Problem with scores - Ubuntu 12.10

[Andrew McLean <am577 aiomclean plus com>]

I have Ubuntu Linux 12.10 recently installed. When I complete a game 
(e.g. Mahjongg/Difficult) it displays
an empty scores list, and says "Your score didn't make the top ten.". 
This seems to be a long-standing
problem, but I haven't seen a solution anywhere.
Does anyone know what can cause this, and how to fix it ?

If I do 'ls -l /var/games' I see this for the scores file:
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root games 0 Oct 17 16.00 /var/games/mahjongg-difficult.scores

AM