1995 - 1996 (Retired)
Split Decision is by far the biggest pricing game disaster of the 1990's. Split Decision was a car game in which a three-digit prize could also be won. The five digits of the car and three digits of the small prize were listed in a row of eight. All the digits were ordered correctly from left to right, but were not necessarily adjacent to one another. For example, in a row of 1 7 3 8 6 9 0 2, the price of the car would be $17,890 and the price of the three-digit price would be $362. The object of the game was to move the digits three-digit prize down from the row, thereby seperating the prices of the car and the small prize. The contestant had 20 seconds to do this, and once s/he had made his/her decision, s/he would hit a button to stop the clock. If s/he was right, s/he won both prizes. If not, s/he was not told which digits s/he had right, but could make changes as many times as the remainder of time allowed. The game continued until the prizes were won or until time ran out (and the contestant lost).
Unfortunately, either 20 seconds was not enough time to play the game, or people were oblivious to the clock, because contestants would CONSTANTLY waste time pondering their choices before making a move. The best strategy in this case was to try as many possibilities as possible without wasting time. The first two digits in the car are usually a given, so the contestant really didn't have too many possibilities to cycle through; 20 seconds should have been enough. However, since contestants never really figured the game out, the producers switched the rules so that the clock was removed entirely. Instead, contestants were given four (or was it three??) opportunities to make decisions/changes with an unlimited amount of time. The bizarre thing about this format is that, with repeats and a taping schedule that does not necessarily air episodes in order of taping, viewers never really knew what format the game would be using each time it was played.
Eventually, Split Decision began producing an unprecedented amount of losers and the game was put out of its misery. In theory, the game was a great idea and the producers indeed gave it a fair shot. Members of the alt.tv.game-shows newsgroup got wind of Split Decision's creation far before it was introduced, so the producers must have spent a lot of time working on the game. For the one year it was in the show's rotation, it saw extensive game play and the game actually pushed Any Number (which uses the same combination of prizes) to the back burner in terms of frequency of play.
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| It's everyone's favorite disaster, Split Decision! | Bob demonstrates the deceptively simple game play...just pull the numbers of the three-digit prize down! |
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| Here's his first guess...$284 for the desk and $13,905 for the car...he only lost 5 seconds! | He's not right so he tries again...but, wait--no time went off the clock?? |
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| A close-up look confirms that the clock operator must have taken a nap! | Oh now what?? On his third attempt, the "0" fell off it's mark! |
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| Oh God! On his seventh and final attempt, yet another digit fell off! Did he win for Pete's sake? | No! The car price was $12,390 and the desk was $845. Can you see why this was retired!? |