History Main / GoldenSnitch

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': Rather savagely parodied in "Wing It Like Witches". Luz and her friends seemingly eke out a victory in the grudgby game against [[JerkJock Boscha]], but then Boscha reveals that she caught a bug-like creature called the "Rusty Smidge" when they weren't paying attention at the very last second. Luz [[TakeThat proceeds to go on a long rant about how ridiculous a rule like that is, and how it makes the whole game completely pointless]].

*** The Tour has since chosen to play this trope straight starting with the 2018-2019 season. The 30 players who make it to the Tour Championship will now be given a stroke handicap ranging from -10 for the points leader, down to even par for the final five qualifying players. The Tour Championship and [=FedEx=] Cup champion will be the player with the lowest net score after factoring in their starting handicap. (In an unusual case of Main/BookEnds, Tiger Woods covered both aforementioned bases in 2007, but his victory at Atlanta in 2018, the final edition prior to the handicap format, was not enough to overtake Justin Rose who finished tied for fourth to steal the Cup away from Bryson [=DeChambeau=].)

*** MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi was famed for his tactics in one-on-one duels. He would sit comfortably behind his rival, conserving his tyres, and then launch a killer attack on the last few laps. In his prime, he hardly ever lost when he got into a race like this. Sadly, Rossi isn't quite the force he was, and there are fewer races in MotoGP like this any more, for reasons including electronic aids and Rossi's bikes not being very good any more.

** All Red Spaces become Bowser Spaces (a 30% or so chance of something bad happening to a random person every turn.)

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': Rather savagely parodied in "Wing It Like Witches". Luz and her friends seemingly eke out a victory in the grudgby game against Boscha, but then Boscha reveals that she caught a bug-like creature called the "Rusty Smidge" when they weren't paying attention at the very last second. Luz [[TakeThat proceeds to go on a long rant about how ridiculous a rule like that is, and how it makes the whole game completely pointless]].

*** Incidentally, the Daytona 500, which is one such restrictor plate race, has the biggest prize money purse on the schedule by far; the 262,390 dollar payout for ''last-place'' in the 2015 edition (the last year for which monetary data is available) is more than some races paid out for ''winning'' them in that same year (one such race being the spring Martinsville event, which paid just over $172,000 to its winner). Some lower-end teams have in fact credited just qualifying for the race with keeping them in business for the entire season. NASCAR also once had its own equivalent to the Indy Car's triple crown prize, called the Winston Million, although in this case it involved four races (The Daytona 500, the Winston 500 at Talladega,[[note]]today known as the GEICO 500[[/note]] the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte and the original Southern 500 at Darlington) and the million dollars only required three of the events in one year (not that it was any easier to win - only two drivers snagged the Million during the thirteen years it was offered in this form; in 1998 it was reformatted to a more inclusive setup that only required one win, and included the top five from the previous event[[note]]and said events began to be swapped out on a yearly basis; by 2002, when the bonus program ended completely, only the 600 was still a part of it[[/note]]).

[[folder:Sports]]

*** She also says that in professional games, it's much more common for the losing team to catch the Snitch-- ''i.e.'' someone catches the Snitch while behind by at least 16 goals. In the one professional game we do see, this is exactly what happens. But it doesn't make much sense for anyone to do this-- professional athletes tend to be {{Determinator}}s and aren't going to concede a match that they have any reasonable chance of coming back to win, especially a very important one. Viktor Krum, in the ''World Cup Final'', catches the snitch when his team is down by only 160 points, effectively conceding the match when ''one'' goal on his side could have turned the tide in their favour. This is {{Hand Wave}}d by saying Krum recognised that his team was so outmatched that they were never going to get that goal and would probably fall behind even further had they continued playing, but even if that were true, how did they get to the Final to begin with?[[note]]And if you say it's because Krum dragged them all the way there, it further shows how broken the Snitch is, in that it allows a single talented player to decide the game regardless of how shitty his teammates are.[[/note]] And it shows a [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot missed opportunity wrought from ignorance of sports culture]] -- Krum is 18 years old and shows a shocking arrogance and lack of faith in his presumably more experienced teammates, but no one in Quidditch fandom or sports media ever takes him to task for his decision -- even though we see the press hound Krum as a Triwizard champion later in the book.

