The show has a significant number of games played less than 10 times per year now and it could easily cut 30 games from it's rotation and viewers would barely notice.
On a couple of different occasions in the past, when an average person learned that I was working on
TPIR, they would say, "You know that game where [rough description of how pricing game works]? You sure play that a lot, don't you?" There was an undercurrent of disappointment in the remark, and it was about a rarely won game like Lucky Seven or That's Too Much.
If the choice is between a casual viewer reacting with "Lucky Seven
again?" or "I don't recognize any of these games," I think the latter is preferable. I've been dipping in and out of the Pluto episodes when I can, and it seems like many contestants don't know the rules to the weekly games, even with significantly fewer games in the rotation compared to today. So from an on-air point of view, there's little benefit to getting rid of a lot of games.
Of course, the reason games like Lucky Seven and That's Too Much are played so frequently is because they don't take much time, and with program content time dwindling, that's crucial. I do think the current show relies a little too heavily on the quick games, but it would be impossible to get a perfect rotation.
But I can't believe we can't siphon off a couple of One Wrong Price's 23 playings last season to play Eazy as 1-2-3 more than eight times.
Easy as 1 2 3 is timed either 30 seconds or 60 seconds longer than One Wrong Price, depending on what the current timings are -- having the contestant walk around to place the blocks does make the game take longer. I know that 30 or 60 seconds doesn't sound like much, but that time has to be made up somewhere. So if you want to play Easy as 1 2 3 instead of One Wrong Price, you'll end up, for example, playing Lucky Seven instead of Any Number to get the show to come in on time. But the show has fewer car games than not-car games, so Lucky Seven may already be needed somewhere else in the week.
