I haven't read that particular detail but it wouldn't surprise me. Though it's not a particularly clever line of argument since fundamentally it is a game, even if it does have a sprinkling of non-game aspects to it. I'd argue that when a game has aspects which are "more than just a game", the error is in our description of what a game is.

I suppose you could bolt a rudimentary spreadsheet feature onto Call Of Duty but that doesn't stop it from being any less of a video game. This isn't interesting and it certainly isn't clever.

A more interesting question would be if Microsoft Excel iOS had a little Sudoku mini-game buried in a submenu.