I’m interested in spelling out a general theory for gameshows.
Why: It’s fun. It seems to be possible. Its worth a lot of money.
What Makes You Think Its Possible: 50 years of gameshows and we seem to have a handful of models that work well. Work well => stay on the air => audiences find it interesting => advertisers want to spend money.
What is the Structure of This General Theory:
- Enumerate the basic types of games
- Enumerate the gaming environment
- Identify and Classify the game playing behaviors
- Identify and Classify the game outputs
- Enumerate the game playing strategies and classify their outcomes
- Vet against upcoming shows
- Summarize and conclude
- Produce show based on theory
What Does My Intuition (previous experience) Tell Me Already:
- There are 2 main types of games: skill and no skill (“luck”)
- There are 5-8 variants on those two types in each One Player, Two Player, and Multiple Players
- One Player
- Two Player – sometimes the “house” is the other player
- Multiple Players
- Variant Breakout
- Skill
- Physical Skill – speed strength
- Knowledge/Factual Skill – huge base of facts needed
- Reasoning/Logic Skill – no prior knowlege required (Gambling strategy games included)
- No Skill
- Physics
- Probability
- Skill
- We’re left with 15-24 actual game engines (there will be all sorts of environmental variations that turn these 15-24 games into a near infinite variety)
- The outcomes/stakes at play can all be consider environmental factors (yes, they may change how the game is played but the rules of the game engine won’t change)
- The Environment can be classified easily
- Host
- Famous
- Non Famous
- Involved in Game/Vs. Player
- Audience
- Big
- Small
- Live
- Involved in Game Directly
- Music
- In studio
- Added in after
- Ambient
- Part of Game
- Lights
- Involved in Game directly
- Spotlight
- Time Limits
- Time limited game
- Timing based game
- Stakes/Risk
- Risk to player
- Risk to vs. player
- Large Stakes (define)
- Host
- Game theory will be useful in picking out strategies
- List of Gameshows
- The stimuli and operants and schedules can be identified and classified
- audience feedback
- lighting and music
- real money present
- touches from host
- interaction with family
- ….
What the heck would I do with all this?
Use it to come up with new shows and improve existing shows!
Get published!
While I work on this, check out all these papers.
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