This take seems pretty wild to me, considering that freemium multi-player games have kinda dominated top-grossing for the last decade. Fortnite, League of Legends, Genshin, PUBG all follow this model.
Oh ok, then I guess we just have a different definitions. I would define AAA titles almost purely by budget/resources.
So for example, I would say that Fortnite and Genshin were AAA games from the start, and that LOL and Pubg became and have been AAA titles for years now.
League of Legends is a massive success but AAA? Not really. It's basically a Warcraft 3 mod.
And Pubg actually was a mod wasn't it?
I'm not questioning the success.
AAA implies a certain type of quality to me, and being a freemium content mill online service game is absolutely not it.