The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: TimK2003 on May 16, 2007, 10:17:42 AM
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Along with the announcement of the CBS 2007-2008 Primetime lineup this morning, CBS has officially announced that the Michael Davies' quizzer, "Power Of 10" will premiere soon as a summer replacement series.
No mention of what day or time it will air, but the show will be hosted by Drew Carey.
The official description of the show, per the CBS Press Release to the local affiliates (thus unlinkable):
POWER OF 10 is a high-stakes game that challenges contestants to guess the behaviors, opinions and lifestyle choices of the American public for the chance to win $10 million. POWER OF 10 polls thousands of people across the U.S. asking them, well, just about everything — from "What percentage of married Americans said they were virgins the day they got married?" to "What percentage of American's believe they are smarter than the president?" Each week, contestants must decide if they have their finger on the pulse of the American majority and can accurately predict the results of these nationwide surveys. With the first question worth $1,000 and only five questions to answer, each one increasing 10 times in value, contestants participate in a potentially lucrative game where they just might walk away with $10 million. The higher they are on the money ladder, the closer they must be to the actual statistic. The studio audience and a friend can help them, but the final answer is theirs.
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Card Sharks meets Grand Game (the title "Play the Percentages" has already been used).
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[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'152423\' date=\'May 16 2007, 11:38 AM\']
Card Sharks meets Grand Game (the title "Play the Percentages" has already been used).
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For some reason, the first thing I thought of was Mindreaders (the end game), and Millionaire (the 2 lifelines). But the reference of the Grand Game is right on the money.
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Also, five questions seems like a rather short path to $10 million.
"For ten million dollars, what percentage of those surveyed said they scratch their ass more than three times a day (and you must get the answer right on the nose)?"
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Actually, the appropriate reference is to "Greed", as in "idiotic opinion poll questions that nobody in their right mind would risk assloads of money on."
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Most players will walk away with $100,000 or less. A show's budget can easily absorb that. DOND gives away around $130,000 per show on average.
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Pretty clever of them to be able to tout a $10M grand prize given how few people are likely to go for it. The big question is how they'll set it up to make people want to risk the $100K for a million.
Of course, the other (though less likely) possibility is that they don't introduce the risk element and just make it really, really hard to get the answer right on the last two steps.
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A 5-question run for $10,000,000.
That potentially means 5 questions stretched to cover an entire hour. I don't see any bean-counter in their right mind giving 3 or 4 legitimate cracks at 10 mil in a 60-minute slot.
That means there either better be a lot - and I mean a lot - of preliminary gameplay leading up to the big-money 5 questions, or this show's going to make the pacing of NBC's games look like Jeopardy and Temptation by comparison.
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Pretty clever of them to be able to tout a $10M grand prize given how few people are likely to go for it. The big question is how they'll set it up to make people want to risk the $100K for a million.
People might risk $100,000 for $1 million, but (speaking in the abstract) who in their right mind would risk $1 million for anything?
Of course, the other (though less likely) possibility is that they don't introduce the risk element and just make it really, really hard to get the answer right on the last two steps.
They might do both. As in my example, they might ask something ridiculously obscure and require that the player get it right on the nose. If they use whole numbers, the contestant has a 1 in 100 chance of winning just by pulling a number out of thin air.
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'152442\' date=\'May 16 2007, 12:01 PM\']
Of course, the other (though less likely) possibility is that they don't introduce the risk element. . .
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If "1 vs. 100" had gone this way, they might have an interesting game.
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[quote name=\'Sodboy13\' post=\'152444\' date=\'May 16 2007, 01:11 PM\']
A 5-question run for $10,000,000.
That potentially means 5 questions stretched to cover an entire hour. I don't see any bean-counter in their right mind giving 3 or 4 legitimate cracks at 10 mil in a 60-minute slot.
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I can't remember where I saw it, but i kinda got the impression that Davies was going to straddle players climbing the tree from week to week, a la The 64K Question.
"Do you want to risk your $100K for a Million dollars? We'll get your answer next week!"
That would certainly speed things up a bit, allowing for multiple players per week...
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I can't remember where I saw it, but i kinda got the impression that Davies was going to straddle players climbing the tree from week to week, a la The 64K Question.
Seems to me that Davies owes the Lou Cowan estate a great, big royalty check.
