No body is saying that casual games are not games, things is hardcore community (and it’s not just males) don’t see them up to quality, as casual market got fully infested by F2P, they see those games as designed exclusively (but not always) to drain money from them, they see it as vision of how hardcore games may end if practices of some big players gonna continue, end that why they embrace hardcore indie market (because casual market is primary indie) which concentrate more on design not money, as i know that one of the reasons why some big names from big companies jumped to indie. They discredit it as that statistic is used by ultra liberals as one of reason why changes need to be imposed in hardcore games, where statistic includes casual market where obviously there bigger female userbase
Ofcorse all of this is irreverent in context of female developers in UE4, as UE4 aim for both.