I’m a bit late on this, but… Friend of Zen Richard Aihoshi pointed out a soapbox on his own site, RPGVault, which touched on the hardcore vs casual concepts we’ve been talking about here.

Now, we’re all seeing the lines blur between the two different audiences, the two different types of play patterns and lifestyles. Someone who plays Halo on the Xbox is the same person downloading Oasis from PlayFirst.com. To say that a hardcore gamer isn’t interested in different types of play experiences is as crazy as saying I shouldn’t like bands as different as Rush and Eminem -I won’t date myself by saying which Rush albums are my favorites… but I digress.

Interestingly, where casual gamers have been traditionally viewed as people who occasionally play solitaire on the computer, and core gamers are the select few who are really devoted to their games, we are now seeing these roles merge. Casual audiences are behaving like core gamers – playing longer, later, faster and demanding smarter games – and core gamers are enjoying less hardcore experiences, as demonstrated by the popularity of titles like Wii Sports and Guitar Hero. Our research suggests that casual gamers are starting to do what core gamers have done for years, adopt and grow communities around their favorite content experiences.