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Aspects of The Price is Right that you miss

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Otm Shank:

--- Quote from: Brian44 on August 27, 2022, 05:29:00 AM ---I assume the above is referring to a setup where it's clearly impossible to move the bonus window around after the fact to a prize the contestant lost (or won).

--- End quote ---

I think the point is that the game really hinges on the difficulty of the prize controlling the bonus window. There's two ways the game could be set up:

1) The higher/lower aspect is assigned to all four prizes and then the bonus is attached without considering difficulty of any particular prize

2) The higher/lower for the window controlling the bonus is deliberately planned: if you are over budget, you make the higher/lower margin close or use a prize that is difficult to price. If you want to ensure a win, make that window a particularly easy choice.

I'm inclined to think that #2 applied more often than not. I don't think "rigging" is the exact best term, which would be illegal interference, but they could certainly promote a win or loss to be nearly inevitable.

Brian44:
Yes, that's where I was going with my reply. By that token, the HIGHER/LOWER aspect of Bonus Game has always been tougher than Punch-A-Bunch because your odds of winning the top prize with each correct guess are 15 times greater in the former.

If you want to force a win in Bonus Game, you only need to make one SP price easy to guess; in Shell Game, all 4 need to be easy to guess!

What I think may have been the greatest example of a forced win in TPIR's history happened in an early '90s playing of Bonus Game. The contestant lost the first 3 SPs. The 4th SP was a Monopoly board game. The wrong price was $7, the contestant correctly guessed higher ($11), and the BONUS was in that window.

Otm Shank:
There is definitely a correlation between prize values and the odds. Punch-a-Bunch and Three Strikes are scaled accordingly to their odds. Bonus Game did not offer the largest prizes, save special occasions -- the win ratio for Bonus Game, Hit Me, and the coin-flip quickies must have had the lowest average prize value. (Risking hijacking the thread, because I'm sure someone has that to the penny.) Then games like Clock Game and Poker Game pushed down those prize amounts to fit the constructs of the game, and really should have been won most of the time.

jjman920:

--- Quote from: Brian44 on August 27, 2022, 04:56:46 PM ---Yes, that's where I was going with my reply. By that token, the HIGHER/LOWER aspect of Bonus Game has always been tougher than Punch-A-Bunch because your odds of winning the top prize with each correct guess are 15 times greater in the former.

--- End quote ---
It's also important to remember that the main aspect of Bonus Game is watching the contestant play for each window and the reveal of all of them at the end. The main aspect of Punch-A-Bunch is to watch the contestant punch and the one by one reveal by the host. No punch is given for free, so it's vital to set up the HIGHER/LOWER portion to be easier so that the main aspect of the game can be played in the first place. Otherwise, the game could end without any punches being taken and the segment will fall flat.

chrisholland03:
I've always been surprised they didn't go Shell Game with Bonus Game in the "Contestant gets them all right" scenario.

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