All three of those things were added in Sept-Nov of 2021. By January 2021 the game had already sold >1 million copies.
It was absolutely a game at that point, ask anyone who played it. Being blatantly unfinished doesn’t matter, it would have remained a game even if he never ended any of those features.
This is a straight-up lie. Hardcore and the Ender Dragon were added in 2012, in the patch that would become 1.0.0. Score was added in 0.24_SURVIVAL_TEST in 2009 (https://minecraft.wiki/w/Java_Edition_Classic_0.24_SURVIVAL_...). Do you have any examples that aren’t outright fabrications?
It was absolutely a game at that point, ask anyone who played it. Being blatantly unfinished doesn’t matter, it would have remained a game even if he never ended any of those features.