*** She also says that in professional games, it's much more common for the losing team to catch the Snitch-- ''i.e.'' someone catches the Snitch while behind by at least 16 goals. In the one professional game we do see, this is exactly what happens. But it doesn't make much sense for anyone to do this-- professional athletes tend to be {{Determinator}}s and aren't going to concede a match that they have any reasonable chance of coming back to win, especially a very important one. Viktor Krum, in the ''World Cup Final'', catches the snitch when his team is down by only 160 points, effectively conceding the match when ''one'' goal on his side could have turned the tide in their favour. This is {{Hand Wave}}d by saying Krum recognised that his team was so outmatched that they were never going to get that goal and probably fall behind even further had they continued playing, but even if that were true, how did they get to the Final to begin with?[[note]]And if you say it's because Krum dragged them all the way there, it further shows how broken the Snitch is, in that it allows a single talented player to decide the game regardless of how shitty his teammates are.[[/note]] And it shows a [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot missed opportunity wrought from ignorance of sports culture]] -- Krum is 18 years old and shows a shocking arrogance and lack of faith in his presumably more experienced teammates, but no one in Quidditch fandom or sports media ever takes him to task for his decision -- even though we see the press hound Krum as a Triwizard champion later in the book.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius,'':

* The UsefulNotes/{{Peru}}vian higher education system simultaneously circumvents and {{exploit|ed}}s this trope by splitting the final grade into three tiers -- the Ongoing Assessment, the Partial Examinations, and the optional Remedial Test. The Ongoing Assessment collects the grades of assignments (both minor and major), lab reports, class participation, and, depending on the Professor, periodic quizzes. The Partial Examinations are usually three as the terms are half-yearly, taken at regular intervals, and worth each a third of the tier's grade. These two tiers are roughly equivalent in percentage, with the Partials having a little bit more weight. Finally, the Remedial Test can vary in nature but it's always sort of a {{downplayed}} Golden Snith. If taken, it either replaces the lowest-scoring Partial Examination or it's [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment averaged with the average]] of the three Partials. Its purpose is to help students who performed poorly to raise their final grade enough to pass the course. Overall, the system encourages the students to put in constant effort throughout the semester and not just learn the partial exams' material.

* In golf tournaments the actual number of strokes is apparently irrelevant. It's what the scorecard says. If the golfer signs a scorecard with more strokes than he actually took, that's his score and if it causes him to lose - tough! If the caddy puts down ''less'' strokes and the golfer signs for it, the golfer is '''disqualified'''. A golfer's honesty is SeriousBusiness.

* ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar'': Normal Asterisk dueling rules state that the match ends when either one participant's school crest badge is broken by a direct hit, or they're incapacitated. This holds true in two of the three triennial city tournaments, the one-on-one Lindvolus and the two-on-two Phoenix, but ''not'' in the five-on-five Gryps Festa. Instead, each team designates one member to be the "leader", and if the leader goes down, the other team wins automatically (breaking badges of other team members only eliminates that individual). For an extra tactical twist, Gryps teams can freely switch leaders before each match, which is key to Team Enfield's victory over [[spoiler:Rusalka]] in volume 8.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/{{beatmania IIDX}}'': On one hand, every note is worth the same maximum of 2 points to your EX Score. On the other hand, most songs tend to have a DifficultySpike at the very end where the note density suddenly skyrockets. The clear/fail judgment is a straight example since your LifeMeter must be at 80% or higher at the end of the song or else you fail, making the endings much more important.

