Gamasutra reports that Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia claims [PDF] that Blizzard’s next big MMO project, Titan, will be a “casual MMO”. Now, in my head at least, “casual” is Zynga, or maybe PopCap. Games with a shallow learning curve, and limited endgame complexity. Now Blizzard games might not be ultra-badcore brainburners, but they are also not casual, and I don’t expect that to change. Quite what analyst means by this term, of course, isn’t clear. Perhaps it was a slip of the finger. Or maybe he is so l33t that anything less ‘core than Darkfall doesn’t stand up in his book. Whatever it means, it paints what I think is an inaccurate picture.

My prediction? I say Titan will be an action MMO, probably an MMOFPS, with a sci-fi setting. It’ll aim wide, be accessible, and snare millions of gamers, but “casual” won’t be a word we use to describe it. Let’s come back here in two years and see who is right.