Madden and other Sports Titles were casual far before this hardcore casual garbage terminology.
What makes Madden Casual. Most centered(Core if you will) players have a tendency to like graphical or complex in regard to gameplay(debatable if it's complex). However there has always been a sub group that was lumped into this central player group. The Sports Gamer. This is a different breed of gamer than the core, but there purchases was often reflected into the core gamer. The Sports Gamer wants the most realistic sports gaming that they can get. They want to play the best looking graphics(graphics whore) they also want the most deepest and complex sports simulation(central gamer). However often the Sports gamer didn't buy any other game at all. No FPS, RPG, Action.... I have known to many gamers like this in the casual area of gaming.
Can you really call a Sports gamer hardcore when it's the only game they buy? They fall into the consumer behavior of "casual" consumer. Much like women buy Wii for Wiifit. The spending behavior and game usage is the same. The "hardcore" only like to grab the sports game as hardcore because of the sports gamer buys the best graphical machine and play on the best tv which places the same hardware values as the so called "hardcore".
So the truth of the matter is that the casual hardcore thing always existed since the beginning of gaming or still never existed at all. The definitions would be old value vs new value. Power vs Experience. Technical Achievement vs Game play. Complex vs Intuitive.
Squilliam: On Vgcharts its a commonly accepted practice to twist the bounds of plausibility in order to support your argument or agenda so I think its pretty cool that this gives me the precedent to say whatever I damn well please.
