Why does anyone on Family Feud choose to "play" after winning

[pacdude]

Shameless plug: I moderate /r/gameshow on Reddit, and this question came up:

It seems like 99% of the time it's near impossible to get all of the responses without striking out, then the other team almost always steals with the one sure answer they've had time to think about. Furthermore, the end game seems extremely difficult for the amount of prize money involved. What gives?

My response was weak, mostly because I'm tired:the other team doesn't almost always steal; in fact, the opposite happens. Is this fair?

[Matt Ottinger]

I'm immediately annoyed when somebody says anything happens 99% of the time, unless they've got some data or statistics to back them up.

It might be interesting to find out what the "play vs pass" statistics are over time, but my guess would be that there's not going to be a significant difference.  I imagine 60/40 one way or the other wouldn't surprise me, but any more than that it seems people like us would have noticed.

[parliboy]

Because of the current structure of the game, the statement, no matter if it is true or false, is almost irrelevant.  What you should be looking at is just what percentage of the triple value questions are stolen.  Less data to examine, higher correlation against game win.

[TLEberle]

Without going all Freakonomics on it, here's something: you go on a game show ostensibly to play the game, right? If you go in to the tryouts and you pass every question like it's contraband, do you think you're going to get on? It might be peachy tactics, but it would make for foul TV.

[clemon79]

I question whether it's even peachy tactics.

I pass on every question like a network executive being pitched a revival of You're In The Picture. (Upon retrospect, maybe not the best simile.) The other team (and, indeed, the entire point of playing) knocks off all of the good answers, leaving us with the dregs, and when those steal opportunities *do* come (and there's no guarantee that they will), we're stuck trying to figure out if 2 people were thinking of "his schlong" or not.

Personally, I'd rather a) have fun (and playing is more fun), and b) play the game to knock out what 90% of the people were thinking and leave the bozo factor to the other guys.

[gameshowcrazy]

I question whether it's even peachy tactics.

I pass on every question like a network executive being pitched a revival of You're In The Picture. (Upon retrospect, maybe not the best simile.) The other team (and, indeed, the entire point of playing) knocks off all of the good answers, leaving us with the dregs, and when those steal opportunities *do* come (and there's no guarantee that they will), we're stuck trying to figure out if 2 people were thinking of "his schlong" or not.

Personally, I'd rather a) have fun (and playing is more fun), and b) play the game to knock out what 90% of the people were thinking and leave the bozo factor to the other guys.

Completely agree--I would rather have my team in control and try to take all the good answers.

[Mr. Armadillo]

My response was weak, mostly because I'm tired:the other team doesn't almost always steal; in fact, the opposite happens. Is this fair?

Yes; however, it's worth noting that one of the two episodes that aired in my double-run market yesterday featured the rare feat of a family winning by stealing every question.  This is likely what raised the question in the first place.

EDIT: Or not; just noticed the question was asked two days ago.

[Jay Temple]

There is a rare situation where it might make sense. Once on a Family Feud prime-time special, the question was "Name a famous tennis player." (It may even have been "female tennis player.") I think there were six or more answers on the survey. There was a famous tennis player on one team. I don't remember how it played out, but it occurred to me that an ordinary team would probably leave at least a couple answers open on a question like that, and the tennis player herself would have a very good chance of coming up with one.

So that's my answer: It makes sense if there are a lot of answers and a member of your team has in-depth knowledge of the subject matter.

[JasonA1]

I remember your example from when we discussed this many years ago (NINE YEARS AGO!?!?), and I still agree with Chris' reply downthread. If the question were "name a game show America loves" I would feel the same about playing. Yeah, I have an intimate knowledge of the subject, but I would likely not be in tune with the straggler answers, which in that case might be something like "Love Connection" or "The Gong Show." The game is about popular opinion, and that is more often going to tap into your base instincts. It's especially hard to reason out one of the "weird" answers near the bottom of a lengthy survey.

-Jason

[Kevin Prather]

The game is about popular opinion, and that is more often going to tap into your base instincts. It's especially hard to reason out one of the "weird" answers near the bottom of a lengthy survey.

This is what I loved about Dirty Rotten Cheater. They recognized that the answers down the list were harder to pinpoint, so they paid more.

[TLEberle]

This is what I loved about Dirty Rotten Cheater. They recognized that the answers down the list were harder to pinpoint, so they paid more.

And if they hadn't utterly crapped up the format, I'd still be watching Pointless.

[calliaume]

I'm immediately annoyed when somebody says anything happens 99% of the time, unless they've got some data or statistics to back them up.

I'm annoyed 83 percent of the time when that happens.  True story.  (I'm annoyed 75 percent of the time when someone uses a percentage symbol in a sentence rather than spelling out the word percent; it goes against the AP Stylebook.)

The best example of when to pass:  when both teams struggle to get an answer that's on the board, like when both players in the Faceoff whiff, and then someone else gets an answer.  If you know it's a hard question, send it to the other side.

[gameshowcrazy]

The best example of when to pass:  when both teams struggle to get an answer that's on the board, like when both players in the Faceoff whiff, and then someone else gets an answer.  If you know it's a hard question, send it to the other side.


Then won't it make it that much harder for your team to steal when it comes back to you?

[clemon79]

Then won't it make it that much harder for your team to steal when it comes back to you?

Curt's point is that if it's a hard question, it's more likely to leave behind reasonable answers than "We surveyed 100 people, top 8 answers are on the board: Name one of the Seven Dwarfs or any baseball player."

[PYLdude]

Then won't it make it that much harder for your team to steal when it comes back to you?

Curt's point is that if it's a hard question, it's more likely to leave behind reasonable answers than "We surveyed 100 people, top 8 answers are on the board: Name one of the Seven Dwarfs or any baseball player."

Eddie Gaedel.

Oh wait...