History Main / GoldenSnitch

* 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.

* ''Manga/TheDisastrousLifeOfSaikiK'': Played for laughs in the trash pickup competition. Each team earns points based on the amount and kind of trash they pick up - cigarette butts at 10 points each, bulk trash is 5 points per kg, etc. However, a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuchinoko tsuchinoko]] corpse is worth ''900 million 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.

* A downplayed example were the original rules of rugby union (and sports which were directly influenced by it, including American football). Originally, trying scored no point and only gave the trying team the right to actually score a goal (hence the name, a "try"). Nowadays, tries are considered to be the main source of score while conversions only act as bonus points.

* Goodson-Todman's 1961 show ''Series/SayWhen'' had the objective of accumulating prizes without going over a value ceiling. A test episode (made before it went on the air in 1961) had a rule that after selecting a prize you could stop. At that point that prize's value is not disclosed until the opponent's turn was completed. In a championship game where the value ceiling was $2,000, a contestant selected a prize that put him at $2,000 on the nose. However, he didn't [[TitleDrop say when]] and was forced to select another prize, which obviously put him over. The opponent had the prospect of going over as well, but didn't.

* The series ''Spook Squad'' had this in the final round. The object of the game was to win minigames in a haunted house and collect ectoplasm to banish the ghost haunting it. The final round takes place in the room the ghost died in, where the ectoplasm is used to create letters, which will spell out the item the ghost needs to gain special powers and/or immortality. (blanks are used in place of missing letters) The team must then find said item before the last stroke of midnight to win the game. Theoretically, a team can gain all of the ectoplasm and figure out what the item is, but still lose because they couldn't find it.

* The final survey on ''Series/FamilyFeud'' is worth triple points, ''far'' more than enough to win with even if you lost on all of the others. (On the other hand, usually if the game gets this far, it means both teams are getting pathetically low scores on the other rounds. Normally, the double-point round is enough to determine a winner, but a team with a run of good answers can win even before that.)
** "Winning" the round, and getting all the available points, are two different things. A family could, in theory, win every preceding round, but only because the other side couldn't get enough answers correct, whereas any answer given when the other team attempts to steal, regardless of popularity, wins those points. If things ever ''do'' get to triple-point scoring, it's mainly to just wrap up the game.
** The current syndicated version originally had three rounds of regular scoring, followed by the triple-point round which only allows for one strike. Instead of playing to a set number of points, the family with the most points after the triple-point round won. The triple-point round almost always decided the game, meaning a family could sweep the first three rounds, and still lose if their opponents won the triple-point round.
** After the game reverted to 1-1-2-3 in 2003, the rules changed again. If neither team had reached 300, then there would be a triple-value TiebreakerRound, usually with a simple question whose #1 answer would have an extremely high point value.
* ''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).
* ''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.

* On ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'', a contestant that loses their pricing game still has as good a chance of making it to the Showcase as one who wins. However, turn order in the Showcase Showdown is determined by previous winnings, and going last is a significant advantage, since you know exactly what you have to get to win, and you win by default if your opponents both go over before your turn.
** On the original ''Price'' with Bill Cullen, a player could "underbid" during the first round of bidding if they think everyone else has gone too high. It is automatically frozen. Bill would usually state that such a ploy is optional and never suggested. Sometimes it works. Also during open bidding, a player could freeze early just to see how high the others would go in hopes they go over.
* A malignant example is the {{Whammy}} in ''Series/PressYourLuck''. Getting just ''one'' will wipe out your accrued wealth, regardless of lead or total. As such, this is fatal to a player in the endgame regardless of score or skill. You ''automatically lose'' if you get one on the last spin of the game. (Unless there happens to be a tie at $0, which actually has happened on the show.) Because of this, passing your earned spins onto 1st place (2nd if you're in 1st) is a viable strategy, as they'll be forced to take those spins (until they're used up or they get a Whammy).
** The "$3,000/$4,000/$5,000 + One Spin" spaces in the final round can usually help a contestant lagging behind to overtake the leader and win the game, even more so if they land on the space multiple times.
** Stopping on "Double Your $$ + One Spin" is valuable to enable one to take a lead unless the player has little or (worse) no money.
*** The revival, ''Series/{{Whammy}}: The All New Press Your Luck'', also had this, but the second season introduced the Big Bank, [[ProgressiveJackpot where all money/prizes a player loses to a Whammy goes into the Big Bank]]. A player that lands on the Big Bank space and then answers a question correctly would snag all the money/stuff stored. Since Whammies were commonly landed on, the Big Bank usually got tons of money and prizes stored, and this could guarantee that player a surefire win of the whole game if they don't hit a Whammy afterwards. (However, it would always restart at a base of $3,000 each episode, so it's even less compared to what might've happened if it was a normal rolling jackpot.)
*** The revival also had 2 rounds of spinning on the big board like the original had done, but it was very common to see people mainly win in the 2nd round of spinning, since round 2 typically had prizes with higher values than the prizes in the 1st round.
** The ABC Revival with Creator/ElizabethBanks:
*** Prizes in excess of $50,000 are common in the second round.
*** Unlike the original version, it is easy to get over $10,000 in the first round, meaning that hitting "Add-A-One" would add $100,000 to your score.
*** The third season saw the debut of the "Take The Lead + One Spin" space. A second or third place player hitting this space would have their score bumped up to that of the first place player plus $1.
* ''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]].
* ''Series/{{Go}}'', a Bob Stewart show where the round values were $250-$500-$750-$1250, and the winning score is $1,500. If a team wins the first three rounds, to fill the half-hour, they get to play the bonus round twice (for a potential $20,000). However, like the ''Name That Tune'' example, if the first two rounds are split, the third round becomes meaningless.
* ''Wild 'n Out'' has variable scores for the different sections in each minigame, but the Freestyle Slam at the end can allow any team to score more points than the other games combined (this is usually edited out in the broadcast, though).
* ''Series/NickelodeonGuts'' and its successor, ''Global Guts'', had the Crag (and all variations thereof), whose completion gives a player 725 points for 1st, 550 for second, and 375 for third, meaning that unless you lose at every event before then, you can easily turn the game around in your favor by getting first or second. Plus, there's an added bonus that rewards players who would otherwise be tied, but did better in the front game.
** However, if the three players went in with scores of 1200, 800, and 400, it would not matter what places they finished as the points differential between them was too high to change the standings. Basically the Crag in this scenario only decided whether the 1st place finisher would finish with a perfect score or not.
*** The new version, ''My Family's got GUTS'', changes this to an ''American Gladiators''-style setup: For every 10 points a team gets, that team gets to start up the Crag 1 second before the other team (for a maximum of 7 seconds). However, like AG's Eliminator, whoever finishes first wins, and some teams have come from a 7 second wait and still won.