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'152442\' date=\'May 16 2007, 01:01 PM\']
Pretty clever of them to be able to tout a $10M grand prize given how few people are likely to go for it. The big question is how they'll set it up to make people want to risk the $100K for a million.
[/quote]
How about this:
Player starts out on the first question, and has to be within 75 percentage points. Player misses the answer by 20 percentage points. Take 20 % points away, and the $10K question needs to be within 55 % points. Player misses by 32 % points, the $100K question needs to be within 23 points, and so on.
The better you do in the early questions, the more leeway you have later on and the more tempting the offer of risking what you have for the larger prizes.
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Card Sharks meets Grand Game (the title "Play the Percentages" has already been used).
The description kind of made me think of the kinds of questions they used on Wizard of Odds (...boy, I'd love to see an episode of that again...)
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[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'152481\' date=\'May 16 2007, 05:41 PM\']Player starts out on the first question, and has to be within 75 percentage points. Player misses the answer by 20 percentage points. Take 20 % points away, and the $10K question needs to be within 55 % points. Player misses by 32 % points, the $100K question needs to be within 23 points, and so on.[/quote]
Neat idea, but way too complicated for the average viewer in the DoND era.
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'152485\' date=\'May 16 2007, 06:18 PM\']
[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'152481\' date=\'May 16 2007, 05:41 PM\']Player starts out on the first question, and has to be within 75 percentage points. Player misses the answer by 20 percentage points. Take 20 % points away, and the $10K question needs to be within 55 % points. Player misses by 32 % points, the $100K question needs to be within 23 points, and so on.[/quote]
Neat idea, but way too complicated for the average viewer in the DoND era.
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For what DoND has done, I think EnDammitol has made even Match Game's rules too complicated for the average viewer nowadays, if that show were ever to be remade!
/What? Ya hafta come up with a word that will match with those six people over there???
//Where's the Multiple Choice? And how come those 6 people over there don't have briefcases???
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'152485\' date=\'May 16 2007, 05:18 PM\']
[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'152481\' date=\'May 16 2007, 05:41 PM\']Player starts out on the first question, and has to be within 75 percentage points. Player misses the answer by 20 percentage points. Take 20 % points away, and the $10K question needs to be within 55 % points. Player misses by 32 % points, the $100K question needs to be within 23 points, and so on.[/quote]
Neat idea, but way too complicated for the average viewer in the DoND era.
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I thought it a neat idea, too. One advantage (for the producers, at least) is that it makes it almost impossible to blow out early.
If they got the math part over with fast enough, the average viewers might not realize there's math involved.
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Matt, I'm not sure how much you can complain about math when that's part of the show's premise to begin with. I can easily compare Tim's idea to the Lucky $even dollars or Hit Points for your favorite RPG character.
I figured the ranges would be fixed, like maybe 40, 20, 10, 5, 2 or some such.
Now this may too simple, but I'm thinking that if a player risks and loses, (s)he will just be moved back down one level and given that money. If you win, you get 10x; if you lose, you get a tenth of x.
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[quote name=\'Joe Mello\' post=\'152534\' date=\'May 17 2007, 02:01 PM\']
Now this may too simple, but I'm thinking that if a player risks and loses, (s)he will just be moved back down one level and given that money. If you win, you get 10x; if you lose, you get a tenth of x.
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Tenth of x? Too complicated of a money structure. See Hit Me from "Price is Right, The." If your "normal" contestant can't comprehend what is 10x of something....
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[quote name=\'Joe Mello\' post=\'152534\' date=\'May 17 2007, 11:01 AM\']
Matt, I'm not sure how much you can complain about math when that's part of the show's premise to begin with. I can easily compare Tim's idea to the Lucky $even dollars or Hit Points for your favorite RPG character.
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You also thought that multiplying Chain Reaction winnings by three was totally intuitive for the average viewer.
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[quote name=\'Joe Mello\' post=\'152534\' date=\'May 17 2007, 02:01 PM\']
Matt, I'm not sure how much you can complain about math when that's part of the show's premise to begin with. I can easily compare Tim's idea to the Lucky $even dollars or Hit Points for your favorite RPG character.[/quote]
I'm afraid you're too smart to ever be a TV executive becuause you're too smart to understand just how not-smart an average viewer really is. To the average viewer, Tim's suggestion is MUCH more complicated than Lucky Seven, and the average viewer doesn't have the faintest idea what an RPG character even is.
