Note, I'm positing again 2 in the morning, I will reply to this some more during the day.

Of course, causal online gaming is a big and growing market. Here are some stats on causal online game in the States:

online game stats

sales info

page with more stats

Note, I DO NOT endorse the validity of the above data. Interpret at your own peril.

Are there similar data for the Chinese market? I will do some digging during the day.

Right now console gaming is the biggest money maker in the gaming industry. The question is will China eventually see some sort of growth in the console market due to the elimination of piracy, perhaps through the growth of digital downloads and the maturation of overall economy as China moves toward a information based society? Nonetheless I'm sure there will be growth in the Chinese market, for both casual and "hardcore" gaming. Look at Korea and Japan. Although Japan's gaming market has been in decline I believe. Well, forget Japan, see Korea! Another thing, Wii. I see Wii as a move away from hardcore-ness by Nintendo.

On a personal level I rarely play video games these days. I'm just too damn busy. I don't play any casual games either, I find those boring.

I like programming games a lot more. I like solving math problems (modeling etc) with computers, so programing complex games feed that particular demon quite nice. I'm happy with doing it as a hobby, well I wouldn't refuse a job in game development if I were offered one, but I've heard horror stories about the game industry so I'm not 100% sure. I would like to start my own game company tho.

I suppose I could also work in animation. It'd be similar type of work.

If I remember correctly there is a game developer conference (a industry trade show) in Shanghai in September. You guys may want to check it out.

Maybe the entire game industry is just played out and getting ready for a big nose dive. I doubt it.