Look at the charts.  Go on.  This week it's packed with core gaming titles, there's some Zelda, a bit of Duke Nukem, Call of Duty Black Ops and Portal 2 are still holding their places in the top twenty, but what's number one?  None other than Zumba Fitness.  And over the past few years, gaming has emerged from its comfortable darkened corner of the entertaining industry and been embraced by the masses.  Everybody, it seems, is into video games on some level or another and the Wii led the way for casual gamers to not only come into the fore, but into existence.  Casual gamers mean big business for an industry that considers itself ailing, largely due to the current economic climate, but with squillions of people who'd never have considered owning a PlayStation 3 happily hooking Wii up to their television, what affect does this actually have on those of us who have always been gamers, who are core gamers and who like their games infused with complexity and challenge?

Casual games don't make you frustrated, they don't make you think anything like as much as core games, the challenge, where one exists, isn't about skill, it's about the kind of fun you left behind at school.  Party games where you have to look like a twat seem to dominate the casual gaming market; anybody can join in swinging a Wiimote around and hoping for the best, but what does that mean for proper gaming evenings when you all sat around playing a Halo title or Mortal Kombat or GTA IV?  What appears to be happening is that the casual gamer market has seduced developers, some of whom are dumbing their games down to appeal to more people, leaving us core gamers with overly brief and unchallenging titles.  The line between core and casual is becoming more and more blurred with the allure of greater revenue becoming the singlemost destructive force to the world of the core gamer.  Mark my words, we're all doomed!