5 Least Favorite Current Pricing Games

[MSTieScott]

4.  Double Cross (so much chrome/explanation for a game that's really a 1/3 guess...you know they will never put the correct answer as the default setting!)

I wouldn't be so sure about that...

[Chelsea Thrasher]

I've never cared for Golden Road or Pick a Number - and am lumping them together.  Functionally they're the same game, the former just with better chrome and for increasingly expensive prizes.   For the four and five digit prizes, the games are essentially a lottery; no one credibly knows whether that Corvette is $72,178 or $72,378.  I dislike Pick a Number more since it's the same game just stripping out the parts that do make GR interesting (ludicrously expensive prizes, chrome) but I'm never even remotely excited to see Golden Road.

I really dislike Hot Seat.  While the two core mechanics of the game (High/low on a timer, the bailout sequence) are fine or even good, the core gimmick of the game is a hot mess.  The chair's a potential point for mechanical failure (I'd be shocked if it hasn't failed at least once, and the show just edited with the contestant playing a different game, and the moving up and down the row on the chair overcomplicates the game's better bit (high/low on the clock). It's mechanical complexity also limits where it can appear in a show, a facet I've never cared for.

I think Take Two is the worst in the genre of "Here's four mid prizes that are almost never anything fun".  It lacks Race Game's fun chaotic sprint, it's harder to reason your way out of (Shopping Spree), it doesn't have the same fun visual identity of a Danger Price, etc.  The ONLY time they ever hit on something worthwhile with this game was with the 4-sport season ticket packages, and trying to work out which combo of sports tickets generates that price.  Once that stopped, it was just "Oh hey, uh, dinette set and patio furniture I guess? I'm declining those tax burdens anyway, shame I didn't even get to run around like a goof."

I think it says something that they tried mightily hard to kill Bonus Game as early as 1974. The design of the game's ugly, the game hasn't given away anything anything interesting in the prize guessing section since 1974, unless the game's for a car or rarely cash it's not played for a bonus prize that's worthwhile, and to win the likely pointless prize you're basically just hoping against hope you got the one arbitrary small prize right. (Plus Shell Game adding in the extra "guess where the win is for a bonus" for getting all 4 right was genius and Bonus Game should have imported it). At this point I don't think the show would kill off any of the surviving four Day One games unless something catastrophic happened, but have never cared for Bonus Game in particular.

[Dbacksfan12]

1.  More or Less--This is simply a chromed up version of a pricing variant seen in many other pricing games. 
2.  Pathfinder--Long winded game to win a car with low odds. 
3.  ½ Off--This used to be my least favorite.  Adding in the $1,000 bonus knocks it down the list; still, terrible odds to win the top prize.  In comparison to another pricing game where a contestant can do everything wrong and still luck in to $10k.  Which brings me to...
4.  Plinko--The audience gets stupidly riled up for this, which I have not understood.  This is a rare case where I think bumping up some of the lower slots would be helpful.  The set is about as ugly as the "Hollywood mural" set, which doesn't help its case, at least in my book.
5.  Lucky Seven--I remember reading about a series of playings where 9 was a frequent choice.  This helped sour me on what was already a difficult pricing game.  If you don't want to give away a car, don't build up the excitement by driving the car out on stage.  Especially when Lucky Seven was always first; starting the day out on a downer isn't great, in my opinion.

[Neumms]

5.  Lucky Seven--I remember reading about a series of playings where 9 was a frequent choice.  This helped sour me on what was already a difficult pricing game.  If you don't want to give away a car, don't build up the excitement by driving the car out on stage.  Especially when Lucky Seven was always first; starting the day out on a downer isn't great, in my opinion.

My least favorite. I don’t like the purple wall and Times Roman numbers, and winning depends totally on how the show’s budget is doing.

2. Bonus Game, especially since the video monitor gives the impression they could cheat.

3. Side-by-Side. Ugly props.

4. Shopping Spree. Credit Card was essentially the same thing but with way better presentation and it broke the five-prize barrier.

5. Take Two.

I love Stack the Deck although they should remove one of the car digits, and I may be the only one, but I like Hot Seat, both the how the game plays and the electric chair.

[beatlefreak84]

4.  Double Cross (so much chrome/explanation for a game that's really a 1/3 guess...you know they will never put the correct answer as the default setting!)

I wouldn't be so sure about that...

Dang...shows how observant I am!  I stand corrected, and amend my probability to 1/4, then. 

Anthony

[ClockGameJohn]

4.  Double Cross (so much chrome/explanation for a game that's really a 1/3 guess...you know they will never put the correct answer as the default setting!)

I wouldn't be so sure about that...

Pathetic. This defeats the entire premise of contestant interaction with a pricing game - and is incredibly "mean spirited" in terms of a forced loss.  This would be as bad as the correct sequence in Pushover not requiring a single block to be pushed off the ledge.

I think it says something that they tried mightily hard to kill Bonus Game as early as 1974. The design of the game's ugly, the game hasn't given away anything anything interesting in the prize guessing section since 1974, unless the game's for a car or rarely cash it's not played for a bonus prize that's worthwhile, and to win the likely pointless prize you're basically just hoping against hope you got the one arbitrary small prize right.

While Bonus Game has certainly lost its luster over years of inflation, the one factor that I'm not sure everyone considers when it comes to the "bore" of Bonus Game is that when it was conceived, the "bonus" prize was truly that -- a bonus. In the early years, the game often offered Small Prizes which were greater than $200; with the combined totals of all four usually adding up to over $500. This was equivalent to nearly 20% of the value of Showcases (and considered very decent prizes). Today, these small prizes wouldn't amount to 0.001% of a Showcase. I suspect that when the original brain-trust were conceiving these games, the idea was that giving away a $250 food processor was considered a "nice prize" (as the game bible often described them).

