CASUAL GAMES: The biggest threat to the console games blockbuster industry is not TV, music or cinema, but so-called "casual" games.

If gaming is not central to your life, then perhaps casual gaming will do for you. The games are generally non-violent and convenient to play on an internet browser or another general-purpose gadget such as an iPhone. Apple’s machine is already estimated to make up 14 per cent of the casual games market and games dominate the applications store.

Social networkers love games, while games developers are rushing to tap the untold riches of social networks. Pet Society is played by three million virtual pet-lovers via Facebook every day. Five per cent of all time spent on the internet is spent playing games and the fastest growing websites in the world today are casual games sites.

Casual gamers are not the usual musky males but also “non-traditional segments”: little old ladies, curmudgeonly old men and others. It has even been suggested that casual games can help dieters by alleviating their cravings at crucial moments.

Advertisers love it because, it’s claimed, games drive 500 per cent better brand recognition in consumers than TV. Developers like them because, they are cheap to produce and highly profitable. This boom in free stuff doesn’t suit everyone, though. Ubiquitous free games prevent the big publishers from raising their prices too much.

An economist might say the overall games market is an example of “perfect competition”. Transparent, with lots of choice and value, and ever-downwards price pressure.

In the short, the consumer wins. In the long run, as JK Galbraith has noted, we are all dead.