Woodgod

Oh come on, people. Obviously the word "fantasy" can mean a lot of things, but we're talking about the genre of "fantasy" here, the genre of fiction that includes fantastic and supernatural elements, but isn't specifically made to horrify you. Unless you have a better category where such works should be filed under, people will use the term for orcs, wizards, and dragons.

For me, it's all about the aesthetics. I'm a huge fan of races, classes, locations, and especially the enemy variety presented in fantasy settings. With fantasy, you can include pretty much any kind of element without breaking immersion. Want to use orcs, dinosaurs, pirates, ninjas, Lovecraftian cults, or steam/clock/whateverpunk machines, and Greek myth all in a single setting? No problem. Of course, the elements should still fit the setting (including high tech laser wielding mechs in a Middle Earth-like setting wouldn't work, for example), but for the most part you can just use "it's magic" as an excuse. Gameplay-wise, this leads to a lot more interesting options for character abilities and encounters. Granted, a lot of fantasy does stick to the same old pseudo-Medieval Europe setting most of the time, but that is not really the fault of the genre. Games like Planescape, Arcanum, and Morrowind had interesting settings, while still being "high fantasy". I love sci-fi as well (Fallout 2 is my favorite RPG of all time), but you're a bit more restricted with what you can do, or at the very least, it requires a lot more justification (not so much with things like Star Wars, though, which is really just space fantasy).