When did a game being in early access disqualify it from someone's top 10 list or a game of the year nominee? If the game was bad or too unpolished, it wouldn't make anyone's list, but clearly that's not the case. The game must be doing something right if it's able to beat out other potential nominees.

Early access isn't an official launch of a game. 

So? It pretty much is in this industry. This is what people don't understand. The market makes the definitions a reality. If they don't follow the commonly held definitions, then those definitions are irrelevant. Not to bring in politics, but the same thing can be said for movements for example. A movement is constantly changing it's form and the dictionary definition of it is not going to dictate what is literally happening in a movement.

That being said, I don't mind not allowing a game to enter a top 10 because of it's early access status (though I think  it's obvious that for most people this just a way to censor a game on a list that most people don't want to be there). The thing is : It's just going to show up next year anyways. It's too popular of a game to see such a dramatic drop off that it wouldn't show up next year. And if it did have a huge drop off and wouldn't be a nominee next year, in this alternate dimension where it isn't considered because it's early access, that would be unfair since it would have been out for a year and most video games(even great ones) suffer from recency bias. Hell, that's why it's "of the year".

In conclusion, there is no real logical reason for us to wait other than it's glitchy, but as someone who instantly regretted buying Arma 3 because of bugs and glitches, I can say PUBG works enough to be a contender. It's one of the most memorable games this year and that shouldn't change because of  title, it's still an experience millions have played, this year.

Edit: Here's a better question. Instead of picking on a game that's already beloved by millions and one of the most successful games of the generation, what about early access titles that become much better after an official release? Because ... I don't think PUBG is one of those, and if it is was it's already nominated this year. Say for example Divinity Original Sin 3. What if that sucked for two years and then was amazing the 3rd year? Would it be up for a nomination or not? I guess these questions are interesting, sparking consistency is hard.  

The problem I have with an early access game being nominated is that early access is a great way to shield a game from criticism. Because it's still in early access the bad parts are overlooked, or forgiven. There's no review scores for early access games, since it'd be unfair for a publication to do a review for a game that is still being worked on. This has an effect of driving the discussion of a game towards only the positive things about the game. 

Meanwhile traditional releases are put under the microscope warts and all from the get go. 

I don't really think that's true ... ? Maybe fanboys but that's the same with every game

top anything and game of the year are always based on a mixture of pretentious critic pandering and how popular something is

people only want to call it out now because it's convenient when a game they want to win  or be added to a list doesn't or isn't, the reality is GOTY or best games of the year have almost always been irrelevant. It's more like an interesting viewpoint than a legitimate definitive list. And there's nothing wrong with disagreeing with them, I really like it for instance when people make their own lists because it's always fun to see their reasoning. Awards lists are similar : They're interesting to see, and sometimes I have an issue with them, but I rarely say that a game should never be on the list because of any reason, let alone one that's kind of irrelevant.

But honestly, PUBG would have been nominated whether or no it was early access. No one is excusing it's flaws, it's not like Geoff Keighley went to metacritic and saw PUBG had no scores and  then went "Oh, I guess I can add it in now!" Especially when every games outlet has already argued over whether or not it should be added, it's not exactly like PUBG's problems are dirty secrets, they're pretty well known. 

I don't want to be too argumentative but that's just my perspective. Greg Miller seems to have implied that a lot of big gaming outlets were already having a conversation about the authenticity of PUBG and if it should be nominated, so I think this is an industry wide discussion.