Today’s five

• Casual gamers are key targets, reports eMarketer today. “US marketers spent $150 million advertising in casual games in 2006, from $124 million in 2005, according to DFC Intelligence and the Casual Games Association, cited in an Advertising Age article” and a 2006 Associate Press report and AOL study conducted by Ipsos of gaming types found that close to a third of US players ranked casual games as their favourite type. Full story here.
• This IGN report says that Nokia is getting sweet with Digital Chocolate, announcing a deal today that will see the mobile maker bring its games to the new N-Gage platform come fall. Only DChoc’s upcoming casual games suite, called Cafe, was named.
• Computerworld’s Eric Lai finally jumps in today with its Casual Connect report entitled Turning Play into Profit, a straight up facts and figures report about the casual gaming market in this article. “The archetypal player today, at least in the U.S., is an affluent middle-aged woman. According to a survey of MSN Games players, two-thirds are women with an average age of 43 and an average household income of $68,000 per year.”
• Gametunnel has released a Top 100 Independent Games list, complete with reviews, links to websites and download links. Check it out here. The #1 Indie Game? Moonpod’s Mr Robot, of course. I love this site.
• I’m going to Blogher tomorrow so there won’t be many, if any, reviews/updates until the 30th.

Happy gaming, all!