See people in many forums talking about how these types of awards that user voting are just popularity contests. Isn't that really the point?
Not really, no, at least not to me. There are already plenty of ways to see what game is selling the best, and how it has been received. Why ask people to vote all together, and not just use metacritic/steam reviews, sales and hand out additional badges based on that? What's a benefit of such badge, if it's handed to a project on a basis of being already very successful?
For me there’s a difference between buying or playing a game, and thinking that a game is the best I played in that year.
You cannot get that from sales numbers, because even if I buy the game, and even if I play it a lot, that may just be because I can do it casually on the side, while a game I play only for 3-4 hours may have such a lasting impact that I consider it the best I played. Though BG3 gets it on both axes (it’s also the game I’m playing the most).
Anyway: I consider the award well-deserved. BG3 is easily the best game I played in the past 5 years, maybe longer.