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* The apparent purpose of the Sports Duel Tournament in ''Anime/YuGiOhZEXAL'' was to make Kotori and Cathy friends again by forcing them to cooperate. However, it was actually a trap set by Girag. The scoring system was structured so that the two girls would end up dueling Yuma in the final round no matter what (to allow the Barians to steal Yuma's Number cards through the girls), so the preliminary rounds really had no purpose at all except to make the tournament less suspicious (and not to mention throw in some beach volleyball "Fanservice"). ([[EpicFail This came back to bite Girag royally]]; after Shark - Yuma's partner - decided to leave, ''he'' had to take Shark's place, putting himself in just as much danger as Yuma.)
* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', the Straw Hats enter a Davy Back fight -- a sort of ritualized competition between pirate crews -- with the Foxy Pirates. The competition takes place in three rounds, and the winner of each round gets to "steal" a crew member of the opposing crew, who must then swear eternal loyalty to their new captain. Since the competitors for each round are chosen from the start, stealing a member of the competing lineup for a future round forces the other crew to play that round shorthanded, conferring an advantage. When the Straw Hats win the second round, they realize that since the third round is a one-on-one duel between captains, they can steal the captain of the Foxy Pirates, forcing the Foxy Pirates to default on the third round and winning the Straw Hats the game. The ''only'' reason the third round is not rendered completely pointless is that the Straw Hats don't want Foxy on their crew, even as a deckhand and opt to steal back Chopper (stolen by the Foxy Pirates in the first round) instead.
** The anime extends this arc by having a second set of events. In that, the Straw Hats lose the first two rounds, with the Foxy Pirates claiming Chopper and Robin for their crew. Even if they win the final round they could only get one of them back. So Nami convinces Foxy to make the last round a winner take all event, with each captain's entire crew on the line.
* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' we have phase one of the Chunin exams, a written test, where the tenth and final question is the most important, as the proctor mentions that trying and failing to answer it correctly ensures that you -- and your teammmates -- are unable to enter the Chunin exams for the rest of their lives. The trick is that ''this'' is the final question -- as accepting it shows that you're willing to face unknown risks, automatically passing the test by doing so. And while the first nine questions of the exam highlight the importance of information gathering (cheating without being caught), ultimately it is possible to pass without answering ''any'' of these questions, like Naruto did.
* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', the second game of the U.A. Sports Festival is a "human cavalry" game, with each of the 42 remaining participants forming teams and getting headbands worth points based on their positions in the first game (42nd place receives 5 points, 41st receives 10, and so on up to 205 for 2nd place), with 1st place being worth '''10,000,000''' points. Teams get points for whatever headbands they end the game with, so having the first place band is a guaranteed win. Of course the person with the questionable honor of first place is none other than the protagonist himself, Izuku Midoriya. However the "rendering all other points meaningless" aspect of the trope is averted, as the competition is the preliminary round of a TournamentArc. The 10,000,000 point headband ensure a team will qualify, but the other headbands are still important, as they determine who ''else'' qualifies.
** Another interesting aspect to this is that Midoriya has a hard time just trying to partner up with anyone because of the target that will be on his team's back. He ends up recruiting Ochaco Uraraka (who thought it would be perfect to team up with a friend), Fumikage Tokoyami (who was impressed with why he was chosen) and Mei Hatsume (who figures this would be the best way to showcase her Support Gear.)
* ''Manga/HunterXHunter'': This is used in the ''Greed Island Arc'', when Gon as his group faces off against Razor and his gang for one of the cards needed to win the game. The game event requires 15 players to match up with Razor and his "Fourteen Devils", and to win the card, they must win competitive matches 8 times overall. However, the match against Razor is a dodgeball match with 8 players, counting for 8 wins, leading Tsezuguerra to realize that competing against all the small fry of Razor's crew is pointless; the only match of any consequence is against the boss himself. Indeed, once Gon's group score the first few wins, Razor tells the rest of his gang that they can just forfeit their matches and leave it up to him.

* ''Manga/AhAndMmAreAllSheSays'': In the polling contest between Norush and Toda's manga, online votes only count as one point, while magazine surveys count as 100 (rewarding readers for actually buying the magazine). [[spoiler:Despite Toda leading in magazine votes, Norush beats her by more than ''90,000'' online points.]]

* ''The Collegium Chronicles'', in Creator/MercedesLackey's ''[[Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar Valdemar]]'' universe, has a Quidditch-like game called Kirball. There are three ways to score: get the ball into the opponent's goal tower (1 point), occupy the opponent's goal tower (10 points), and capture the opponent's flag (50 points). Matches typically end with either less than 5 total points scored, or with a flag capture leading to a ridiculous disparity in score. The 10-point score is repeatedly highlighted as having never been achieved.
* In ''[[Literature/{{Redwall}} Lord Brocktree]]'', Lord Brocktree needs to win the allegiance of King Bucko and his court. King Bucko always allows anybody to challenge him for his crown. There are three parts to a challenge: the bragging, the feasting, and the fighting. The announcement then adds that "In the event of the first two challenges being won, lost or declared a tie, the third challenge will decide the winner". Brocktree and his entourage realize that Bucko's doing this entirely for his pride, and train Dotti to target that specifically in the challenges. She comes out ahead.

* Parodied in ''Literature/EarthTheBook''. The end of each chapter has a scavenger hunt with 5 items in Easy, Medium, and Hard, which are worth 10, 20 and 30 points each, respectively. Below that are the six Super Hard items worth 1,000 points each. The catch, of course, is that it's impossible to obtain any of them; they're either intangible ("the innocence of youth"), no longer existing ("the Colossus at Rhodes"), or completely fictitious ("Soylent Green Eggs and Ham").
* In the short story "Fields" by Desmond Warzel, the last twenty people remaining AfterTheEnd divide themselves into two baseball teams as a means of keeping themselves occupied. In a league with only two teams, it is of course a foregone conclusion that those are the two teams which will meet in the World Series; thus, to keep things interesting (and having nothing better to do), they play an entire 162-game season solely to determine which team will have home-field advantage in the Series.
* Parodied in ''Literature/BarryTrotter'' where the Quiddit team that catches the sneech gets a million points and wins the game.

