Why Was "Joker" Retired?

[SteveGavazzi]

This is one of those answers that I don't want to give without approval from John, but I'll be happy to shoot down any wrong guesses.

because its a dull clone of shell game / bonus game

Nope.

Wasn't Roger's official explanation something like, "It's lame"?

That was Telephone Game.

I wonder if they decided there were too many card-themed games.  Hit Me, Joker, and Poker game all went away aroun the same time.

None of those retirements were related to one another.

[Teddy]

The odds are even worse with Secret X; pricing everything correctly only guarantees a 2 out of 3 chance of winning....yet Secret X lives on.

Joker wasn't my favorite game, but it did have the cool SP price reveals, and one of the best moments of TPIR was Robert (whose mother is always right) back in 2001 playing Joker.  I wish they'd kept it.

I wonder if they decided there were too many card-themed games.  Hit Me, Joker, and Poker game all went away around the same time.

Pathfinder probably has the worst odds of any pricing game; depending on the path you take, you'd only have a 1 out of 12 chance of winning the car.

True, but Card Game is still there, and it has outlived all of the others. The better question would be if there were too many Vegas-themed games (especially on a family-oriented show), because Dice Game is also still there.

[FrenchFan]

I really didn't see that as a flaw; rather I saw it as part of the fun of the game.

+1.

I like this game myself too. The SP part was unique (reverse digits).

The only flaw, IMO, was the tiny and ugly prop. A bigger prop would have been better.

[TPIRZippy]

None of those retirements were related to one another.

Ya, I didn't really think so anyway, but it seemed like an odd coincidence for so many long-standing games themed around cards to all go away around the same time.  My gut feeling was that it was Drew-related, but I admittedly have no evidence or anything to back up that gut feeling. 

[catdogwheel]

Wasn't Roger's official explanation something like, "It's lame"?

One flaw with Joker is that it's still possible to lose the game with 4 discards and 5 cards.

I heard of that being the reason. But then again if that's the reason, then why are there other games that have this flaw still in rotation? I mean 5 Price Tags has this flaw, Punch-a-bunch does, and so does Plinko. I guess it's all in the popularity of the games.

[Alfonzo]

I don't consider it a flaw at all! If you get all four choices of the Five Price Tags and you don't win I really don't feel sorry for you.

[TPIRZippy]

I heard of that being the reason. But then again if that's the reason, then why are there other games that have this flaw still in rotation? I mean 5 Price Tags has this flaw, Punch-a-bunch does, and so does Plinko. I guess it's all in the popularity of the games.

Different in Joker than in Five Price Tags though. In Tags, you're choosing from among prices, so indeed you can work from the inside out and leave yourself a pick between the highest and lowest prices or something if you have all 4 picks.  In Joker, you are choosing blindly from cards face-down.  Losing Five Price Tags with 4 picks is bad gameplay and eminently avoidable, while losing Joker with all 4 discards is rare rotten luck and there is nothing you could do about it.

[PriceFanArmadillo]

Pathfinder probably has the worst odds of any pricing game; depending on the path you take, you'd only have a 1 out of 12 chance of winning the car.

By my calculations, random guessing gives you a 13.37% chance of winning the car, ignoring the possibility that sometimes you only have two choices for the fourth digit instead of three.

EDIT:  If the third digit is on the outer perimeter of the board, your chances go up from 13.37% to 18.49%.  This is probably why we don't see that very often.

[jzion12345]

Could the retirement have something to do with the fact that Bob could never keep the way he revealed the cards concistant? Some times he would show the card(s) not chosen and sometimes, he'd show the ones picked. I assumed that people would get confused. I know if I was just a casual viewer, I'd be pretty confused.

[PriceFan07]

Going off of what Roger said in a past interview, Bob knew how to deal with contestants. If the contestant was "fun" he'd build on it and milk the situation, likely taking the long route to reveal a win. If the contestant was on the "dull" side, Bob would rush through it more. So I think a lot of his inconsistency with the reveals for the game had to do with that. You could also say Bob was inconsistent with reveals for many games - sometimes Squeeze Play got build-up (false-reveal-type), other times it was just a quick reveal. His inconsistency may also have had to do with timing for each show. Also said in an interview, and I think the example used also had to do with "fun" contestants or situations, Bob would milk them for all they were worth; contestants who were part of a performing group got their 2mins of fame and Bob knew how to make up that time later in the show. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, that maybe Bob just couldn't make up his mind on how to reveal, but these might be a couple reasons for his variation in revealing the game.

[PriceFan07]

This is one of those answers that I don't want to give without approval from John, but I'll be happy to shoot down any wrong guesses.

Sorry to double-post, but I knew I seen this somewhere before so no need to worry about John's approval here, Roger answered this for us on Stu's show a while ago and there is actually a thread titled something along the lines of "Offical Reason for Joker/Poker Retirement"...I'm quotting from that thread here, this is in regards to Joker AND Poker Game

"Both these games were considered weak.  Joker had a couple of game problems (one could get all the small prizes correct and still lose/the reveal in Joker was awkward).  Poker game had a very awkward strategy (e.g. "try to find prizes with prizes that have a lot of nines in it") , truncated poker rules (we didn't care about straights) and viewers who had no idea how to play poker.  And prizes were limited to under $999."

[SteveGavazzi]

If that were the whole reason, I wouldn't have been worried about posting it.

[trytobecharming]

Sorry to double-post, but I knew I seen this somewhere before so no need to worry about John's approval here, Roger answered this for us on Stu's show a while ago and there is actually a thread titled something along the lines of "Offical Reason for Joker/Poker Retirement"...I'm quotting from that thread here, this is in regards to Joker AND Poker Game

Roger, Randy West, and John will be on Stu's show next week Wed 10/27 at 7PM EST.

[parliboy]

I liked Joker as well. It was sort of a different version of 5 price tags, in which you could get all of the small prizes correct and still lose.

But 5PT relied only on the contestant's ability to price.  Joker had a luck element.  Except for the BIG games (like car games), you don't want a situation where bad luck results in a contestant who played perfectly not winning.  Consider that the reason Half-Off now gives $500 on a correct guess is to ensure that such a contestant gets something for their trouble.

[mrbrown2195]

I've got it... Another game on the show was changed by the host for the reason bolder earlier -- you can get everything right and still lose. Did the host feel the same way about Joker?