So why push out games that are 'more' RPG in favour of a game that doesn't need to be lauded. Someone's gone to all the effort to make a game which is more dedicated to the genre one is favouring and yet one still wishes to offer the prize to a game that is only mildly associated with the genre.
It might not be wrong in a philosophical sense, but it sure is demotivating?
I completely agree and therefore also split my votes into RPGs and not-really-RPGs and let you decide on what to count from that.
That said, here is my attempt of an explanation:
1. RPGs are not clearly defined in any regard. I know of the form to check whether or not a game is an RPG or not. However, there have been very big variations about what an RPG actually is. And while some were "normal RPGs" back then, they would likely not be today anymore. It basically even starts before computer RPGs appeared as Pen and Paper RPGs evolved from Miniature-Wargames.
There was only dungeoncrawling and looting at the beginning. Then real stories came into the genre. Stories then pushed game mechanics into the background and hardly left anything remaining from "classical" RPGs. Is Systemshock a RPG, is Deus Ex? If yes, then it's not far until you arrive at any modern shooter which all come with loot and character development. Then you got all the hack and slay games, which are basically not considered real RPGs by some people since they exist. So what is the essential part of an RPG, one element which all RPGs have? The only thing I can come up with is character development. And this element is basically covered by every other game as well these days, including Xcom.
2. The second possible explanation is the following: Classical RPGs are already quite niche. But you know what's even more niche? Tactics games, especially turn based. Yes, they had somewhat of a revival after Firaxis XCom in 2012. But before that, they were pretty much dead since Jagged Alliance 2 in 1999. So if you want to play tactics games, you basically have to look for tatical combat in other genres...like RPGs.
And RPGs are not that far of, considering how close Jagged Alliance is to XCom. Jagged Alliance already was sold as Tactics game with RPG elements, but it also had several similarities to Fallout 1/2.
So RPGs kinda also became the playground for tatics fans. Personally I was active in the community of taktikzone.de. But that page pretty much died 2012 already and went offline a short while ago
(
https://web.archive.org/web/2019*/http://taktikzone.de/ )
But with RPGs being used as tactics games, that also means that people might want to vote for them. I also remind of Tahira. A game which advertises itself as RPG in the steam store. A game which as absolutely no RPG elements. But apparently the RPG genre is the way to appeal to tactics fans.