* ''Series/SaleOfTheCentury'': Early in the 1980s US run, a contestant who had a $16 or more lead after the final Fame Game playing was virtually guaranteed a win, as just three questions worth a total of $15 remained. To rub salt in the wound: A dominant contestant could snatch the $25 money card and have it added to his score, which meant that all that would be decided was whether the winning contestant would be playing for a better prize in the shopping round, or need less money the next day to be eligible to win the next prize [[note]](or, in the case of Barbara Philips, a Golden Snitch helped her win all of the prizes plus a [[ProgressiveJackpot $68,000 cash jackpot]])[[/note]].
* ''The $100,000 Series/NameThatTune'' used the 1-1-2 rule, as shown above. This was extended to a 1-1-2-4 setup in most tournament episodes during Jim Lange's version. (Note that if the players split the first two rounds, the third round became absolutely meaningless, aside from the winner of that game receiving a prize.) At least one $100,000 finals episode had one contestant sweep the first three rounds, only to lose the final round and the tiebreaker question, giving the whole shebang to his opponent.
** In the show's second season, the final for the tournament held for the first season's contestants who qualified for the "$100,000 Mystery Tune" but were unsuccessful had a 1-1-1-3 setup, so again, if the first two rounds were split, the third was meaningless.
* ''Series/LegendsOfTheHiddenTemple'' used the 1-1-2 rule; however, winning all three rounds had a significant advantage: If you won via tiebreaker, a bad setup of the bonus round could make it {{Unwinnable}} (the points/talisman fragments are the contestants' "extra lives"). Winning all three rounds, on the other hand, would guarantee that a team could not run out of lives (a team would have two full pendants, plus there would be two contestants to a team, which meant that all three Temple Guards would be taken care of by the time the second contestant had to give up their pendant).

* In general, the {{Progressive Jackpot}}s on many pinball games can be this if they have been built up for long enough. Similarly, games like ''Pinball/BlackKnight2000'' which carry over progress towards the WizardMode from player-to-player and game-to-game.
* Good scores on ''Pinball/TheMachineBrideOfPinbot'' are usually in the tens of millions of points. However, it is possible to make a shot that will spin the Big Wheel which can light a shot for ''1 billion'' points. This was viewed as such a GameBreaker that anyone who makes this shot goes on a separate high score table called the "Billionaire's Club". Ironically, there is a 50 million point award on The Big Wheel which is much more of a GameBreaker since you will still quality for the standard high score list provided you don't make the billion point shot.
** ''Pinball/BugsBunnysBirthdayBall'', from the same designer, also features a 50 million point shot, which overwhelms everything else in the game. The fact that it's only randomly available on the player's last ball just makes it even more capricious.
* ''Pinball/JohnnyMnemonic'' has Spinner Millions, which is worth 10 million points a spin for the rest of the ball it's activated (on default operator settings, you can only get this once per game). With only about 5-6 trips through the spinner, this can reach a billion points or more. The fact that it's part of your bonus that can be multiplied up to 4X will turn that into 4 billion. There is also a GoodBadBug with Hold Bonus which will essentially award it twice on the next ball, meaning having Hold Bonus would award you another 8 billion on the next ball, and again as long as you keep getting Hold Bonus. By comparison, the WizardMode of this game usually awards about 5 billion points.

* ''Pinball/WhiteWater'''s "5x Playfield" bonus, which, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin makes everything worth 5 times as many points as normal]] for the next 25 seconds. If ''White Water'' appears at a competition, expect to see all of the top players build up their awards as high as possible, activate "5x Playfield," then collect them within those 25 seconds, which can likely make "5x Playfield" worth more than everything else collected up to that point.
** In the earliest [=ROMs=], it stacked geometrically with Double or Triple Jackpots in multiball, allowing 10x or 15x jackpots. That was {{Nerf}}ed pretty quickly, making any jackpot 5x the value of a single jackpot while it is running.
* ''Pinball/BadCats'' normally awards points for consecutively shooting the left ramp, giving 50K, 100K, 200K, and then a million each for the fourth and later shots. However, on the last ball only, a fifth consecutive shot will award ''20 million'' points. The ProgressiveJackpot itself can also be this; despite the backglass implying that it caps at 8 million, it seems to have no {{Cap}}; it can go well beyond that.
* ''Pinball/PoliceForce'' has a Take The Highest Score feature, where on the last ball, two consecutive shots to the right ramp will add the highest player's score to the current player's score (or double their score if the highest or in single player).
** Very similarly, ''Pinball/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' (albeit being by a different developer) allows the player to double their score on the last ball with consecutive left ramp shots.

