I’ve no problem with it being a ‘game.’. In fact something to give purpose and a true native multiplayer experience is sorely needed.
This need not be incompatible with realistic aviation. Just because there are game-like elements does not necessarily equate to low realism. As one reputable Dev pointed out earlier today on their Discord, everything shown in the trailer was reflective of real world flight operations. They didn’t see it as arcade. But of course it all depends on just how it’s implemented.
Here were my thoughts on how you could improve the career-multiplayer part of it at least without sacrificing realism, but lean into the fact that you have this online community that at the moment have only a very limited shared experience: