Hardcore gamer = someone who plays only cinematic grizzed white dude games and/or military fetishizing FPS
Casual gamer = anyone that is not a 15-25 yo male, and/or plays anything outside of the previously mentioned games, especially if those games are colorful.
So basically the gaming community is full of gatekeeping, misogyny, toxic masculinity and general chuddery. They make sure they're the loudest voice heard when anything about games is talked about, and won't be happy until all games a homogenous stream of bland, hyper-realistic but with a grey filter slog of mindless action with no heart or soul. And don't you dare force them to read any dialogue or story.
People also don't pay to be unchallenged, which is how we wound up with derogatory nicknames like "walking simulator"
People's threshold for challenge and fun are all over the place and so are the games that do and should exist
But it doesn't work that way. They get lowered to the level of the customers who don't want to overcome challenges. All they want is a good feeling. And those brain chemicals that get released by being led by the nose around a level are real.
When you pay full price for a game, do you deserve to experience all of the content contained therein? Or do you have to spend hours of tedious frustration, feeling bad brain chemicals, just to get what you already paid good money for? You feel enough bad brain chemicals with your job and your family already, why are you spending your precious few free hours doing the same?
Because getting good at something and overcoming challenges also feels good?
But getting good feels like frustration to these customers. They don't want any negative feelings whatsoever. They want to turn on the game and receive a pleasing dose of brain chemicals, and it is up to the game to figure out how to deliver.
Basically, throw out that old-fashioned idea of read the manual, figure out how to play the game, die a lot, get better, die some more, feel like you know what you're doing, die less but still some, and then achieve mastery and you can make the game do what you want. Video games have gone past this and are into a next-level experience. It's a relative of the Skinner box now.