I dont know what the casuals you talk are since there is either gamers or opportunists.
People that just buy the Fifa or COD because they are IN are opportunists same goes for the people that bought Wii because it was IN at the moment.
So there is actually no such thing as casuals. Its mainstreamers/opportunists and real gamers the only difference is if a game is accessible (like angry birds space for example which would be considered HARDCORE in the 80s/ 90s) or is non-accessible with gameplay being a hurdle/to complicated?
And to the crisis thing I dunno I somewhat feel we already are in a crisis. Its not the same and wont be the same that happened in the 80s because now that gaming is HUGE there will always be a bigger company that buys smaller ones or their IP in case of the small ones going the way of the THQ. So there wont be a real crash anymore.
But again I think we already are in a crisis because the industry is destroying itself with all the micro payments/ DLC/ chapters / DRM / greed whatnot. And since they want to appeal to the people that are actually no real gamers just the games with the biggest marketing campaigns WIN and gameplay and VALUE have less and importance.
Well maybe the industry will crash when all companies turn their backs on the people that made them big and when gaming is NOT that cool anymore or when enough time passed and all the opportunists are gone and we are left with games real gamers dont want and companies that believe they lost all gamers.
