Range Game
Range Game is a pricing game on the American television game show, "The Price is Right." It is played for a prize worth more than $3,000.
Gameplay
The contestant is shown a scale representing $600 worth of prices. Somewhere on the scale is the price of a prize.
A red window representing a $150 range (dubbed the "range finder") moves up the scale. As soon as the contestant believes that the "range finder" covers the price of the prize, he presses a button to stop it. If the price is indeed covered by the "range finder," he wins the prize.
Rules changes
- When the game debuted in 1973 Range Game used a $50 "range finder." The winning spread quickly increased to $100 and just as quickly to the current $150.
- During a brief time in the 1970s syndicated version, the "range finder" provided a $200 spread.
Trivia
- As a running gag, host Bob Barker tells the contestant that, once the range finder has been stopped, the "range finder" cannot be restarted for 37 hours. This joke has used other absurd numbers and has extended into days, weeks, months, etc.
- If the "range finder" reaches the top of the scale, it stops automatically. This has never been known to happen.
- And yes, Range Game has been played for a range (a stove). A range was also the Item up for Bids offered immediately before the game's first playing.
- Range Game is one of the few games that is already revealed before its prize is.
- Range Game is generally played for a car a few times each season.
- On the Davidson version of Price, Range Game was used as the Showcase (although Doug never acknowledged it as such). A completely new prop was constructed for the round, and the contestant selected at random a length for the rangefinder from between $1,000 and $10,000. Whereas the normal Range Game board's scale covered a range of $600, the Showcase version's covered a range of $60,000.