I think as the years went on, the Small Prizes were considered to be "components" of programming a pricing game (i.e. "win another chance with this stapler"), rather than the actual of focus of them.

[daveromanjr]

In no particular order:

1. Microwave The Cat
2. Throw a Football, Win a Car
3. Price Charming
4. Suds & Prices (Unless paid for a car)
5. Stack the Deck

[TLEberle]

[quote author=MSTieScott link=topic=36140.msg
While Bonus Game has certainly lost its luster over years of inflation, the one factor that I'm not sure everyone considers when it comes to the "bore" of Bonus Game is that when it was conceived, the "bonus" prize was truly that -- a bonus. In the early years, the game often offered Small Prizes which were greater than $200; with the combined totals of all four usually adding up to over $500. This was equivalent to nearly 20% of the value of Showcases (and considered very decent prizes). Today, these small prizes wouldn't amount to 0.001% of a Showcase. I suspect that when the original brain-trust were conceiving these games, the idea was that giving away a $250 food processor was considered a "nice prize" (as the game bible often described them).

I think as the years went on, the Small Prizes were considered to be "components" of programming a pricing game (i.e. "win another chance with this stapler"), rather than the actual of focus of them.

I remember happening upon an early 80s show where Punch a Bunch was played and a wet-dry vacuum worth in excess of $200 was one of the items and I marveled that even if you flame out at the money board at least you were taking home some decent loot. Was there a reason that the show drifted away to using smaller items instead of nice-prices for those either/or, higher/lower, true/false games other than variety in terms of what was shown?

[Clay Zambo]

Now that Range Game is routinely played for prizes in excess of $5000, there's no greater likelihood of being able to price the item accurately; it's just a game of "can you wait until the middle?"--and even then there's no reason producers couldn't decide to put price at the top or bottom of the range. Why not play it somewhat more like Safecrackers--if you can accurately price this sub-1K item, then you win this larger one.

On the other hand, how about Cliffhangers? Price the items at $25-35-45 and you'll win nearly every time. Unless, of course, producers are feeling snarky.

But you gotta keep Bonus Game, just like you gotta keep Any Number and Double Prices. It's history.

[TimK2003]

4.  Plinko--The audience gets stupidly riled up for this, which I have not understood.  This is a rare case where I think bumping up some of the lower slots would be helpful.  The set is about as ugly as the "Hollywood mural" set, which doesn't help its case, at least in my book.

Didn't Plinko offer (but never award) the biggest prize to date when it premiered?  Golden Road may have eclipsed the $25,000 level by that time, but Plinko was the biggest all-cash prize offered at that time, which may explain the over zealous excitement for the game originally. 

But I agree, that for people to go batsh*it over a game that is lucky to see 20% of the possible maximum amount won on average by a contestant at any given time is a bit much.

At least with Pay The Rent, winning the top prize is not 100% luck-based.

[Neumms]

Early in Drew's run, the notion was thrown out that more games be played for money. I like the idea of a Bonus Game bonus of, say, $5000 cash and playing with Race Game or Contestants' Row level prizes. The bonus reveal could be a starburst popping up from behind the board.

I agree on Range Game. Make the increments 1000 and the rangefinder $1500. Easy peasy. I'd bump Card Game from 10 to 100 times the card value, too. TPIR is often about luck with the illusion of skill, but with these two, the illusion is threadbare.

[BrandonFG]

Didn't Plinko offer (but never award) the biggest prize to date when it premiered?  Golden Road may have eclipsed the $25,000 level by that time, but Plinko was the biggest all-cash prize offered at that time, which may explain the over zealous excitement for the game originally.

Looks like it. I just looked up a few playings on the (unofficial) TPiR Wiki and it looks like the vehicles offered in late-82/early-83 were in the 14-18K range.

Considering a lotta Showcases were still four-figures and given that 25K was a year’s salary back then I could see the fuss with all the chrome. Never really thought about it, but the others make a good point that the only real excitement is the top prize potential. It’s other cash games that offer a nice payday and actually require you to know prices.

And to answer the question I don’t think I have a least favorite current game. Joker used to bore me to tears though.

[wdm1219inpenna]

5.  Pass the Buck (get a 1/6 chance of winning the car without needing to know anything about prices...at least Let 'em Roll makes it a 1/32 chance if you don't know anything about prices)

One way that I would improve PTB at least in my mind is that if the contestant doesn't win either extra number choice that Drew reveals the location of the car and then the contestant chooses from what is left.

I like that idea personally but I don't see it flying because of how let down the player would be as well as the audience there and at home.

Of course they could start out by saying "While you will get one pick for free from our board, you must win at least one more choice to qualify for the automobile."  Would be akin I suppose to Ten Chances where the 10th chance is still being played for the 3 digit prize, you know the car won't be getting played for...

And when the show is in their ever-famous "budget mode", those grocery items could be an "evil" set up.

[chris319]

The few times I've seen "To the Penny", it seems awfully awkward and doesn't work visually.

[wdm1219inpenna]

To the one who talked about Double Cross being a possible evil set up with the default setting being right, I am okay with it since the name of the game is "double cross" after all!

That said, that pricing game bores me big time.  Do The Math is a far superior game.

As far as Push Over being correct with the first sequence of blocks, the player still has to push the blocks over into the blue window, so I'm okay with that too actually.  That said, Push Over is way overplayed in my humble opinion.