The Lion's Share Referendum

[chef855]

The more extensive one is to change it into a slot machine, due to "The Lion's Share" originally being an MGM slot brand.

This would honestly be the more "on brand" version than what we have but still relies heavily on MGM/BetMGM to continue the sponsorship. I like the idea though.

[illustriousrocket]

This would honestly be the more "on brand" version than what we have but still relies heavily on MGM/BetMGM to continue the sponsorship. I like the idea though.

Thanks.

Honestly, that was one aspect I wasn't happy with while putting it together. I couldn't avoid it though because my goal was to try and preserve as much of the spirit of the real game instead of just answering "throw the whole thing out."

I guess you could do the slot machine game on its own by removing all the lion imagery and renaming it.

[alansh42]

The real problem is that improvements make it more like Punch-A-Bunch or Press Your Luck which already exist.

They do seem to have settled on revealing the unchosen numbers which is good.

[StacksOfCash]

I have nothing but vitriolic hatred for this game. I think it represents everything wrong with TPiR. Overextravagant board, drawn out segments, predatory theming (its a fricking gambling/lottery machine), and gambling ads shoved in our faces in a show that's catering towards vulnerable population i.e. seniors and kids either not old enough for school or are sick.

Can't stand the fact that everything about the reveals are digital. I don't care if there's procedures that ensure legality and fairness, there's nothing thats going to prevent me from believing that everything about the reveals are rigged to the bone. Why can't there be paper slips inside the balls. At least there would be some tangible evidence that the results aren't tampered with. The fact that it's digital means that every outcome can be manipulated based on what the producers want to see. Want to generate some oohs and aahs - give the contestant a big prize like a Porsche or 100k, want to generate some disappointment - make them LOSE IT ALL on the last pick or show a 100k pick after they have already bailed with 50k worth of prizes. Anything that will make the sponsor BetMGM look good.

I can forgive a game for having poor theming or boring gameplay like Gridlock, Pay The Rent, and Triple Play, but I can't stand the fact that a game like this exists. If there's a game I want on the chopping block, it has to be this one. HATE is not a strong enough word for how i feel about this game.

[GobGlom]

The game itself isn't all that bad. They just made it overly flashy, too much use of LED volume.
They could make it go much faster if they dumped the air chamber and just had them blind-choose balls from a rock-shaped hopper. It would accomplish the same thing.
I'm sure Standards & Practices officials are all over this game like white on rice. Computers aren't infallible and would affect the game in ways that weren't predicted.

Fortunately, they don't drag it out very often so we don't have to see it frequently.

[crazypackersfan]

As of now, we've got 24 people who like it, 24 people who don't like it, and 12 who are indifferent! I don't know what to take away from that.

I will say, pretty much every single thing that has been said in this thread is something I agree with. In fact, it was that "disappointing" $99,000 car win that pushed me over the edge. This isn't Who Wants to be a Millionaire; you can't have someone disappointed after walking away with that much. This game should have been a "Price is Right at Night" exclusive, which I think I could live with. It would also be a better time to advertise gambling.

Hoping this game goes the way of the dodo, but with sponsored money, I'm not holding my breath.

[jhc2010]

This game is obviously in need of some sort of retool as it takes too long to play. Superball had a timing issue and they tried to fix by describing the first 3 SPs at once before ultimately getting scrapped after many years.

[TPIRighteous]

I’m honestly surprised that sentiment isn’t more overwhelmingly negative.

The Price is Right has never worked as a high-stakes game. Never. That’s not what it’s about. It’s a show about the prices of things you see in everyday life, which means the prizes aren’t going to change your life. Cars, trips, furniture—almost all of us buy these things at some point, but the windfall of getting one for “free” is an exciting idea.

Offering big money or a luxury car every now and then is fine for adding intrigue and variety, but a $500,000 pricing game misses the very essence of the show. It makes a game potentially life-changing when it’s not supposed to be, and it makes everything else on the show look completely insignificant.

Who wants a $6,000 trip to Seattle when you could win enough money to buy a house? Plenty of contestants would be happy with a modest prize, but raising the bar to a comical level makes an otherwise nice prize feel like a major disappointment.

