It appears like a game because the game is actually a scam, and the scam is the driver of play.

I don't have as clear of a scam test, but its something like:

• is limiting the amount of play the primary challenge of the game?
• are there geometrically scaling quantities, like a crafting or item ranking mechanism, that produces a Shepard's tone treadmill: a feeling of constantly accelerating progression
• are there multiple counters that function like currencies, and can they be exchanged for one another?
• if multiple, there is at least one currency whose means of gaining it is regulated by a) real world time, and b) play time
• are any of the above remedied by paying real money?
• is there a leaderboard/social element? If so, is the multiplayer gameplay implausible? Are the social mechanisms indistinguishable from if all the other players were fictional and there was simply no means of connecting multiple players ?