Bullseye (retired pricing game)
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Bullseye was a pricing game on the American television game show The Price Is Right. Lasting from September 5, 1972's show to September 14, 1972, it was played for a car. The game is commonly referred to as "Bullseye I" to distinguish it from the other Bullseye that debuted in 1976.
Bullseye is among the first five pricing games ever played. The others are Any Number, Bonus Game, Double Prices and Grocery Game.
[edit] Gameplay
The contestant was shown a car (or on one playing, a boat) and was asked to guess its exact price within seven guesses. If the contestant was wrong, he was told either higher or lower.
The game continued until the contestant guessed the right price and won, or gave seven incorrect bids and lost.
[edit] Rule changes
The second day that Bullseye was taped, contestants were given a $500 range in which to bid; due to the earliest shows taping out of order, this resulting in the range being present on its second and fourth playings. A range does not seem to have been given on the game's final playing.
Mathematically, if a person applied the principles of binary search exactly correctly, a win would only be guaranteed with a range given of $127 or less. Thus, even if a player used all strategy available with this rule change, he would still have only a 25% chance of winning.
[edit] Trivia
- Bullseye was likely created simultaneously with the far-more successful (and enduring) Clock Game, a game which also requires contestants to use binary search to narrow in on a correct price of a prize. The key difference is that Clock Game relies on a time limit in which a player may make as many guesses as he wishes rather than a preset number of guesses.
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- An equally ill-fated spinoff of Bullseye was Double Bullseye, which was created to make up for Bullseye itself being essentially unwinnable.
[edit] Retirement
Bullseye has the distinction of being the first pricing game to be retired, thanks to it being too hard to win; in fact, in its five playings on the daytime show, the game was never won. One player managed to miss the price by only $1.
