And you can kind of ease a person into hardcore RPGs, as was my case...but....
The first RPG of any description I played was Phantasy Star on the SMS. I rented it because I read in magazines how great it was supposed to be, one of the best games on the system. Plus the presentation was new and strange to me. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing in the game, but I liked the music and the concept of wandering around with enemies popping up and finding a cave and not sure what it was there for; I tried other people's saved games and I saw that you could get better weapons and find vehicles. Very cool, but had no idea how to get there.
Then I tried Ys and a couple of other SMS RPGs.
Then came one of those Fighting Fantasy novels. Still didn't grasp the RPG concept, and I pretty much just cheated the book until I "won." Not until the 16 bit days did I get it.
Was a JRPGfag for a while, with the occasional western game on consoles (e.g. Shadowrun on Genesis). In college I played my first real RPG, pen and paper DnD, then a couple others. Then later I saw a friend play Baldur's Gate 2 on PC and that was it. I began to prefer crpgs because they were closer to the tabletop xperience. I haven't really looked back since. Now the more details, c&C, ways to build a character, more quest solutions, the better. I eat complex games for breakfast. Dwarf Fortress is popamole to me now
Thing is, this is a path that gamers today don't really have the benefit of treading. I grew as the genre grew. The games got more sophisticated and as well more impressive. So the new shit were the more sophisticated games. Better looking, better animation, better sound, voice work, more immersive, etc. Incline wasn't really a choice I had to make, just the way things progressed. Nowadays the hot new, better looking shit is the dumber shit. They have to settle for games that are "out of date" if they want something more rigorous. Many can't make that leap, and I've seen this sentiment on forums.
Another thing is, I was never really part of the nerd caste. I dabbled in everything, hung around everyone: sports, games, trouble making, books, art, fighting, etc. I'm amorphous. Still, numbers in games never daunted me. Complex tasks never daunted me. But having seen all sides of the fence, yeah, a lot, a lot of people are afraid of numbers, just want immediate thrills. Some are just weak minded, lazy, or pussies. They far exceed the numbers of people who relish the kinds of games we do here. I've had people be impressed by my ability to do simple calculations on the spot. I mean real simple stuff, I'm unskilled in math compared to any rank and file real nerd/geek. You guys who even only dabble in it might as well be sorcerers to me when it comes to that. Couldn't tell you much about space/astronomy, calculus, anything beyond the most basic physics lessons.