Why Doesn't The Wargamer Score Reviews?  Our Editorial Scoring System Explained

Since I’ve had a little more time on my hand since turning over the reigns of The Wargamer to Shaun, I’ve returned to school to finally finish my graduate degree. As such, I’ll indulge myself philosophically and answer this recurring question with a little parable.

I have these two friends, let’s call them Mutt and Jeff, to protect their guilt. Mutt really likes red-headed women, while Jeff starts drooling when an Asian woman walks within his line of sight (although he’d probably drool at a red-head nearly as quickly --- heck, he just drools quite a bit naturally.).

One day, Mutt and Jeff are walking down a street after the day’s close of the E3 convention in Los Angles. They spot a reasonably attractive Latina at the corner. Mutt, who recognizes that she’s not a red-head, but still nothing to kick out of bed were the opportunity to present itself, would rate her somewhere between a “6” and an “8.” “At least she’s not an Asian,” thinks Mutt, for whom Asian women just don’t do it. At the same time, Jeff, while slightly disappointed that the woman he initially mistook for an Asian hottie is really from south of the border, still rates her between a “7” and a “9.” After all, she looked so darn close to his favorite kind of woman, he started slobbering and his pupils began contracting; and, at his age, you’ve got to be thankful the body can still respond to any member of the opposite sex.

A little later, however, both spy another attractive woman. This time it’s a knock-out woman of Asian descent. Jeff immediately clutches his aged chest and mutters “A perfect 10,” as he collapses in the heat of the setting California sun. Mutt, on the other hand, can’t believe Jeff gave up the night’s drinking activities for a woman that does absolutely nothing for him, even with his relatively low standard. He corrects Jeff with a snide “a three, at best!”

Where am I going with this? Well, here at The Wargamer we have a significant number of contributors that review products the publishers send us. It’s a veritable Baskin Robins of gaming preferences (and psychoses). It would be very difficult for us to establish any kind of objective standard by which to measure each game numerically, while still having agreement from our review staff, let alone hundreds of thousands of readers. And, given the mental conditions, we don’t deal with disagreements in a Dr. Phil approved fashion all the time.

Let’s expand that to our readers. Someone that hates first person shooters is probably not going to think that Half-Life is one of the best games ever; much less a 4-star, 5 drunken-and-bribed-editors, perfect ten, one mad cow, or whatever “objective” score is applied. Likewise, someone that loves only turn-based wargames is going to be mightily upset if an otherwise outstanding wargame gets “objectively” dinged on eye and ear candy because we’re applying a standard that really only applies to games that can render a gazillion colors at 1600x1200 resolution at 50 FPS. And, continuing on that thread, if we did say such a turn-based game was a 9 out of 10, the action gamer is probably going to think, “I can’t stand to look at that game’s crappy graphics, much less actually stand to play it. These guys are morons and suck!”

What’s the moral of my story? Beauty is, as is an “objective” rating system, in the eye of the beholder. One man’s trash is another’s treasure. You get my point, I think. We’ve always prided ourselves on not using some baloney contrived system that really just caters to publishers and doesn’t tell our readers whether they should shell out $50 bucks for this game or blow it on Tequila shots instead. (If the game really sucks, they’ll likely blow another $50 on the booze, so why waste time attempting to play the game in the first place?) 

Instead, we endeavor to answer with every review three questions: who is probably going to love this game; who is probably going to like this game; and who is probably not going to find this game appealing at all. While there is certainly still subjectivity involved in that system, by disclosing a writer’s preferences and then putting the games in the context of likely and unlikely core audiences or other titles of similar appeal, we believe the overall review is much more valuable in deciding whether a title is a trash or treasure for each individual reader, regardless of whether their favorite recent book is Hillary Clinton’s Living History or Anne Coulter’s Treason!

The only exception we occasionally permit is in our Award of Excellence and our periodic "Best Of..." awards. Both of these are derived from votes by our staff and/or readers. Winners typically represent either popularity contests (particularly in the reader-focused "Best Of..." awards, where the best known games get more votes) or, more usually, truly impressive games that cross genres and appeal to a wide range of gamers, despite their own usual preferences (and psychoses). If you must have “objective” ratings, you can look for our award endorsed titles; they’d loosely translate to a near “perfect 10.” 

Thanks to all our readers who've written in about this subject in the past. As for me, I’m off to find a red-headed Asian for Mutt and Jeff, so they can stop whining.

About the Author

German-born Mario Kroll, a former U.S. Army JAG Corps NCO, IT consulting professional, seemingly perpetual grad school student, and father of two wonderful, aspiring young wargamers, is the founder of The Wargamer website, originally started in 1995 as an opponent and play-by-email support site for computer-based wargames. In real life, he’s an IT manager responsible for the software application consulting practice of the Greater Washington, DC office of a leading international accounting firm. At Wargamer.com, he now focuses mainly marketing and strategic business development, as well as the fine art of schmoozing. On occasion, he's still driven to the soapbox to write the odd preview, review, editorial, or seemingly mindless rant. He can often be found at the local brew pub -- a pattern in the selection of residences -- it's within walking distance of his home in suburban Maryland.