As a result of the audience for the Dash games, Welch noted that they had decided to "expand the game universe aggressively": "Players who have a relationship with Flo can bring that relationship along with the skills they've learned to Wedding Dash, Doggie Dash, Dairy Dash and so on. Even with a bunch of fashion and clothing store games on the market, players will be more inclined to buy Fashion Dash because it expands on a story world that they love."

PopCap have a slightly different take. "We don't really try to cater to the current trends. We just make games that we think are fun ourselves, said Kapalka. "Before you had Bejeweled, nobody was specifically asking for a game where you swap gems to make sets of three. Likewise with Peggle -- even WE weren't clamoring for a 'pachinko-meets-pinball' game before Peggle showed up!"

"If you cater to the increasingly sophisticated casual players who want more complexity in their games too much, you end up alienating the 'new' casual players, and following in the footsteps of the mainstream game industry," he warned.

"We're certainly making more sophisticated games now, but we're trying hard to make them accessible to people who've never played a game before in their lives, not just those who are familiar with our existing games."

The Casual Games Industry vs. The Games Industry

Is the comparison between the casual games industry and the mainstream games industry useful?

"Yes, I think they're analogous," felt Welch. "Casual games are becoming more complex and hardcore games are becoming more casual. Look at the Wii -- I don't think it's a 'casual' platform, because I don't think any proprietary dedicated gaming box can be 'casual', but I do think it represents the casualization of the console gaming industry. And as the casual player becomes more sophisticated, more educated, they demand more."

"I was reading our message boards a few days ago and there was a thread saying Wedding Dash 2 is harder than the original. One user said, 'Of course it is -- we already know how to play.' This is absolutely correct -- if we don't ratchet it up a bit we'll lose our most precious fans -- but at the same time there will be... new people playing [the franchise] for the first time in the sequel, so we also have to make sure we're not losing them out of the gate. "

"This is the same issue console developers face, but the difference is a person generally buys a console game before playing it, plus those are less 'casual' players to begin with, so they are a little more comfortable with dying ten times before they figure it out," Welch expanded. "Casual gamers are actually a more discriminating audience in a sense because they aren't so forgiving."

Carroll had a more wry opinion on the comparison. "Tetris wouldn't be released today in the casual games space unless it had a story mode about you working your way across the world looking for clues about your missing uncle one Tetris round at a time," he quipped. "Sadly I think casual games have started to feel some of that bloat of traditional games; adding features and fluff to the point of obscuring the core gameplay."

Reflexive Entertainment's Wik: Fable of Souls

"Just as the consoles are waking up to the opportunity of being a bit more casual," concluded Welch," we must make sure we don't fall into the same trap they did by getting too complex and losing the masses."