My Philosophy on Game Shows (Part 2/3)

Hello again:

As promised, here is part 2 of my design philosophy for game shows:

2) The potential "reward" in any game should always be equal to or greater than the "risk" taken to win that reward. If this is not possible for whatever reason, it should at least be close. It doesn't make sense to me to have a game where a contestant has to put more money on the line than that contestant hopes to gain by taking said risk. For example, a group of contestants who played the game show "Greed" would have to risk losing $50,000 to reach the $75,000 level, and then $75,000 to reach $100,000...risking $50,000 to gain $25,000 and $75,000 to gain another $25,000, respectively. In the U.S. version of "Weakest Link" with Anne Robinson, a contestant who chose to answer a question instead of "banking" could end up having to risk losing $50,000 to reach $75,000, or $75,000 to reach the $125,000 target...risking $50,000 to gain $25,000 and $75,000 to gain $50,000, respectively. This doesn't seem very equitable, does it? They don't even do that to players in Las Vegas!

In my game "Try Your Luck", the potential reward is always greater than the risk. For example, the contestant who made $7,300 before taking the risk to reach $14,000 had to risk $5,900 ($7,300 - $1,400 minimum) to gain $6,700 ($14,000 maximum - $7,300). The only case where the risk outweighed the reward was in my first episode of "Try Your Luck", before I added "+1's" to the game. A contestant had made $4,600 with 8 picks...which translates to an $800 minimum for a potential loss of $3,800, and an $8,000 maximum for a potential gain of only $3,400. A risk of $3,800 is greater than the reward of $3,400, but at least it's close. Incidentally, this contestant decided to play it safe and keep the $4,600. A relatively good choice, because he would have dropped to $4,000 if he had "tried his luck." But it would only have been a difference of $600, so....

Coming up next...Part 3!