'Of the year' implies a level of objectivity that is separated from simply ' a lot of people liked it.', at least in my opinion.
Nope. No it doesn’t. I don’t know where you are getting that from. “Of the year” means for this year, differentiating it from the previous years and the years to come. “This was the most popular game of the year as voted by our participants” does not imply any level of objectivity. That’s what this award is for.
Also, this whole line of thought of “well this award isn’t legitimate because it’s just players saying what they liked most,” is fucking weird. I think an award like that is more legitimate than any other award that can be won.
