I agree 100% with that list. awesome selection.

Except there is no such thing as an "anything of the year that is void of bias". Everybody has a bias, there is no such thing asd a truly objective assessment of game quality. Everyone's view is coloured by their experiences, personality, agenda, etc.

You see you're just going round in circles while still somehow stating the obvious. However the conclusions you seem to be arriving from your very sound observations aren't accurate.

Lets make it simple. Movies, music, art, games..... basically anything that is interacted with by people on a personal level always boils down to nothing but pure preference. Its why I think Man of steel was the best superman movie ever, yet a lot of people think it wasn't. Its why I think Justin bieber should be hung, yet some people would probably hang me for saying that.

But now heer is where it gets interesting, when looking at anykind of award ceremony, (of which a game of the year falls squarely into) then how those results are arrived at is basically by pooling the cummulation of very things you mentioned. i.e; yes, lets accept that everyones view is coloured by whatever it is that colours their views, so what you focus on is whatever it is that a lot of poeple are choosing to be the best. This means that something in that thing has connected to or touched way more poeple than anything else at the sampled time.

So to put things simply, yes, everyone looks at/takes games differently; that is why what we focus on is whatever game it is that the "majority" of people agree to be the best, thats how awards are supposed to be made. But this is a personal list, which is what i noticed, but if this were an actual game of the year thread, then at the end of a fixed period of time the number of mentions particular games received in relation to  years will be calculated and the game with the most mentions win. Kinda simple when you think about it. 

As an example, simply from scrolling through this thread, you wil notice that games for '97 and '98 FF7 and MGS are pretty much the most mentioned games for those years. That doesn't mean ocarina of time wasn't great, just means that more people think that MGS is better.

Completely agree with this list. Especially having FFIII there and not FFVII

Popularity doesn't equal objective quality though.

*hanged*

That drives me nuts.

so what about most popular objective quality?

Popularity is the result of perceptions, which by their very nature are subjective. That more people think something doesn't make it any more true.

Strange list

Horrible list.