I appreciate that they weren't afraid to "get weird" with some pricing games and ideas. They were trying new presentations, new pricing gimmicks, new gameplay elements that had never been tried before. Obviously not many of them worked, but I appreciate the willingness to experiment.
For contrast, look at the games that presumably would have been introduced in that memo one year ago:
•Squeeze Play (normal enough)
•Secret X (normal enough)
•Professor Price (here's where it starts getting weird)
•Finish Line (presentation following the tradition of Hurdles/Cliff Hangers, but otherwise normal enough)
Professor Price is the only one that really stands out, and it got yanked very quickly. Everything before that seems pretty sane and reasonable. They could easily have taken the lesson of "down-to-earth ideas work best" and I don't think anybody would have blamed them.
But instead look at where they went from that:
•A game that is ALWAYS played for two cars, and you price weird parts of the car nobody's ever heard of
•An game played for cash? On The Price is Right? And it's unashamedly luck-based?
•A game where pennies fly out towards the camera and spill down a giant board, that demands this weird-looking set and lights and sound effects to pull everything together
•Telephone Game
•Shower Game
•Take Two somehow found its way in that crop
In that company Shower Game looks positively reasonable and measured. I admire the drive to experiment, even if they quickly realized that many of their ideas weren't turning out as envisioned.