* Similarly, ''Series/SupermarketSweep''[='s=] numerous question rounds, Mini-Sweeps and other front game diversions simply determined how much time each team got to run through the store in the Big Sweep. The winner of the Big Sweep then got to play for the big $5,000 prize in the Bonus Sweep.
* ''Series/TheJokersWild'' had two:
** In the main game, either contestant could immediately win the game by spinning three Jokers and correctly answering a question in the category of their choice. This was even worse during the first week or so of the CBS run-- spinning three Jokers would just win you the game, no question needed.
** In the "Face the Devil" bonus round, a "natural triple" here (three of the same dollar amount) instantly awarded the player a prize package, plus either $1,000 or the amount in the pot plus the value of the triple, whichever was higher.
* ''Series/MervGriffinsCrosswords'' had a musical chairs system with three "spoiler" contestants who can steal on clues missed by the front two contestants. If a spoiler makes a successful spoil, they get to switch places with one of the contestants, and their cash and prizes ''stay'' at the podium. Sure, this sounds harmless, but several games were decided by a last-second steal, and wouldn't you be aggravated as a contestant if you worked so hard [[NoBudget (for such low payouts)]] to rack up that cash, only to see yourself get usurped by a contestant who did ''nothing'' the entire game just because you made one wrong move?
* ''Series/FunHouse1988'' had the Grand Prix, a GimmickLevel race around the studio collecting tokens worth 10 and 25 points, as well as earning 25 points for crossing the finish line first. Either team could easily clean house in this round, especially when they added in a "token bank" in the latter seasons, giving both teams more chances of racking up the points.
* ''Series/FindersKeepers''. Winning the hidden pictures round won a team money and earned the team the right to do the room search. However, the dollar values were increased for the room searches, and if a team failed to find the object, the money for that attempt went to the opposing team. So even if one team completely dominated the hidden pictures round, if they failed too many searches, the opposing team would win without doing a damn thing!
* The "dare" system in Nickelodeon's ''Series/DoubleDare1986'' is similar to the ''Finders Keepers'' example; each time a question is passed to the other team (known as "daring" the opponent to answer; the controlling team can "dare" the other team to answer, and be "double dared" to answer it in return, after which they must answer it or take a physical challenge), the dollar value for it is doubled (twice the amount on a "dare", four times the amount on a "double dare"), and if the question is answered wrong while a "dare" or "double dare" was in play (or the physical challenge was not successfully completed), the last team to pass the question gets the money. Savvy players, therefore, could ping-pong a question with their opponents to rack up the cash, then get the answer right or win the physical challenge to net them a huge lead (or give the game to the opponent on a silver platter, if they suck).
** In theory, anyway. In practice, most of the players didn't want to take the chance that their opponent would know the answer after all. So if they Dared, it was because they didn't know the answer to begin with, and if the opponent Double Dared back, it went straight to the physical challenge.
** Remember, too, that this show had a 1-2 format, making it even worse than the usual game show Golden Snitch; it was possible to hold the opponent completely scoreless for ''over half of the game'' and still lose big.
** And finally, the bonus round: eight purely physical tasks, each with a more valuable prize. In all, a dumb but athletic team not only stood a much better chance of reaching the final than one that was smart but weak, but also would win much more once they got there. So physical talents could be considered a Golden Snitch.
* The Video Challenges in ''Series/NickArcade'' could be horrendously guilty of this; essentially, one teammate has to meet or beat the challenge set forth by the "video wizard" on a certain video game within a time limit, and depending on how much their partner wagers out of their score (which can be anything up to their total, or up to 25 points if they have less than that), they could effectively double or bust their score, depending on if the challenge is beaten, making or breaking the game for them. In practice, most teams only bet 5 or 10 points.
* ''Series/MakeTheGrade'', another Nick game show, was also a big offender. Here, the object was to answer at least one question for every subject and every grade level, thus lighting up your whole board. However, they also had physical challenges called "Fire Drills", where the contestants got to choose which player podium to return to based on how they placed in the Fire Drill. Very often, a contestant who spent the whole game answering questions and building up their board found themselves losing because one of the other contestants placed first in the Fire Drill and stole their board. (The worst ones come when the kid in first place is one question away from winning, then uncovers a Fire Drill and ends up losing their spot to a doofus that still wears Velcro shoes, who then stinks up the studio in the Honors Round.)
** The error of this system was made even more glaring in the final season, where the outcome of certain Fire Drills was determined ''completely at random.''
* ''Series/MastersOfTheMaze'' had the maze which took up most of the actual show. The previous (question) round determined which teams would go into the maze and which teams would go to the maze first, and the team who made it through the maze the fastest would win the game.