* ''Pinball/{{ACDC}}'', when Song Jackpots are added to and collected with playfield multipliers. 2x and 3x playfield multipliers can be gotten, and points for major shots are also added to the Song Jackpot. The multiplied points are added as-is, so a shot normally worth a paltry 400K with a 3x multiplier will award 1.2M immediately and add that much to the Song Jackpot. However, the Song Jackpot itself is also susceptible to the playfield multiplier, so that 1.2M added before can become 3.6M.
* The Hand of the King round on ''Pinball/GameOfThrones'' can become this if played perfectly. Similar to the AC/DC example above, having playfield multipliers will add the multiplied jackpots to a large hurryup that can be collected after collecting several Super Jackpots - which also add their multiplied values to the bank (and your score). If playfield multipliers are still running, that whole bank can be multiplied again by up to 5x. Executing this perfectly can result in a single shot worth well over 5 billion points, in a round that's usually started with a score around 1 billion.

* In the remake of ''1313 Deadend Drive'', each person on the will starts with a certain amount of money tokens, descending as you go down. If someone on the will is bumped off, their tokens go to the person below them. Each player "owns" certain characters and can move anyone on the board, and the goal is to bump off the opponent's characters and get yours out of the house before the detective arrives. The cat starts with twelve tokens (the most of anyone - she's at the top of the will), and it takes several turns before anyone has the ability to trigger a DeathTrap - so if you control the cat and can get her out of the house immediately, you have an insurmountable lead from the very start.

* ''TabletopGame/KillerBunniesAndTheQuestForTheMagicCarrot'' can offer a lengthy bout of playing bunnies, attacking bunnies, stealing bunnies, and doing all manner of intricate and interactive things to the other players and their bunnies. It's all nearly meaningless because the winner is whoever managed to get hold of the carrot that happens to be the bottom card of a deck that was shuffled before the game and never touched.
* The ''whole point'' to the board game "Snakes and Ladders". Nothing makes an already-random game's outcome more potentially frustrating than having one's opponent luck into a ''huge'' boost from a long ladder right at the beginning of a round, unless it's to work your own piece's way up to the top row -- gradually, roll by roll, bit by bit, with many a short drop along the way -- only to land smack dab on a freakin' ''python'' one or two turns from a win.
* ''TabletopGame/MouseTrap1963'': No matter how much cheese a player collects, once that mouse is captured, the player is eliminated. Only the last mouse standing wins. Later versions change this, making the cheese the goal in and of itself, and changing the trap to steal cheese instead of having players pay cheese to activate the trap.

* Multistage Payload Race maps in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' (including Pipeline and Nightfall) work this way; if a team wins both of the first two rounds, they can still lose the third round and the game. While they are given a significant edge (their bomb starts up further in the last round), whether this is worth the effort to win those first two rounds is debatable. At one point Pipeline was changed so that winning both of the first two rounds placed the winning team's cart at the checkpoint in the middle of the track, giving them a significant advantage but still allowing determined opponents to have a chance, especially given how quickly rounds of Payload Race can turn around. Then they changed it back for some reason.
* Parodied somewhat in ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', when the player has to compete in three games in order to continue. As the third game begins, the host alerts you that the third game is worth enough to win everything, but the point of the whole thing is to [[DoWellButNotPerfect just barely lose]] all the games to stroke the ego of the villain, so this fact is irrelevant.
* In the video game version of ''Scene It?'', the final round is completely broken. Some versions have the final round set to where getting a wrong answer takes away points from your score, and later versions have the point ''multiplier'', which doubles the number of points you get ''each time'' for repeatedly answering correctly (2x, 4x, 8x, etc.)
* In ''VideoGame/EliteBeatAgents'', a player receives 50, 100 or 300 points for successfully tapping "hit markers" in time with the beat of a song, with more points for a more timely hit. However, you then get a multiplier to that score that depends on the number of markers you've hit in a row, which can get up to ''hundreds of times'' the original score. So markers early in a song are mainly only good for raising your combo numbers, and the actual score only makes a difference later on. Except for one thing -- on higher difficulty levels, 50s and 100s give you next to no life, so you ''need'' 300s. This has the side effect of missing a note in mid-song much, much more detrimental to your score than missing at the beginning or the end.
* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' in VS mode is sort of like this. Both teams when playing as survivors gain points based on distance traveled, survivors left, health remaining, and then the map bonus multiplier. If the whole team dies, they only get distance and map bonus and the points gained for distance is very small since it only maxes out at 100 points. The map bonus multiplier starts off as x1 but can reach as high as x2 or x4 near the end. A team who has been losing for a bit can suddenly sweep victory under the other team's nose if they do exceptionally well in the end. This is assuming that the losing team is only down by a few points and not lagging badly like 3000 points behind.
** The scoring system in VS mode heavily relied on number of survivors that made it to the safe room, how much health everyone had when they made it, and the map multiplier. This could often cause one team of very skilled players to dominate by 1000 points or more while the team that can't reach the safe room several times would never have a chance to get ahead. The sequel cuts down on this and the trope by changing the scoring where only the distance counts as the major factor of scoring and anyone that did happen to make it to the safe room would just get 25 more points per person that is alive. Tied scores in a round are dealt with by awarding the team that did the most damage as the infected in that round extra points.

