The Game Show Forum > The Big Board

5 Least Favorite Current Pricing Games

<< < (5/14) > >>

ClockGameJohn:

--- Quote from: MSTieScott on December 16, 2024, 05:47:19 PM ---
--- Quote from: beatlefreak84 on December 16, 2024, 04:41:42 PM ---4.  Double Cross (so much chrome/explanation for a game that's really a 1/3 guess...you know they will never put the correct answer as the default setting!)

--- End quote ---

I wouldn't be so sure about that...

--- End quote ---

Pathetic. This defeats the entire premise of contestant interaction with a pricing game - and is incredibly "mean spirited" in terms of a forced loss.  This would be as bad as the correct sequence in Pushover not requiring a single block to be pushed off the ledge.


--- Quote from: Chelsea Thrasher on December 16, 2024, 06:24:37 PM ---I think it says something that they tried mightily hard to kill Bonus Game as early as 1974. The design of the game's ugly, the game hasn't given away anything anything interesting in the prize guessing section since 1974, unless the game's for a car or rarely cash it's not played for a bonus prize that's worthwhile, and to win the likely pointless prize you're basically just hoping against hope you got the one arbitrary small prize right.
--- End quote ---

While Bonus Game has certainly lost its luster over years of inflation, the one factor that I'm not sure everyone considers when it comes to the "bore" of Bonus Game is that when it was conceived, the "bonus" prize was truly that -- a bonus. In the early years, the game often offered Small Prizes which were greater than $200; with the combined totals of all four usually adding up to over $500. This was equivalent to nearly 20% of the value of Showcases (and considered very decent prizes). Today, these small prizes wouldn't amount to 0.001% of a Showcase. I suspect that when the original brain-trust were conceiving these games, the idea was that giving away a $250 food processor was considered a "nice prize" (as the game bible often described them).

I think as the years went on, the Small Prizes were considered to be "components" of programming a pricing game (i.e. "win another chance with this stapler"), rather than the actual of focus of them.

daveromanjr:
In no particular order:

1. Microwave The Cat
2. Throw a Football, Win a Car
3. Price Charming
4. Suds & Prices (Unless paid for a car)
5. Stack the Deck

TLEberle:

--- Quote from: ClockGameJohn on December 17, 2024, 02:38:51 AM ---[quote author=MSTieScott link=topic=36140.msg
While Bonus Game has certainly lost its luster over years of inflation, the one factor that I'm not sure everyone considers when it comes to the "bore" of Bonus Game is that when it was conceived, the "bonus" prize was truly that -- a bonus. In the early years, the game often offered Small Prizes which were greater than $200; with the combined totals of all four usually adding up to over $500. This was equivalent to nearly 20% of the value of Showcases (and considered very decent prizes). Today, these small prizes wouldn't amount to 0.001% of a Showcase. I suspect that when the original brain-trust were conceiving these games, the idea was that giving away a $250 food processor was considered a "nice prize" (as the game bible often described them).

I think as the years went on, the Small Prizes were considered to be "components" of programming a pricing game (i.e. "win another chance with this stapler"), rather than the actual of focus of them.

--- End quote ---
I remember happening upon an early 80s show where Punch a Bunch was played and a wet-dry vacuum worth in excess of $200 was one of the items and I marveled that even if you flame out at the money board at least you were taking home some decent loot. Was there a reason that the show drifted away to using smaller items instead of nice-prices for those either/or, higher/lower, true/false games other than variety in terms of what was shown?

Clay Zambo:
Now that Range Game is routinely played for prizes in excess of $5000, there's no greater likelihood of being able to price the item accurately; it's just a game of "can you wait until the middle?"--and even then there's no reason producers couldn't decide to put price at the top or bottom of the range. Why not play it somewhat more like Safecrackers--if you can accurately price this sub-1K item, then you win this larger one.

On the other hand, how about Cliffhangers? Price the items at $25-35-45 and you'll win nearly every time. Unless, of course, producers are feeling snarky.

But you gotta keep Bonus Game, just like you gotta keep Any Number and Double Prices. It's history.

TimK2003:

--- Quote from: Dbacksfan12 on December 16, 2024, 10:53:24 PM ---4.  Plinko--The audience gets stupidly riled up for this, which I have not understood.  This is a rare case where I think bumping up some of the lower slots would be helpful.  The set is about as ugly as the "Hollywood mural" set, which doesn't help its case, at least in my book.
--- End quote ---

Didn't Plinko offer (but never award) the biggest prize to date when it premiered?  Golden Road may have eclipsed the $25,000 level by that time, but Plinko was the biggest all-cash prize offered at that time, which may explain the over zealous excitement for the game originally. 

But I agree, that for people to go batsh*it over a game that is lucky to see 20% of the possible maximum amount won on average by a contestant at any given time is a bit much.

At least with Pay The Rent, winning the top prize is not 100% luck-based.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page