Pricing Game Fleshing Out: 3 Strikes

[tpirfansince1972]

One of the all time classic games.  I loved it with both chips in the bag and now actual baseballs in the bag too.  I love the updated board and how more baseball themed it became.  I always loved the classic Three Strikes board too.

I'd love for the game to have a sound effect of an umpire saying "Strike one!" "Strike two!" and "Strike three, you're out!"

It's a game of both luck and skill, as it requires some possible memorization and some logic as well.

A super fun and exciting game.  I am fond of the color green and that it still has green in it makes it so nice to watch too!

[Plinkoman]

This is one of the earliest games I remember watching when I was a little kid, and I got to see this game in person- it's gigantic!

This game can be either the dullest (when the contestant strikes out early) or the most exciting (when it's down to a 50/50 chance of pulling out the number instead of the strike). They definitely need to go back to putting only one strike in the bag. Been a while since anyone has won it, and, with the exception of the most recent playing in December, most of games have been lackluster at best.

Still, it's always a pleasant surprise to see this game, and the set is fantastic!

[SeaBreeze341]

I'm not a big fan of games where someone may know the price of something, but could leave empty handed.  That being said, I still adore 3 Strikes.  Recently it hasn't been the case, but overall (getting to a half-century) it's been pretty good.  To be fair, most don't know the actual price; it is unfortunate as mentioned if someone loses in a hurry, and painful when it comes down to one number vs one strike with the latter being drawn.

But when it's won, it's always special.  I agree in that I'd love to see them go back to one strike in the bag.  Either that, or maybe offer some better vehicles.  At the end of the day, it's a car game, and those are supposed to be difficult

[Mallory16]

Three Strikes is one of the greatest pricing games, and has pretty much always been great since Three Strikes Plus became a thing. And it was fun before then too, but Three Strikes Plus has coexisted with regular ol' Three Strikes since I was pretty young.

Why is it great? It's fun! It's exciting! It's intense! Almost nothing else on the show is as intense as a full count in this game, regardless of whether the contestant pulls out the last number or the last strike!

The current set is good, but I still like the old set more. Certainly not a travesty like certain recent set changes, anyway.

After the 1-strike rule change, I soon realized I missed the 3-strike Three Strikes. And now that we've had that version again for the past 14 years, I can safely say that yes, I like the game more with all three strikes in the bag/tumbler.

[JT]

Love the game and I'm ok with three strikes in the bag but to give the contestant a fighting chance, please give them the first number in the price to start.  It would be consistent with how Lucky 7, Temptation and Dice Game all evolved to 5 digit prices. 

[SeaBreeze341]

I'd go one better than that: Allow the contestant to choose which number they wanted lit up.  Or, prior to adding the 3 strikes maybe have the contestant draw a number, and whatever that number is would be what's lit up.

This might be derivative but if I were "asked" to provide a suggestion for 3 Strikes, I might suggest starting the game with one strike in the bag, but with the other 2 visible / on "standby" to possibly go into play later.  To better clarify, if someone made a mistake, then you add a second strike into the bag, and if he or she made another mistake, then you'd add the third strike into the bag.

I'd think that would be fair enough.  BTW, apologies if this idea had actually been mentioned in the past.  There's a lot of content over the past 15-20 years or so.  I don't immediately recall seeing it, as I would totally link to it if I did

[gamesurf]

Original Recipe four-digit 3 Strikes was about as perfect a car game as you could get for 1976.

Not too easy, not too hard. The first digit was usually pretty obvious, leaving three digits to be placed. Six different combinations to cycle through. Just enough for most contestants to make some headway, and enough for the home viewer to feel confident that the five is definitely the third digit, yessir, the in studio audience is getting it wrong. Which gives it the perfect blend of luck and excitement and buildup and, most importantly, "make the home viewer feel like they're smarter than the contestant" shout-at-the-screen play-along-ability.

It also wasn't too long, either. Most of the 3 Strikes segments uploaded by The Barker Era YouTube Channel are 3.5 to 5.5 minutes long. Perfectly in line with what you'd expect from a car game.