* A game called ''TV Show King Quiz Party'' or something along those lines, has you(r Miis) playing for money. On the final round, the 2 best players will compete against each other to in that final round. The prize money is always enough to beat the opposing team, even if they have a $700,000 lead.

* In ''VideoGame/WallaceAndGromitsGrandAdventures: The Bogey Man'', Wallace is competing against Duncan [=McBiscuit=] for chairmanship of the Prickly Thicket Country Club and is rather absurdly behind (167 to 83, according to the scoreboard). After the 16th hole, in order to humor his totally outmatched opponent, Duncan offers to ignore the stroke count and declare Wallace the winner if he can ''complete'' the course before Duncan does, meaning that despite Wallace having completed the course in twice as many strokes as his opponent, he still wins the game (mainly because Duncan couldn't find the 18th hole).

* Played with in ''VideoGame/{{beatmania IIDX}}'': On one hand, every note is worth the same maximum of 2 points to your EX Score. On the other hand, most songs tend to have a DifficultySpike at the very end where the note density suddenly skyrockets. The clear/fail judgment is a straight example since your LifeMeter must be at 80% or higher at the end of the song or else you fail, making the endings much more important.
* In the Rampage and Knock-Out game modes of ''[[VideoGame/DiRT DiRT Showdown]]'', which usually last three minutes, the last 30 seconds are worth double points. If you do well enough in these final seconds and get plenty of [=KOs=], you can snatch a last-minute win unless you're significantly behind.
* Earlier installments of ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'' would multiply the value of each step by the number of steps so far (so for example, if a Perfect on the first step is worth X, then a Perfect on the second step is worth 2X, third step 3X, and so on), making the last step worth well over a hundred times more than the first. In addition, it would calculate X to make the maximum possible score come out to a round number (which depends on the version and difficulty) but then round down X to a multiple of 10, essentially salami-slicing your score. To keep the maximum possible score at that round number, the salami-sliced points are added onto your score if you get a Perfect on the final step. For example, in ''[=MaxX=] Unlimited'' on Heavy difficulty, the first step is worth 530 points, the final jump is worth 323,300 points (530 base x 610th step), and holding that jump until the Freeze Arrow finishes is worth another 1,231,850 points (530 base x 611th step + 908,020 points salami-sliced previously). This system was finally changed in ''[=DDR SuperNOVA=]'' so that every step is worth the same and no salami-slicing occurs.

* In one ''WebAnimation/PuffinForest'' video, Ben talks about a spectacularly disastrous job interview he had at a biochemistry company. Much to his shock, the company still decided to hire him, causing him to wonder if everyone else who interviewed for the job was even worse than him somehow. He later found out that they hired him because he gave the answer they were looking for to a seemingly unimportant question during the interview, which was the only thing that mattered to them. This did end up making sense in retrospect, since it was basically the whole job.

* WebVideo/SomeJerkWithACamera parodied this in his first installment of the mock quiz show "Is It Still There?" (involving attractions at [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disney California Adventure]] that may or may not have survived years of frantic renovation). The first two rounds are worth ten and twenty points respectively; the final round is "worth one hundred points, rendering this entire exercise meaningless."

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/APupNamedScoobyDoo'', Scooby and Shaggy are contestants on a game show that spoofs ''The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime''. They get zero points throughout the game as the opposing team gets every answer right until passing on the final puzzle. Shaggy gives the correct solution ("pizza") and earns 30,000 points for himself and Scooby, enough to win the game.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Pygmoelian" had a contest between bar owners. After two contests, they get to the Drunk Toss, which is worth 98% of the total score, "...making the previous rounds a complete waste. [[VerbalTic Oh yeah]]!" Sure enough, Moe wins the contest, although he could have won the other two if the judge hadn't rigged them in return for a sexual favor.

