Who is The Sims?
Final Fantasy III (review elsewhere) = hardcore role-playing with a 3D lift, who was the game? Perhaps designed for those who like to live-action-role-play but would rather just stare at 3D renders instead? Possibly me? FF3 → audience. Nothing of sustenance without audience (case in point – mainstream press and Wal-Mart buyers found the game doubleplusungood – game sold well but results came back negative).
A disc that has a program called a "game" on it such as The Sims = audience (believe it or not). Wal-Mart buyers are less of potential buyers than Simish murmuring is an actual language (link Wal-Mart buyers to Sim stupidity – perhaps a bit to risque for general Gamespot browsers). *The Sims is by far a hardcore game.* Takes thought, drive, and actual motivation to create something. Without motivation, where does the "game" come from? The Sims = many little metagames that player so chooses to create!
Maintstream = term/concept that doesn't exist. Gamer levels of "hardcordity" (perfect word for the perfect concept) exist only as immaterial pieces of imagined and rarely determined respect; respect level to The Sims = zero. Why? "Hardcordity"doesn't exist anyway; rather, it's the idea that a person will respect you (the "player" of many games, all hail the man who beat Halo 3 Legendary ALONE!!!) if you show them what you have accomplished. Gamerpoints = the gamer resume of 2008.
The Sims =/ "Hardcordity." Nothing to be won or gained (conditions of victory/defeat exist solely in player's minds, ex. Putting a family in a tub and them removing the ladder is somehow fun to people). The Sims is not a game – common modern definition requires conditions to be met. The Sims is a tool - conditions to be created as the player continues, used in the manners in which the player so wishes. No respect to be had meeting conditions that never went through playtesting – Sims has no definable end, therefore, "Hardcordity" taken from the game's potential to reach the entire gaming populace as elitist nerds define the game as unwanted and only bought by "Wal-Mart shoppers" - again, a false stereotype. Who created the sterotype? Unknown. Creator of stereotype probably didn't understand the consequences of their mistake.
Halo = hardcore, yet no imagination required? Perhaps. Tactics and aiming are skills as much as Sims require 2X the amount of motivation any game has ever tried to make (rarely do the tools offer any sort of motivation; will a hammer ever jump up and say, "Good job!!!" No.) The Sims is big, The Sims is great, The Sims is not a "Game" "Game" in any modern definition.
Ignore stereotypes. The Sims = Hardcordity/respect/et cetera. What do you need to be told about The Sims that you don't already know?