Author Topic: Power of 10 Premiering This Summer on CBS. (Read 5533 times)

TimK2003 · « **Reply #15 on:** May 16, 2007, 07:33:21 PM »

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'152485\' date=\'May 16 2007, 06:18 PM\']
[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'152481\' date=\'May 16 2007, 05:41 PM\']Player starts out on the first question, and has to be within 75 percentage points. Player misses the answer by 20 percentage points. Take 20 % points away, and the $10K question needs to be within 55 % points. Player misses by 32 % points, the $100K question needs to be within 23 points, and so on.[/quote]
Neat idea, but way too complicated for the average viewer in the DoND era.
[/quote]

For what DoND has done, I think EnDammitol has made even Match Game's rules too complicated for the average viewer nowadays, if that show were ever to be remade!

/What? Ya hafta come up with a word that will match with those six people over there???
//Where's the Multiple Choice? And how come those 6 people over there don't have briefcases???

Neumms · « **Reply #16 on:** May 17, 2007, 12:23:01 PM »

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'152485\' date=\'May 16 2007, 05:18 PM\']
[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'152481\' date=\'May 16 2007, 05:41 PM\']Player starts out on the first question, and has to be within 75 percentage points. Player misses the answer by 20 percentage points. Take 20 % points away, and the $10K question needs to be within 55 % points. Player misses by 32 % points, the $100K question needs to be within 23 points, and so on.[/quote]
Neat idea, but way too complicated for the average viewer in the DoND era.
[/quote]

I thought it a neat idea, too. One advantage (for the producers, at least) is that it makes it almost impossible to blow out early.

If they got the math part over with fast enough, the average viewers might not realize there's math involved.

Joe Mello · « **Reply #17 on:** May 17, 2007, 02:01:43 PM »

Matt, I'm not sure how much you can complain about math when that's part of the show's premise to begin with. I can easily compare Tim's idea to the Lucky $even dollars or Hit Points for your favorite RPG character.

I figured the ranges would be fixed, like maybe 40, 20, 10, 5, 2 or some such.

Now this may too simple, but I'm thinking that if a player risks and loses, (s)he will just be moved back down one level and given that money. If you win, you get 10x; if you lose, you get a tenth of x.

tpirfan28 · « **Reply #18 on:** May 17, 2007, 02:11:28 PM »

[quote name=\'Joe Mello\' post=\'152534\' date=\'May 17 2007, 02:01 PM\']
Now this may too simple, but I'm thinking that if a player risks and loses, (s)he will just be moved back down one level and given that money. If you win, you get 10x; if you lose, you get a tenth of x.
[/quote]
Tenth of x? Too complicated of a money structure. See Hit Me from "Price is Right, The." If your "normal" contestant can't comprehend what is 10x of something....

clemon79 · « **Reply #19 on:** May 17, 2007, 02:18:52 PM »

[quote name=\'Joe Mello\' post=\'152534\' date=\'May 17 2007, 11:01 AM\']
Matt, I'm not sure how much you can complain about math when that's part of the show's premise to begin with. I can easily compare Tim's idea to the Lucky $even dollars or Hit Points for your favorite RPG character.
[/quote]
You also thought that multiplying Chain Reaction winnings by three was totally intuitive for the average viewer.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #20 on:** May 17, 2007, 02:44:16 PM »

[quote name=\'Joe Mello\' post=\'152534\' date=\'May 17 2007, 02:01 PM\']
Matt, I'm not sure how much you can complain about math when that's part of the show's premise to begin with. I can easily compare Tim's idea to the Lucky $even dollars or Hit Points for your favorite RPG character.[/quote]
I'm afraid you're too smart to ever be a TV executive becuause you're too smart to understand just how not-smart an average viewer really is. To the average viewer, Tim's suggestion is MUCH more complicated than Lucky Seven, and the average viewer doesn't have the faintest idea what an RPG character even is.

To suggest that the premise of the show has anything to do with math again shows that you know a lot more about math than the average viewer. To the vast majority of the viewing audience, "add a zero" is not math.

Speaking of which...[quote name=\'tpirfan28\' post=\'152535\' date=\'May 17 2007, 02:11 PM\']
Tenth of x? Too complicated of a money structure. [/quote]
No, not when "x" is 1. The ladder is right there in front of you. Get it right, go up a rung. Get it wrong, go down a rung. That's not even math, it's an easy visual.