So it was well-loved. Imagine a world where 3 Strikes was seen more frequently than Lucky Seven. Well, that's what it used to be! We see in Seasons 11-13 it was played about as frequently as Any Number, Danger Price, or Clock Game. And it was won frequently. The data we have from Seasons 11-13 show a win rate of 33-76, which is right about where a car game should be.

Unfortunately, inflation wasn't kind to Original Recipe 3 Strikes. When five digit cars were a special treat rather than a necessity, 3 Strikes + was a novel fix--"what if we made the game tougher, but longer and with more buildup and even more exciting?" As a temporary fix in the 80's and early 90s, it got great results. The first digit was brain-dead obvious, the second digit was usually not difficult, and once you had that figured out you were back to six potential combinations. The win rate was lower, but it balanced out since it was being played for a "special" car.

But in the 90s, when it was clear that four-digit cars were going to die out, 3 Strikes was at a crossroads. It was clear that permanently adding five-numbers-in-the-bag 3 Strikes + to the lineup was going to be too long to make it a regularly played car game.

How could they fix this? It could continue as a "normal" car game with the first digit given for free, and four numbers in the bag, just like old times. And maybe contestants in the 90's would be able to figure out the second digit with the same precision contestants in the 70's could figure out the first, and come out with a regularly timed, regularly played car game--but that's a big gamble, and if your contestants can't figure it out your show risks going over time.

It chose a different path instead. Not only did they stick with five numbers in the bag, they unashamedly chose to make the game even more difficult, and introduce more errors on average, making the game more luck based, and run even longer, which meant the game could only be played a handful of times every season. But to make up for it, it would always be played for luxury cars. Not Golden Road nice, but always much nicer than normal. Nice enough that you could usually figure out the first digit. Usually.

To see 3 Strikes won would no longer be an everyday occurrence. It would become a major highlight of the season.

It was a big swing, but I think it paid off.  As others have said, there's almost nothing more exciting than when the contestant has one number left and they're trying to fish out that final number out of the bag. Sure, it has its share of dud playings where the three strikes show up too early, but that's part of the joy of it. You don't get good unpredictablity without bad unpredictability.

I can imagine that was the problem the showrunners were trying to "fix" in S37--"3 Strikes is too long and unwieldy, let's give the first digit free and try to streamline it"--but they quickly realized that the slow buildup and the big prize is part of the charm of modern 3 Strikes and there's no putting the toothpaste back into the tube. We don't see it often, but when we do see it, it counts, it makes its presence known, and you have no idea what's going to happen. That's what I love about it. Ain't that sort of unpredictability what The Price is Right is all about?

[StacksOfCash]

I'll probably be in the minority, but I think a free number should never be given out, even if its for a 6 digit car. I think it's good that for a game with such high stakes should challenge a person's mental stack as much as possible. This includes having a large pool of numbers and positions to choose from, but also REMEMBERING where they DON'T go. Sure, some of this is lost with the audience helping out, but contestants should be trembling when making their decision - you're either right and one less number away from winning a car, or you get the compounding feeling of dread as not only does the number go back into the bag, but there's also the chance you draw a strike and possibly game over.

This game is meant to be a spectacle and wins are supposed to be few and far between. That's what makes it special. This game lost ALL its charm when it was reduced to 1 strike in the bag. If a contestant won this game, you can safely say they EARNED it. The difficulty, luck factor, and intensity makes it exponentially better than similarly difficult games like Pay the Rent.

[ThatDonGuy]

Love the game and I'm ok with three strikes in the bag but to give the contestant a fighting chance, please give them the first number in the price to start.  It would be consistent with how Lucky 7, Temptation and Dice Game all evolved to 5 digit prices.

IIRC, they tried this once, and reduced the value of the cars as well to compensate. I want to say, there was one episode with three strikes in the bag at the start, and one with one strike, before they went back to the old method. Its main problem, in my opinion, is still, you only have a 3/7 (with 4 digits) or 3/8 (with 5 digits) chance to win - and that's if you are told the price of the car in advance!