Yeah, it seems that at least two awards this year are the results of doing it for lulz :/

It really depends on what you’re looking for. A lot of people like that amazing sandbox with a decent story. The quests and “gotta get from A to B to finish this asap!” are secondary to it. They just want to get lost in the world and see how detailed and how much thought was put into the hunting, fishing, etc. if you’re a “gotta attack the story” type person, you probably won’t like it as much.

combination of irony votes and just being the most recognizable names on their lists.

I get this, but when you're talking about Rowling's work (and some of the others) it becomes an issue for people of looking back at their work and going "oh, their views were blatantly spelled out here the entire time, I was just too young to notice it." Plus, Rowling specifically said, in no uncertain terms, that every time somebody buys her stuff, she takes it as an endorsement of her beliefs and uses part of that money to fund groups that align with her beliefs.

With Hogwarts Legacy though, it wasn't just the source material and Rowling, but also a case of some of the people working on the game who were putting stuff in that when looked at in context just made it more and more of a "okay, once or twice is a coincidence...but we're up to 4 and I keep finding more" situation.

There was the fact that the lead game designer stepped down partway through the project. Why did he step down? Because it came out that he ran a right-wing extremist YouTube channel (that's still up to this day afaik) with white supremacist views on full display. So he decided to step down to avoid the controversy it was starting to bring to the development of the game. But, when he stepped down, he made a statement about "feeling like he was among like-minded people on the team."

So with that statement in mind, when the game came out, people began noticing...odd references in the game's lore. Stuff like a goblin war horn lore object you can pick up that's described as being used for battle and to "annoy wizards", and has apparently been stuffed full of gorgonzola cheese. Well, people noticed that this horn looked oddly similar to a traditional Jewish horn used for battles and some religious ceremonies. Also, why gorgonzola? Apparently it's one of the few non-kosher cheeses. So kinda weird, but could just be a coincidence, right? It was then that people noticed that there were references to other goblin rebellions that were put down by wizards with specific dates, and that these dates matched fairly well with several attempted genocides of Jews in medieval Europe. I think there were a few other items that referenced Jews as well in some capacity, but that's all the stuff I can remember off the top of my head.

So even ignoring Rowling writing goblins as a Jewish stereotype (which is fairly easy because it seems like she just isn't that creative when it comes to avoiding stereotypes. The black kid in the books is named Shacklebolt. The 14 year old Irish kid is obsessed with whiskey and explosives. How more on the nose can you get?), once you factor in the white supremacist in charge who referenced sharing similar views with other members of the dev team, and then you start seeing multiple references to Jews and events surrounding Jews in medieval European history (specifically attempted genocides), it goes from coincidence to red flags pretty quickly.

Some people have harder times separating an author from their work. In this particular case, while it is true that Rowling likely did not have much to do with the actual product, it also doesn't help that she makes money off the game and donates said money to people and organizations that people disagree with.