"When I was a kid, there were dozens of sports titles on the market and many of them were great VIDEOGAMES. Most people didn't care about how it interfaces, or didn't, with the actual sport. Some were very authentic. Some didn't even try.
Then 2 frustrating things happened:
1) NBA Jam was a massive success and the term 'arcade sports title' became erroneously synonymous with 'no rules' gameplay and unrepentant in-game violence despite almost no arcade game before JAM doing that except arch rivals.
2)more sophisticated hardware began to attract the 'sports gamer' who may ONLY play sports games and wanted authenticity above all else. It was more important to that player to have authentic rosters with photos of players than to play a game that was actually fun.
The end result was sports games that were heavy in authentic detail and light in quality game design."
Then 2 frustrating things happened:
1) NBA Jam was a massive success and the term 'arcade sports title' became erroneously synonymous with 'no rules' gameplay and unrepentant in-game violence despite almost no arcade game before JAM doing that except arch rivals.
2)more sophisticated hardware began to attract the 'sports gamer' who may ONLY play sports games and wanted authenticity above all else. It was more important to that player to have authentic rosters with photos of players than to play a game that was actually fun.
The end result was sports games that were heavy in authentic detail and light in quality game design."
I've written about that topic many times before! For example, here I am discussing how the 3DO's "The Need for Speed" selectively and cleverly sacrifices realism in lieu of making a more fun game. I give another example in this post in the form of the classic DOS flight sim "Aces of the Pacific": those era flight sims games were just realistic enough to feel authentic-- but otherwise focused on being fun, character-filled games first and foremost.
In fact, that schism the commenter mentions-- this huge rift between people who want "casual" and those who want absolute realism-- has resulted in the middle ground being totally lost across the entire games industry! The only exceptions I can even think of are the "Forza Motorsport" and "Gran Turismo" simcade racing titles-- and even those lean maybe too much towards "sim".