* Played straight in some episodes of ''WesternAnimation/LaffALympics''. Usually by making the last event a "special" 50-pointer.
* ManipulativeBastard and JerkAss [[TheSociopath Sociopath]] game show host Chris from ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' ''loves'' to pull these over on the contestants, as it always guarantees the show will be ''interesting.'' He usually gets called out for it, but the episode ''Up The Creek'' was one of the few that no one pointed out.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius,'':
** In one episode, Jimmy cheats in a parent-child contest so that he and his father win the earlier rounds. Cindy discovers his ploy, neutralizes it, and then [[LampshadeHanging mockingly reminds Jimmy]] that the one remaining contest is worth the majority of the score.
** In another episode, the children in Ms. Fowl's class take their final exam, which, according to Ms. Fowl, is worth 95% of their total grade.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' episode "Billy Gets An 'A'", Ms. Butterbean says that the next test will comprise 99.99999999...% of the students' grades.
* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d on ''WesternAnimation/TheClevelandShow:'' when Robert and Cleveland have a contest to determine who's cooler and Robert wins every round, the announcer, Gus, specifically says the last round will determine the winner "for a little tension." [[spoiler:Cleveland still loses]].
* ''WesternAnimation/NerdsAndMonsters'': In "Monster and Commander", a disguised Dudley challenges Zarg for the leadership of the monsters. The challenge consists of three contests. After winning the first two, he learns that the third contest is a battle to the death, leading him to ask "What was the point of the other two contests?!".
* Enforced in the ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'' episode "Robot Employees", as Soar the Eagle explains the third and final round is "worth more points than all the other events combined. That's to create false dramatic tension. Otherwise, this competition would be over already!"

* ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse1983'': In "The Games", Fisto and Spikor enter a game where they can win points by pressing the buttons on spheres hidden by the Bendari. Each one of the yellow spheres gives 100 points and the red one gives 2000 points. After He-Man takes Fisto's place, he finds the red one, turning the last yellow one into a tie-breaker.
* The Harlem Globetrotters and the Franchise/ScoobyDoo crew are in an abandoned mansion where to pass some time they play an impromptu basketball game. The Globetrotters spot the gang eight points in a ten-point game, and Shaggy scores the basket to make it 10-0. The Trotters tie it with their own brand of basketball.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': Rather savagely parodied in "Wing It Like Witches". Luz and her friends seemingly eke out a victory in the grudgby game against Boscha, but then Boscha reveals that she caught a bug-like creature called the "Rusty Smidge" when they weren't paying attention at the very last second. Luz [[TakeThat proceeds to go on a long rant about how ridiculous a rule like that is, and how it makes the whole game completely pointless]].
-->'''Luz:''' That just invalidates '''''ALL''''' of our efforts! If catching that thing is so important, why do anything else?! There is '''''NO''''' reason to watch '''''ANY''''' of the other players! '''''THAT’S SUCH A STUPID RULE!'''''
* ''WesternAnimation/OKKOLetsBeHeroes'': In "Plazalympics", the relay race that serves as the final event is worth ''five billion'' points, "[[LampshadeHanging rending all previous rounds worthless!]]"
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': When Rainbow Dash can't decide what pet she wants, she sets up an elaborate, multi-part contest for the various animals to decide who she's going to keep. The last round is a race, and the animal who crosses the finish line [[ExactWords with Rainbow]] gets to be her pet. There aren't even any eliminations--even the tortoise who lost every single previous round gets to join the race--or advantages awarded to the winners, making all the previous contests literally meaningless.

* The Peruvian higher education system simultaneously circumvents and {{exploit|ed}}s this trope by splitting the final grade into three tiers -- the Ongoing Assessment, the Partial Examinations, and the optional Remedial Test. The Ongoing Assessment collects the grades of assignments (both minor and major), lab reports, class participation, and, depending on the Professor, periodic quizzes. The Partial Examinations are usually three as the terms are half-yearly, taken at regular intervals, and worth each a third of the tier's grade. These two tiers are roughly equivalent in percentage, with the Partials having a little bit more weight. Finally, the Remedial Test can vary in nature but it's always sort of a {{downplayed}} Golden Snith. If taken, it either replaces the lowest-scoring Partial Examination or it's [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment averaged with the average]] of the three Partials. Its purpose is to help students who performed poorly to raise their final grade enough to pass the course. Overall, the system encourages the students to put in constant effort throughout the semester and not just learn the partial exams' material.

[[folder: Real Life -- Sports and Games]]

