gamers are the ones that play every once in awhile and most of the time only play 'simple' games, like Angry Birds, bejewled, ect. Thats how i look at it anyway.

that's a narrow selection of games. I care about the first two franchises in your post,but I also like alot more kinds of games.