OE a war game -or- not

As much as I like OE, and have started to enjoy group combat. I keep seeing in places (OE forum, this forum, nnn news site) that OE is a war game. Coming from a group vs group military strat "war" game. Im failing to see how OE falls into the same category. Just because you have guns, doesnt make this a war game(guns are for combat income)

Reasons:
No war system defining waring factions.
No actual win or loss that is defined by a war system.

^These are a part of every war game I played and I believe is what makes them successful.


OE is a progressive mmo that has groups of strong players that have the ability to fight with other groups of strong players.
Its not war games, its just human nature.

It's an Empire game Empires build up their structure, create things, modify, influence human nature. Empires rise, and empires fall...

OE is a game, and it has wars. Overall, the primary classification I think is MMO.