Post by Twentington on Mar 24, 2022 23:42:15 GMT -5
Credit to RegisFan on another forum, thought this question might make for some interesting discussion here:
So how would I design a budget Millionaire?
First of all: no audience. Yes, that takes away some of the game's atmosphere, but that's more money you can put toward the prize budget by virtue of not having to hire an audience coordinator, warm up person, etc. etc., and if all else fails, just fill the empty space with a bunch of video screens!
Second: give viewers the capability to submit questions to be used on the show (a la The People Versus), which will save on your writing budget. You still need someone to sift through the question submissions and tell apart the diamonds from the rocks, and you'd need someone to set the stack for each contestant, of course, but that's still an easier lift than having to hire a full writing staff for a cable show. (Did I mention these are probably going to have to be Super Millionaire levels of difficulty? We can't have everybody and their brother getting to the upper tiers, does it look like GSN is made of money?)
For a host who'd fit in GSN's budget... are any of the Master Minds from that show doing anything right now, other than Ken?
As for the game itself... I'd keep it at 3 lifelines, but go for 50:50 (with the eliminated answers predetermined to make the decision between the remaining two as difficult as possible), a Switch, and Ask The Host. If I *really* wanted to be evil, I'd limit players to one lifeline per question.
Re: the ladder: Sixteen questions, with five and ten as safe points, like so:
$1 MILLION
$100,000
$50,000
$30,000
$20,000
$15,000
$10,000 (SAFE POINT)
$5,000
$3,000
$2,000
$1,000
$500 (SAFE POINT)
$300
$200
$100
$50
Basically, "keeping the ladder progression at least semi-logical on a cable budget" is the general principle I went by in putting this together.
Make the million dollar question a bonus question. No lifelines (provided you didn't already burn them way back at question 8, the cable question difficulty being what it is), and you can't walk away -- you have to make the decision to play the question sight unseen, so if you go for it, it's $1 million or $10,000. I went back and forth on whether or not to make it an even bigger gamble and drop the money back to $500 for a wrong answer, but that'd just encourage more people to stay put at $100,000, which 1) would be a massive hit on your cable budget and 2) just wouldn't be exciting television. Leaving a decent, but not earth-shattering safety net in place is a bit more likely to encourage people to take that risk of $90,000 for a possible $900,000 extra.
That's how I would do it -- but how would you do it?
Scenario:
You work for Game Show Network in the US and have obtained the rights to produce a daily version of Millionaire. While the top prize will remain one million dollars, the rest of the production must be scaled back to meet the network’s budget requirements.
How do you tweak the game (money tree, lifelines, safety nets, presentation, host, etc.) to deliver a quality WWTBAM experience on a basic cable budget? For reference, the top prize on most GSN originals is between $10,000 and $15,000, and the full payout is rarely achieved with most contestants winning several hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars. How would you design WWTBAM so that most contestants’ winnings fall within that range without losing what makes the show special?
You work for Game Show Network in the US and have obtained the rights to produce a daily version of Millionaire. While the top prize will remain one million dollars, the rest of the production must be scaled back to meet the network’s budget requirements.
How do you tweak the game (money tree, lifelines, safety nets, presentation, host, etc.) to deliver a quality WWTBAM experience on a basic cable budget? For reference, the top prize on most GSN originals is between $10,000 and $15,000, and the full payout is rarely achieved with most contestants winning several hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars. How would you design WWTBAM so that most contestants’ winnings fall within that range without losing what makes the show special?
First of all: no audience. Yes, that takes away some of the game's atmosphere, but that's more money you can put toward the prize budget by virtue of not having to hire an audience coordinator, warm up person, etc. etc., and if all else fails, just fill the empty space with a bunch of video screens!
Second: give viewers the capability to submit questions to be used on the show (a la The People Versus), which will save on your writing budget. You still need someone to sift through the question submissions and tell apart the diamonds from the rocks, and you'd need someone to set the stack for each contestant, of course, but that's still an easier lift than having to hire a full writing staff for a cable show. (Did I mention these are probably going to have to be Super Millionaire levels of difficulty? We can't have everybody and their brother getting to the upper tiers, does it look like GSN is made of money?)
For a host who'd fit in GSN's budget... are any of the Master Minds from that show doing anything right now, other than Ken?
As for the game itself... I'd keep it at 3 lifelines, but go for 50:50 (with the eliminated answers predetermined to make the decision between the remaining two as difficult as possible), a Switch, and Ask The Host. If I *really* wanted to be evil, I'd limit players to one lifeline per question.
Re: the ladder: Sixteen questions, with five and ten as safe points, like so:
$1 MILLION
$100,000
$50,000
$30,000
$20,000
$15,000
$10,000 (SAFE POINT)
$5,000
$3,000
$2,000
$1,000
$500 (SAFE POINT)
$300
$200
$100
$50
Basically, "keeping the ladder progression at least semi-logical on a cable budget" is the general principle I went by in putting this together.
Make the million dollar question a bonus question. No lifelines (provided you didn't already burn them way back at question 8, the cable question difficulty being what it is), and you can't walk away -- you have to make the decision to play the question sight unseen, so if you go for it, it's $1 million or $10,000. I went back and forth on whether or not to make it an even bigger gamble and drop the money back to $500 for a wrong answer, but that'd just encourage more people to stay put at $100,000, which 1) would be a massive hit on your cable budget and 2) just wouldn't be exciting television. Leaving a decent, but not earth-shattering safety net in place is a bit more likely to encourage people to take that risk of $90,000 for a possible $900,000 extra.
That's how I would do it -- but how would you do it?