As an organized team sport it is accepted as a foundational sport along with others to teach youth the basics of strategy, team work, and self sacrifice that may one day be needed to help train them for war. It is not a war game but, can be aided by strategies from war. It is a game opposed to games designed specifically as war games to teach or test the strategies and principles of war.
The Melee arena is a daily cluster flop of keystone cops arena so customers can play act at war if that is what they choose between their ears. While running around like ferrets in a chicken shed throwing poo at each other and acting all kinds of ridiculous. You can get a taste of it in these forums by reading the years of complaints about how everyone else plays the Melee arena game wrong. There has never been any right way to play in the Melee arena, just play and take your chances.
Defining the Melee arena play as a war game is one more person who wants everyone else to play in the Melee arena their personal special way because, because, because, you get the point. There is not a special ingredient in the Melee arena noodle sauce. You just up a ride and take your chances like everyone has done since 1999 in the Melee arena.