When it rains, it pours. EA has gone ahead and closed down their Casual Label, merging it and their Hasbro partnership with the Sims Label. EA Mobile, Pogo, Media Sales and Online Casual Initiatives will also be merged but there is still no word on where they'll end up.

EA's casual gaming division is poised to deliver an amped up version of the timeless board game Monopoly to the gaming world. They'll be releasing it this Fall and development is in full swing. We've got details in the full article up next.

A study, commissioned by PopCap Games, showed that women love a good game of Cake Mania, and they aren't shy about it. After media content providers were determined to deliver advertisements catering to the young male bracket on consoles, the study by Information Solutions Group (ISG) reveals that casual gamers are "predominantly female."

Looking for numbers? Try 76% casual gamers that are female against 24% male casual gamers. And even over at Yahoo! Games and Electronic Arts casual gaming bet Pogo, more casual gamers are female.

The non-gamer bracket that included your girlfriend and your grandmother is now blessed with a gamers' edge on Zuma, thanks to the simplistic, yet entertaining casual game. With Miyamoto's previous speech on catering the Nintendo Wii to women, it's now clear that introducing games to the female bracket shows just how big of a market the game industry can tap into.

The games women play may not be "hardcore," but it's a start for toning hand-eye coordination technique and basic game mechanics. Females are entering the mainstream gaming scene, and not as promo girls on the side (mind you).

Even if the hardcore gamers are predominantly male, it's no indication that it should stay that way. There are already girl gamers around in the professional gaming scene, and it won't be a surprise if that increased this year, too.

One such study back in 2006 highlighted that 42% of adult console gamers were female, and the rest were male. In a broader scale, PC and console games were played by more males than females: 62% against 38%. So in essence, the gaming demographics is becoming more evenly distributed as time rolls on.

And with the success of the Nintendo Wii and MMO games, this year could spell the game industry's renewed focus on delivering games to gamers, and not games to males only.

IGN caught up with Bizarre's community and web lead, Ben Ward, to talk about Boom Boom Rocket, an upcoming game for the Xbox Live Arcade, and Geometry Wars, one of the most played Live games on the Xbox 360 console.

Ben says that EA's Pogo Studio approached the Bizarre Geometry Wars team with a bare bones concept on BBR. Pogo was keen on working with Bizarre, especially after their Geometry Wars pedigree. Bizarre was also excited with the new concept, namely, BBR. And so, Pogo has been involved with Bizarre with nearly every step of the development process.

Although BBR has been compared to Fantavision, Ben says that the only likes those two have is fireworks. BBR is more like DDR or Guitar Hero, says Ben. It's a really fast and frantic game, and Ben adds that Bizarre is willing to make more tracks for downloadable content if the fans ask for it.

The team also looked at the possibility that the fans might want to create their own custom sound track, but Ben says it didn't work out. This is because the level needs to be specifically designed to ensure that the gameplay matches the music. He also says that although there's already a high bar to set from the success of Geometry Wars, BBR is a different game altogether and the challenges are different.

Now that Microsoft has increased the size limit of XBLA games, IGN asked Ben if BBR would exceed the previous size limit of 50MB, but Ben remains mum on the specs of the game, assuring only that every bit of space needed will be used to make BBR the game that it deserves to be.

When asked if Bizarre is also thinking of making games for the Playstation Network, after having produced games only for the XBLA, Ben promisingly replied that he sees no reason why they can't produce for Sony, being an independent studio that they are. But, having seen huge success from having produced for the XBLA, Ben says Bizarre might still continue down this road.