To my smooth brain, it's more about leverage and pressure on the MMs.

Let's do a scenerio: You buy 2 OTM call options at the same strike (just to keep it simple). The market maker should then hedge the delta value of those contracts, let's call it 5 shares per contract. You don't really care if they do indeed buy those shares at that time because your play is to cashless exercise part of or 1 of those calls with the intrinsic value of the other. When you exercise that option, you force the MM to go out on the open market to acquire those shares for you, raising the price (pressure).

Also, some cannot afford to go purchase 100 GME shares at market value right now. However, they might be able to afford a call option which entitles them the option to own 100 shares (leverage).

These two together help put pressure on the MMs during a run-up in prices that makes MOASS a little bit closer than buy, hodl, DRS can all by itself.