To suggest that the premise of the show has anything to do with math again shows that you know a lot more about math than the average viewer. To the vast majority of the viewing audience, "add a zero" is not math.
Speaking of which...[quote name=\'tpirfan28\' post=\'152535\' date=\'May 17 2007, 02:11 PM\']
Tenth of x? Too complicated of a money structure. [/quote]
No, not when "x" is 1. The ladder is right there in front of you. Get it right, go up a rung. Get it wrong, go down a rung. That's not even math, it's an easy visual.
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'152485\' date=\'May 16 2007, 06:18 PM\']
Neat idea, but way too complicated for the average viewer in the DoND era.
[/quote]
And Cliffhanger has been in rotation for how long?
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[quote name=\'CarbonCpy\' post=\'152618\' date=\'May 17 2007, 10:15 PM\']
And Cliffhanger has been in rotation for how long?
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And people are still losing it.
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'152482\' date=\'May 16 2007, 02:48 PM\']The description kind of made me think of the kinds of questions they used on Wizard of Odds (...boy, I'd love to see an episode of that again...)
[/quote]Having never seen Wizard of Odds in any form, my eyes perked up on this. What kind of questions did they use?
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'152624\' date=\'May 18 2007, 01:50 AM\']
And people are still losing it.
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But knowing how a game works and being any good at it are two different things.
I mean, I know how to play Acquire, but I've yet to finish a game in anywhere but last place.
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[quote name=\'CarbonCpy\' post=\'152647\' date=\'May 18 2007, 09:36 AM\']
But knowing how a game works and being any good at it are two different things.
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Not my point. My point is that if Cliff Hangers were so easy to grok, as you suggest, then surely most people would have figured out the fairly basic math by now that pretty much guarantees victory. Yet they have not, which implies to me that the average viewer isn't nearly as bright as you seem to think.
I mean, I know how to play Acquire, but I've yet to finish a game in anywhere but last place.
Well, there I'm right with you, but that has a lot to do with being brought up on Monopoly and not being able to wrap my brain around the concept that having holdings in the company being swallowed up is better than having holdings in the company doing the swallowing.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'152624\' date=\'May 18 2007, 01:50 AM\']
[quote name=\'CarbonCpy\' post=\'152618\' date=\'May 17 2007, 10:15 PM\']
And Cliffhanger has been in rotation for how long?
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And people are still losing it.
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Peter Griffin: "That microwave isn't $300! Don't listen to that stupid tourist!"
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Having never seen Wizard of Odds in any form, my eyes perked up on this. What kind of questions did they use?
Going from hazy memories, and from the description of the show in the EOTVGS, the questions were all about percentages and odds, and the contestants had to guess what the percentages were for each question. For example, one question might be "what percentage of Americans ate at a Fast Food restaurant last week" - and things like that.
Can't really offer more details than that because it's been 33 years since I saw the show - but I remember liking it when it was on :)
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Cliffhangers isn't a game that contestants are losing due to their bad math skills, is it? I mean, even if you don't understand the precise mechanism behind why the mountain climber is moving X steps, you're still got to understand that you're trying to get as close to the right price as possible. The "method" for winning Cliffhangers is knowing that the prizes almost always increase in price, roughly at $25-$35-$45 or $20-$35-$50. That's not math, that's a gimmick.
I'm going to have to go out on a limb by disagreeing with some of our more esteemed members. I think the bank of percentage points one could use up during a game of Power of 10 could work as a concept. The thing is . . . the viewers don't need to understand the precise math of it all. Is there any way in the world that the average viewer is keeping up with 1 vs. 100 multiplying base amounts by mob members eliminated, then adding it to a previous bank? No . . . but they don't have to. The show is quite willing to tell them what the new grand prize is.
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[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'152481\' date=\'May 16 2007, 04:41 PM\']
How about this:
Player starts out on the first question, and has to be within 75 percentage points. Player misses the answer by 20 percentage points. Take 20 % points away, and the $10K question needs to be within 55 % points. Player misses by 32 % points, the $100K question needs to be within 23 points, and so on.
The better you do in the early questions, the more leeway you have later on and the more tempting the offer of risking what you have for the larger prizes.
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I like your basic idea, but an initial guess of 50 means that you'd never be off by more than 50.