Author Topic: Pricing game flops  (Read 15518 times)

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Offline rowlande

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Pricing game flops
« on: February 20, 2019, 05:58:11 PM »
What do you think were some of the worst pricing game ideas for the shows past 47 seasons

Offline Hag

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2019, 06:48:29 PM »
Bullseye '72 comes to mind. Also Professor Price.
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Offline GameShowFan9001

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2019, 07:03:22 PM »
3 Strikes during Season 37.

Offline gamesurf

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2019, 08:48:59 PM »
Bullseye '72 comes to mind. Also Professor Price.

I have sympathy for the "weird" ideas from the show's early years. It's easy to look back and point out stupid ideas with the benefit of hindsight, but at the time production was still figuring out what Price even was, and what it wasn't. If production had made different decisions about what worked and what didn't work, the show would have evolved accordingly.

A two-player pricing game had never been tried, until it had. At the time, they didn't know if it would work or not, but they took the chance anyways. If it had worked, maybe more two-player games would have followed. Maybe the show would have evolved to allow for them. The showcase showdown would look entirely different. Who knows.

A game with a punchboard or pachinko board could have sucked, and led to the death of "gimmicky" luck-based games. Telephone Game could have been charming and memorable and gotten three spinoff games. We don't know. We have a good idea of what works now cause we have the benefit of hindsight, but I'm grateful production was willing to experiment (and quickly acknowledge when ideas weren't working).
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Offline mechamind

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2019, 09:19:48 PM »
Shower Game. I'm note sure of the best way to explain why.

Now more personal than anything:
* The extra chance confetti gives me a weird feeling, never mind it being a matter of luck which wrong price gives you another chance.
* So much work to set up the game, and there's a 50% chance that the game ends in just one move, win or lose.

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Telephone Game was retired because it was lame. (And no, we’re not making that up – that really is the official reason.)
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Offline rowlande

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2019, 09:27:23 PM »
What is your thoughts on Hot Seat

Offline gamesurf

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2019, 10:11:46 PM »
What is your thoughts on Hot Seat

Interesting change of topic.

rowlande, what are your thoughts on Hot Seat?
Quote from: Bill Todman
"The sign of a good game, is when you don't have to explain it every day. The key is not simplicity, but apparent simplicity. Password looks like any idiot could have made it up, but we have 14 of our people working on that show. There is a great complexity behind the screen. It requires great work to keep it simple."

Offline JayC

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2019, 10:39:39 PM »
Professor Price with the creepy professor doll and being based more on trivia questions than pricing, and of course Bullsye 72 since it was never won. At least Bullseye 72 did eventually evolve into Clock Game.


Shower Game. I'm note sure of the best way to explain why.

Now more personal than anything:
* The extra chance confetti gives me a weird feeling, never mind it being a matter of luck which wrong price gives you another chance.
* So much work to set up the game, and there's a 50% chance that the game ends in just one move, win or lose.
And it was retired (partially?) because of complaints that forcing people into showers was reminiscent of the Holocaust. Imagine if social media was around when the game was played.



Online brosa0

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2019, 11:50:54 PM »
Shower Game was played in the most recent French version of TPIR, although the rules were more akin to a 5-option Shell Game (which was its own game on the show):


Offline Plinkoman

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #9 on: February 21, 2019, 01:08:41 AM »
Shower Game was played in the most recent French version of TPIR, although the rules were more akin to a 5-option Shell Game (which was its own game on the show):


Me watching this:

"Wow, Shower Game lives on, that's realy surpri..... is that a pinball Plinko?!?!"

I think Telephone Game seemed like a big flop. Same with Double Bullseye. But, as gamesurf said, at least they weren't afraid of trying new things back in the day.
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Offline dmaingame

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #10 on: February 21, 2019, 01:22:55 AM »
1.Pick a Number: I've said it before and said it again.  Watching a test pattern is more entertaining than this game and its poor win-loss ratio is another reason this game belongs in the dumpsters behind Television City. 
2.On the Spot:  A forgotten pricing game nightmare from 2002-2003ish.  Was more confusing than Double Digits or Balance Game '84 and more difficult than Bullseye '72.  I never saw it won once.
3.Finish Line:  Was pretty much a horse-racing themed copy of Give or Keep.
4.Professor Price:  Are we playing a pricing game or a round of It's Academic here? Winning the car depended on a contestant's ability to answer general knowledge questions such as "How many eggs there are in a gross?"
5.Bullseye '72:  The first pricing game retired and for good reason.  Even a contestant who owned a car dealership that specialized in Chevrolet Vegas would've lost this game.

Offline Alfonzo

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #11 on: February 21, 2019, 06:33:37 AM »
1) Balance Game '84. Took too long to explain for someone who's never seen it and you complicated. It ate up a lot of air time.

2) Double Digits. See above. Also too ugly for words.
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Offline whewfan

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #12 on: February 21, 2019, 07:13:59 AM »
1.Pick a Number: I've said it before and said it again.  Watching a test pattern is more entertaining than this game and its poor win-loss ratio is another reason this game belongs in the dumpsters behind Television City. 
2.On the Spot:  A forgotten pricing game nightmare from 2002-2003ish.  Was more confusing than Double Digits or Balance Game '84 and more difficult than Bullseye '72.  I never saw it won once.
3.Finish Line:  Was pretty much a horse-racing themed copy of Give or Keep.
4.Professor Price:  Are we playing a pricing game or a round of It's Academic here? Winning the car depended on a contestant's ability to answer general knowledge questions such as "How many eggs there are in a gross?"
5.Bullseye '72:  The first pricing game retired and for good reason.  Even a contestant who owned a car dealership that specialized in Chevrolet Vegas would've lost this game.

I agree on Pick a Number... Roger created the game simply because they needed another quickie game and this was one that required little time to play. Finish Line would've been more interesting if it was a race instead of watching one horse pass the finish line. I think it should've been two horses, and you want to "bet" on one horse to win, and that horse is the one you want to place the higher priced prizes. On the Spot was just poorly laid out. Roger told me that the original game design was supposed to be a birthday cake shaped 3 step design instead of a flat circle. The game was won at least a few times. A problem was noticed on air.... the prices were originally printed from the perspective of the viewer, but to the person playing the game and Bob, something $68 looked like $89. On the next playing, the prices were printed both ways. To make the game a little easier to win, some of the prices were duplicates, so if you got one right, then the next wrong, you'd choose the path that had the price that you guessed right, since only one prize had that price. 

Offline rowlande

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #13 on: February 21, 2019, 08:22:33 AM »
Interesting change of topic.

rowlande, what are your thoughts on Hot Seat?

I think the game is okay just take too long to play

Quoting fixed by Steve.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2019, 11:38:21 PM by SteveGavazzi »

Offline JayC

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Re: Pricing game flops
« Reply #14 on: February 21, 2019, 11:40:11 AM »
It's hard to consider Pick a Number a flop since it is still played and has been played much more with Drew as host than it was for the last several seasons Bob hosted.

Nobody's brought up Joker yet- It had a decent run but it was really just Shell Game with the possibility of losing despite perfect pricing and the set was one of the ugliest in the show's history besides the small prize podium. It was also very rarely played in its' later seasons.

Split Decision also could be considered a flop- didn't last long, confused some contestants leading to rule changes, and had the occasional problem with numbers falling off.

And of course the original Time is Money which only lasted a few months and only actually involved money very early on.