What happens when a single, working mother of three, can no longer find the time to attend her guild’s five-hour raid on the Karazhan dungeon? Simple – she finds something even less compelling to play.

Nick Fortugno, creator of the cell phone favorite Diner Dash, recently donated his wisdom to the Indie MMO Game Developer Conference. Speaking to an audience of approximately four attendees, Fortugno offered his perspective (covered by WorldsInMotion) on the future of massively multiplayer games, and how casual MMOs are a market ready for harvest.

While the dude is obviously not an idiot (he figured out how to manage a restaurant using only his right thumb), I have the sneaking suspicion he thinks casual gamers are total morons:

“Casual gamers don’t play casually. They don’t play games for any shorter duration than ‘hardcore’ gamers. There is a similar spread of long-and-short players as there are in traditional games. This is a myth in the casual games market too.”

If this factoid is true, then I have lost faith in humanity. This means that it’s not time that casual games are built around, its difficulty. Casual gamers are either total idiots, or have very poor hand-eye coordination.

He also goes on to call Second Life a hardcore game. Yes, the same game where the only objective is to collect the most naked avatar textures.

There’s also a lot to learn: geography, skills, and other elements that Fortugno says all add up to one conclusion: MMOs are hardcore. “Those games fail for casual gamers.”

Fortugno just knocked the entire Nintendo Wii Fan Club down a peg. Harsh. While we all knew it was true, Nick, you don’t have to go off and insult a bunch grandmothers and grade schoolers.

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