[[folder:Films — Animated]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* This is very common in tertiary education -- your entire grade relies on a single exam or project at the end. It makes a certain amount of sense -- at lower levels, you have periodic exams, quizzes, and projects to assess where you are in the course, and possibly homework or participation in class count for part of your grade as well, but at higher levels, this is seen as micromanagement. It allows students to take responsibility for their own education; even if you don't show up to class, don't do the homework, and don't study, if you can prove at the end that you know the material, you pass. However, the big problem with this is that it encourages "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_to_the_test teaching to the test]]" -- in other words, you learn how to pass the test rather than how to actually apply the material. It often results in people forgetting everything they've learned once they've passed the class and [[KnowNothingKnowItAll not being able to turn the material into actual skills in the field]]. It's especially common in the UsefulNotes/BritishEducationSystem and its offshoots in other countries. In some classes, homework, quizzes, or midterm exams are a small part of the score, so if you do badly on those you have to do particularly well on the final exam to pass; in others, the final exam is your ''entire'' grade. And in some fields, like law or medicine, even your school grades turn out not to mean much in comparison to the AchievementTestOfDestiny at the end; no matter how well you did in law school, if you don't pass the bar exam, you can't practice law.
** The Peruvian system simultaneously circumvents and {{exploit|ed}}s this trope by splitting the final grade into three tiers -- the Ongoing Assessment, the Partial Examinations, and the optional Remedial Test. The Ongoing Assessment collects the grades of assignments (both minor and major), lab reports, class participation, and, depending on the Professor, periodic quizzes. The Partial Examinations are usually three as the terms are half-yearly, taken at regular intervals, and worth each a third of the tier's grade. These two tiers are roughly equivalent in percentage, with the Partials having a little bit more weight. Finally, the Remedial Test can vary in nature but it's always sort of a {{downplayed}} Golden Snith. If taken, it either replaces the lowest-scoring Partial Examination or it's [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment averaged with the average]] of the three Partials. Its purpose is to help students who performed poorly to raise their final grade enough to pass the course. Overall, the system encourages the students to put in constant effort throughout the semester and not just learn the partial exams' material.

* This is very common in tertiary education -- your entire grade relies on a single exam or project at the end. It makes a certain amount of sense -- at lower levels, you have periodic exams, quizzes, and projects to assess where you are in the course, and possibly homework or participation in class count for part of your grade as well, but at higher levels this is seen as micromanagement. It allows students to take responsibility for their own education; even if you don't show up to class, don't do the homework, and don't study, if you can prove at the end that you know the material, you pass. However, the big problem with this is that it encourages "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_to_the_test teaching to the test]]" -- in other words, you learn how to pass the test rather than how to actually apply the material. It often results in people forgetting everything they've learned once they've passed the class and [[KnowNothingKnowItAll not being able to turn the material into actual skills in the field]]. It's especially common in the UsefulNotes/BritishEducationSystem and its offshoots in other countries. In some classes, homework, quizzes, or midterm exams are a small part of the score, so if you do badly on those you have to do particularly well on the final exam to pass; in others, the final exam is your ''entire'' grade. And in some fields, like law or medicine, even your school grades turn out not to mean much in comparison to the AchievementTestOfDestiny at the end; no matter how well you did in law school, if you don't pass the bar exam, you can't practice law.

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'':
** Ranked Battles always keep track on how much each team has progressed in completing the set objective (capturing a zone for a set amount of time, riding a tower to the enemy base, etc.), with the team that made the most progress before time runs out being the victor. However, if one team successfully completes the objective, the match ends immediately and scores the victor team a Knockout victory, giving them a huge victory bonus and the losing team nothing, regardless of how much progress the other team made.[[note]]Except for players that are over level 20, who will still receive one experience point for every minute their team lasted.[[/note]]
** During Splatfests, there are percentage rankings for both team popularity and team performance. Typically, the popularity percentage is usually inverse to the performance percentage, with some of them overlapping, but the problem lies in the performance percentage. The points rewarded for performance percentage is nearly ''double'' the amount of points for popularity percentage, so even if the majority of players end up picking one team, if the other team does even just a smidge better than the popular one, the other team is almost guaranteed to win the Splatfest.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': Rather savagely parodied in "Wing It Like Witches". Luz and her friends seemingly win the grudgby game against Boscha, but then Boscha reveals that she caught a bug-like creature called the "Rusty Smidge", which means she wins ''even though the game is technically over''. Luz [[TakeThat proceeds to go on a long rant about how ridiculous a rule like that is, and how it makes the whole game completely pointless]].

* ''Literature/MyBrotherIsASuperhero:'' When Luke was a kid, he and his dad came up with a bunch of superheroes and supervillains for a card game. One card, [[spoiler:Gordon the World-Eater]], was imagined as the BiggerBad of the setting and so overpowered that whoever got that card couldn't lose. [[spoiler:This becomes a problem when [[AntiVillain Stellar]] [[NiceJobBreakingItHero accidentally]] [[YourMindMakesItReal brings him to life]]]].

* ''Literature/MyBrotherIsASuperhero:'' When Luke was a kid, he and his dad came up with a bunch of superheroes and supervillains for a card game. One card, [[spoiler:Gordon the Worldeater]], was imagined as the BiggerBad of the setting and so overpowered that whoever got that card couldn't lose. [[spoiler:This becomes a problem when [[AntiVillain Stellar]] [[NiceJobBreakingItHero accidentally]] [[YourMindMakesItReal brings him to life]]]].