Ah, another of the gaming industry's "sacred cows" emerges: that "casual" gamers will not move up to more complex games! This isn't entirely false based on past precedent, but it's not even close to true, either.
When a person exits a market, it is due to their not being satisfied with the way the market is serving them any longer. Traditionally in gaming, this occurred because games only became more complex iterations of basically the same games (and as a result, game "sub-genres" emerged). There is nothing, however, that is in place which would prevent the newly introduced players from graduating up to a more complex type of game, so long as that more complex game still fits their values.
To this end, we have seen the release of titles which combine the old values (visuals, gameplay depth, complexity) and the new values (intuitiveness, gameplay quality, pick-up-and-play). Good examples of this are Super Smash Bros Brawl (which tilts in favor of the old values but encompasses the new ones as well), and Mario Kart Wii (which tilts in favor of the new values but encompasses the old ones as well). Both games have sold markedly well, better than their predecessors in the short run (and assuredly in the long run too). They are representative of what direction gaming is going in, and how gamers will graduate to more complex styles: they will be games which embrace the new values as well as the old, but the favor will shift towards the new values as time goes on.
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
