The news, now confirmed by EA in an email correspondence with , appears to signal that the video games publisher, once the world's largest, has accepted the fact that "casual gamers" simply do not exist.

"We've learned a lot about casual entertainment in the past two years, and found that casual gaming defies a single genre and demographic." read a statement obtained by GameDaily. "With Kathy's departure, EA is reorganizing to integrate casual games -- development and marketing -- into other divisions of our business. We are merging our Casual Studios, Hasbro partnership, and Casual marketing organization with The Sims Label to be a new Sims and Casual Label, where there is a deep compatibility in the product design, marketing and demographics."

The casual games EA label also included the mini-game web site , which will no doubt be redistributed elsewhere within EA following Thursday's news. Other unnamed properties will be folded into the The Sims label, said a note from EA chief John Riccitiello.

The admonition appears to be an indirect endorsement of Nintendo's current all-inclusive software strategy, which has made the Kyoto-based hardware and software provider the largest, most successful company of its kind. Nintendo executives like Satoru Iwata, Reggie Fils-Aime, and Shigeru Miyamoto have that there is no such thing as a "casual gamer." There are only gamers and non-gamers, they've said, on numerous occasions. EA, apparently, agrees.