CarbonCpy · « **Reply #21 on:** May 18, 2007, 01:15:21 AM »

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'152485\' date=\'May 16 2007, 06:18 PM\']
Neat idea, but way too complicated for the average viewer in the DoND era.
[/quote]

And Cliffhanger has been in rotation for how long?

clemon79 · « **Reply #22 on:** May 18, 2007, 01:50:56 AM »

[quote name=\'CarbonCpy\' post=\'152618\' date=\'May 17 2007, 10:15 PM\']
And Cliffhanger has been in rotation for how long?
[/quote]
And people are still losing it.

TLEberle · « **Reply #23 on:** May 18, 2007, 01:54:35 AM »

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'152482\' date=\'May 16 2007, 02:48 PM\']The description kind of made me think of the kinds of questions they used on Wizard of Odds (...boy, I'd love to see an episode of that again...)
[/quote]Having never seen Wizard of Odds in any form, my eyes perked up on this. What kind of questions did they use?

CarbonCpy · « **Reply #24 on:** May 18, 2007, 12:36:46 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'152624\' date=\'May 18 2007, 01:50 AM\']
And people are still losing it.
[/quote]

But knowing how a game works and being any good at it are two different things.

I mean, I know how to play Acquire, but I've yet to finish a game in anywhere but last place.

clemon79 · « **Reply #25 on:** May 18, 2007, 01:01:05 PM »

[quote name=\'CarbonCpy\' post=\'152647\' date=\'May 18 2007, 09:36 AM\']
But knowing how a game works and being any good at it are two different things.
[/quote]
Not my point. My point is that if Cliff Hangers were so easy to grok, as you suggest, then surely most people would have figured out the fairly basic math by now that pretty much guarantees victory. Yet they have not, which implies to me that the average viewer isn't nearly as bright as you seem to think.

Quote

I mean, I know how to play Acquire, but I've yet to finish a game in anywhere but last place.

Well, there I'm right with you, but that has a lot to do with being brought up on Monopoly and not being able to wrap my brain around the concept that having holdings in the company being swallowed up is better than having holdings in the company doing the swallowing.

tpirfan28 · « **Reply #26 on:** May 18, 2007, 01:32:43 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'152624\' date=\'May 18 2007, 01:50 AM\']
[quote name=\'CarbonCpy\' post=\'152618\' date=\'May 17 2007, 10:15 PM\']
And Cliffhanger has been in rotation for how long?
[/quote]
And people are still losing it.
[/quote]
Peter Griffin: "That microwave isn't $300! Don't listen to that stupid tourist!"

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #27 on:** May 18, 2007, 04:31:09 PM »

Quote

Having never seen Wizard of Odds in any form, my eyes perked up on this. What kind of questions did they use?

Going from hazy memories, and from the description of the show in the EOTVGS, the questions were all about percentages and odds, and the contestants had to guess what the percentages were for each question. For example, one question might be "what percentage of Americans ate at a Fast Food restaurant last week" - and things like that.

Can't really offer more details than that because it's been 33 years since I saw the show - but I remember liking it when it was on

Robert Hutchinson · « **Reply #28 on:** May 18, 2007, 06:29:29 PM »

Cliffhangers isn't a game that contestants are losing due to their bad math skills, is it? I mean, even if you don't understand the precise mechanism behind why the mountain climber is moving X steps, you're still got to understand that you're trying to get as close to the right price as possible. The "method" for winning Cliffhangers is knowing that the prizes almost always increase in price, roughly at $25-$35-$45 or $20-$35-$50. That's not math, that's a gimmick.

I'm going to have to go out on a limb by disagreeing with some of our more esteemed members. I think the bank of percentage points one could use up during a game of Power of 10 could work as a concept. The thing is . . . the viewers don't need to understand the precise math of it all. Is there any way in the world that the average viewer is keeping up with 1 vs. 100 multiplying base amounts by mob members eliminated, then adding it to a previous bank? No . . . but they don't have to. The show is quite willing to tell them what the new grand prize is.

Jay Temple · « **Reply #29 on:** May 18, 2007, 09:02:18 PM »

[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'152481\' date=\'May 16 2007, 04:41 PM\']
How about this:

Player starts out on the first question, and has to be within 75 percentage points. Player misses the answer by 20 percentage points. Take 20 % points away, and the $10K question needs to be within 55 % points. Player misses by 32 % points, the $100K question needs to be within 23 points, and so on.

The better you do in the early questions, the more leeway you have later on and the more tempting the offer of risking what you have for the larger prizes.
[/quote]
I like your basic idea, but an initial guess of 50 means that you'd never be off by more than 50.