I felt that as soon as a contestant said "Clearance sale?" like she was more confused than Check Game, I felt that this game wasn't going to last too long. The biggest flaw of course is that the outcome of the game is never determined on the final price reveal. If the ARP of a prize is greater than a sale price that hasn't been revealed, it's game over.
You kind of got me thinking about the timeline of 3 and 4-prize games.
- Jan 1996 - Shopping Spree
- April 1996 - Easy as 123
- Nov 1997 - Fortune Hunter
- Sep 1998 - Clearance Sale
- Oct 1998 - One Wrong Price
Why did the show suddenly decide they wanted to add so many new multi-prize games in the late 90s? Seems like they were relatively uncommon before.
You could possibly include Line em Up in as well from this era, with a car thrown in. Then you had Buy or Sell, Swap Meet, and Barker's Markers earlier in the decade, with Make Your Move around just before the '90s officially began.
The "classic five" MP games are Most Expensive, Race Game, Danger Price, Poker Game, and Take Two (six if you include Golden Road, though that's considered a car game, even though it involves pricing three prizes). In fact, there was no MP game introduced between Take Two in 1978 and Credit Card in late 1987, and there hasn't been one released in the Drew era, with the last "pure" MP game introduced that's still active is One Wrong Price, the arguably More Or Less counts due to a somewhat similar feel to Buy or Sell, which is probably why that game probably won't be seen again, though I still prefer Credit Card to Shopping Spree since I've always liked its set (very representative of the '80s with the geometric parts and blue/white combo with neon) and the decent challenge.