What's The Big Deal With Deal Or No Deal?

Game shows. People just love them.

The latest game show to hit Malaysian TV is none other than Deal Or No Deal.

It debuted on ntv7 as a Chinese version of the original game show and was hosted by Goh Wee Ping. The English version hosted by radio DJ Aanont Wathanasin followed closely. To confirm its popularity among TV audiences, the second season of the Chinese version started off recently with a new host by the name of Owen Yap.

The game show is so popular even celebrities tried their hands to win on this show. What’s more, celebrity blogger Kenny Sia also participated in one of the episodes and this was mentioned in his blog.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I really don’t understand what is the big deal with Deal Or No Deal. Having watched a few episodes of it, I still could not fathom the reason for its popularity.

Now if you haven’t been watching TV for the past one year, I’m sorry I won’t explain how this game is played. You can find out by googling it, if you care to. Or click on the link above.

To me, the most exciting part of the game is before the actual game itself. The part where questions are thrown to 6 potential contestants, who will attempt to qualify for the game. The first contestant who can answer 2 questions correctly at the fastest time will get to play the game proper.

That’s the most exciting part to me. It goes downhill after that. Seriously! I mean, what’s the fun of opening suitcases at random and hope none of the suitcases you open is the grand prize of RM100,000? It’s all down to pure luck ... and that’s boring!

Come on, let me see some skills here! At least in Wheel Of Fortune or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, contestants get to use their brain power. In Deal Or No Deal, you don’t really need those grey cells. You just guess and guess and hope you get your feng shui right.

Yet Deal Or No Deal is one of the most popular game shows on Malaysian TV today. I suspect the draw is not so much the game itself, but the Revlon girls that are holding those suitcases! Take away the girls and people will very quickly switch channel! Don’t believe? I dare the producers of Deal Or No Deal to try that for one episode. I’ll bet my top ringgit the ratings will start dropping like nobody’s business.

Recently, I came across another game show along similar lines, but much more interesting. It’s called Identity. Again, I’m not going into length how this game is played, but suffice to say, the contestant is required to guess the identities of 12 people on stage.

The more identities the contestant guesses correctly, the more money he or she wins. However, if he makes 2 wrong guesses, he’s out of the game and whatever money he wins will be forfeited as well. So he has a choice to opt out of the game and take the money he won so far, just like in Deal Or No Deal.

At least in Identity, the contestants need to do some deduction to narrow down the possibilities. It’s not just simply choose a suitcase and pray you make the right choice. I would love to see the Malaysian version of Identity.

Oh, if you like, you can play Deal Or No Deal right here, minus the Revlon girls (I wonder why) and the cash prize, of course!

You can also try your hands at Identity here.

Let me know which one you prefer. My vote goes to Identity.