It’s something the showrunners just don’t seem to get. Every time they trotted out million-dollar Plinko, they not only dwarfed every other prize on the show, they advertised a very flashy but basically impossible grand prize while also making it stupidly easy for someone to win $200,000. The difficulty is supposed to scale with the prizes, not just jump around randomly. Randomness is for gambling, and… well, clearly there are powers that want it to turn into gambling, just like everything else in life that was once a bit less sinister.

That’s what this game is. Sinister. Not in a Pay the Rent, convoluted, unintuitive way, but something much darker that’s peeling back the curtain on the worst of humanity. When a third of all Americans have a crippling gambling addiction, we’re going to look up and wonder how this happened, as if this train wreck isn’t unfolding before our eyes right now.

[illustriousrocket]

I wonder where the idea for the $500,000 top prize and huge prizes even came from. Was it something BetMGM wanted so the game would stand out?

It would be a bad game on any budget but the cartoonishly overinflated budget it has ironically only calls attention to its faults.

[PimpinJC]

I just realized: BetMGM minimum age is 21, whereas the minimum age to be a contestant is 18.  I wonder if that could open the show up to a lawsuit.

My biggest gripe is that the game takes way too long to play.  We’ve had other games that have gotten retired or threatened because they take too long to play (*cough* SuperBall!! * cough* 3 Strikes *cough*), yet after watching The Lion’s Share being played, I can easily see those games timing not being an issue.  The number reveals feel like in the style of Deal or No Deal, which just…seems…to…DRAG.  The only conceivable way to speed it up is to reveal the numbers in the order the contestant collects them, and/or remove the “lose it alls” and just reveal what the contestant collected.

[SeaBreeze341]

I imagine that if the age requirement was an issue to where a lawsuit surfaces, the show would simply not call down anyone under the age of 21.

[JT]

I just realized: BetMGM minimum age is 21, whereas the minimum age to be a contestant is 18.  I wonder if that could open the show up to a lawsuit.

My biggest gripe is that the game takes way too long to play.  We’ve had other games that have gotten retired or threatened because they take too long to play (*cough* SuperBall!! * cough* 3 Strikes *cough*), yet after watching The Lion’s Share being played, I can easily see those games timing not being an issue.  The number reveals feel like in the style of Deal or No Deal, which just…seems…to…DRAG.  The only conceivable way to speed it up is to reveal the numbers in the order the contestant collects them, and/or remove the “lose it alls” and just reveal what the contestant collected.

The contestants are not risking their own money here so there should not be an issue with contestants who are 18-20. Yes, the stakes are higher here, but the contestants risk what they have won in several games on a regular basis (Punch-A-Bunch, It's in the Bag, Hot Seat, etc.)

[SeaBreeze341]

The contestants are not risking their own money here so there should not be an issue with contestants who are 18-20. Yes, the stakes are higher here, but the contestants risk what they have won in several games on a regular basis (Punch-A-Bunch, It's in the Bag, Hot Seat, etc.)

Very good point about the contestant not risking their own money.  I still agree somewhat about the partnership between BetMGM and TPIR.  Fun if I'm playing it myself, but not a big fan of it being associated with the daytime show.

[illustriousrocket]

Yesterday was quite clearly the most exciting playing yet, I think, but I would also say it highlighted a couple of the biggest flaws in the gameplay itself.

You can only get intensity like that when someone both is able to pull multiple $100,000 balls and is willing to risk it all to play them. That's a convergence of luck and nerve that just does not walk in the door every day.

The runtime is still far too long also. That massive time investment isn't worth it when the game is substantially more likely to generate a blah sort of result in any given playing.

A third thing goes back to something I thought while writing up my slot machine idea. When I put that together I suggested a jackpot where you win a trip, a car, and $100,000 cash, and said the goal was to not get too close to $200,000 total. I actually had second thoughts because while I knew I wouldn't put cars like the $99,000 Porsche in it, I had no idea what sort of number would be attached to the trips.

I was very much not expecting the trip to only be ~$12,000. I never would have thought there would be such a gulf between it and the sort of cars this game offers. This, to me, kind of puts the spotlight on just how wildly imbalanced the game's payout structure is. You have a bunch of modest (in the context of this game) cash awards and prizes, the trip is seemingly one of the "main" prizes, and then there's a gigantic gap of $80,000+ between all of those and the car or the $100,000. It's absurd.