🚀 go-pugleaf

>>>
>>
>> I only care about that when it affects the accuracy of the reviews, and 
>> accuracy doesn't seem to be in dispute here.
>>
>
> Doesn't it?
> I mean, I understand giving a bad review because of DRM, but they are 
> giving the lowest possible review scores for the DRM issue ONLY,

The score is a separate thing from the review. Scores are inherently 
subjective and can't really be "disputed." I'm talking about the factual 
assertions in the text of the reviews, which I haven't seen anyone 
disputing.


> without having played a single solitary second of the game.  So it could 
> have incredible, awesome, radically fun game play...

But if it comes packaged in a DRM that these reviewers find unacceptable, 
then the product is worthless and it's the product that's being reviewed. It 
just doesn't matter how wonderful the gameplay is if people won't buy it 
because of the DRM - hence, a "1 star" in the DRM category *should* limit 
the total score to 1. It also works the other way: if the gameplay is a "1", 
it doesn't matter if the game has no DRM at all - the total score can still 
be no better than 1.



> And have this DRM issue...  But if you just look at the Amazon score of 1 
> star, without delving deeper into why it's only got 1 star, you'd get a 
> false impression that the entire game sucks ass.

That's only if you think of the total score as an "average" of the component 
scores. For lower-priority categories like graphics, that makes some sense 
but the really critical categories like gameplay, bug-freeness and DRM 
(really a subcategory of the "bug-freeness" category) can and should act as 
ceilings on the total score.