1) It's simple to learn, so anyone can play it.

2) Including grandparents.

3) There is no blood or gore (calm down nerds I'm not talking about battle chess)

4) There is no storyline

5) Game sites are calling Chess casual.

6) It's sold a ton of copies.

Chess - casual game for the masses?  

Bonus question:  Can you name one game *before* video games that was hardcore?

Yeah, we get it. You like the wii.

No, it's about as hardcore as games ge-I see what you did there.

There's no such thing as casual/hardcore games. Casual or hardcore is in the way you play games, not the games themselves. If you have seen some Wii Play youtube videos you probably know what I mean.

The same for chess, you can play it casually or hardcore.

Go?

Dungeons and Dragons?

Mech Warrior Board game? (ok, so my missles hit your left rear armor, your right leg and your right arm... dealing damage to all three... your leg was hit hard, so roll for stability, staying consious, your arm blew off, so roll to see what negative effect happens, oh and i hit a critical on the rear armor so roll to see what it any of the 5 parts in the rear armor it hurts.)

 Why do game sites call it casual?

It's a misnomer.

Backgammon is teh hardcore!!!

Because most game journalists are clinging to the casual/hardcore distinction in order to prop the 360/PS3 up and the Wii down?

Good call, all around.  If you'd like to come over later we can play some D&D.  I have the newest descriptions of our characters, they're so advanced that the image you get in your mind when I tell them to you is like 1080p realistic.