* ''[[Series/{{Password}} Super Password]]'' used a 1-2-3-4 pattern where the first to 5 was the winner. If the same team took the second and third rounds, it won; if they were split, the fourth round decided the winner. In neither case did the outcome of the first round have any significance.
* ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' is ''full'' of Golden Snitches:
** The "Final Spin," which involves the host spinning the wheel one last time to determine the value of letters. This has gone back as far as the beginnings of the show, whereupon if the host landed on the top dollar value, a contestant who previously had no winnings could solve the puzzle, overtake the first-place contestant in an instant and win. Since early in the 17th season (1999-2000), $1,000 is added to the value of the landed-on space, meaning that if the wheel lands on a high enough value (particularly the $5,000 space), the final puzzle could allow someone who previously hadn't won at all to overtake the leader and win. To be fair, all contestants keep all winnings, so it's hard to complain about a second-place score in the $20,000 range. There was a time in the TurnOfTheMillennium where Pat Sajak was so effective at hitting the $5,000 wedge that it wasn't uncommon to see $6,000 Final Spins once or twice a week.
** One of the first Golden Snitches, aside from the Final Spin, was the "Star Bonus." Played during the 1977-1978 season, a contestant landing on this token could – if he was trailing after the final round was played – play a special bonus puzzle for a prize that was worth enough to allow him to overtake the first-place contestant's total and become the day's champion. He may have to solve an "easy" puzzle, one of moderate difficulty or one that was "difficult," depending on how much he was trailing. While the one circulating episode resulted in a loss (the contestant failed to solve a difficult "PABLO PICASSO" puzzle for a Porsche sports car), there have been several Star Bonus wins.
** Other Golden Snitches include $10,000 Mystery Round and the "Prize Puzzle", the latter which offers a trip – always worth more than $5,000 – for simply solving the puzzle. Certain players will immediately solve a Prize Puzzle, even if they haven't even spun the wheel yet, because they know that the prize itself is worth far more than anything they could hope to win that round and don't want to risk hitting a Lose a Turn or Bankrupt and giving the puzzle (and, by extension, the prize) to another player. In a normal game, where nobody gets a special space like the aforementioned two and they don't get an obscenely large Final Spin, the winner is more often than not the person who won the Prize Puzzle.
** Another game breaker was the "½ Car" tags. There were two on the Wheel in the first three rounds, and they were replaced if one was picked up. It wasn't too difficult to pick up both, solve the puzzle, and win a car in the $15,000 range. The difficulty to get them was amped up starting in Season 33 when they didn't appear on the wheel until round 2. They were removed entirely in Season 37.
** The Wild Card can shift the game as well, since it allows a player to call a second letter at the same value they just spun. $3500/$5000 space + Wild Card + a letter multiple = potential blowout.
** During the show's 25th season, one round had a "Big Money" space that could award up to $25,000 if a player hit it at the right time and found a letter in the puzzle. At least one contestant won the game because of it.
** Starting in Season 30, the Express wedge. If a contestant calls a right letter on it, he or she can decide to stop spinning and start picking off consonants at $1,000 a pop. The option of buying vowels is still open, too, so most contestants have no difficulty figuring out the answer fairly early and continuing to call consonants until the puzzle is filled in entirely for a pretty sizeable bank. Since the Express wedge occurs in the same round as the aforementioned Prize Puzzle (making it essentially ''two Snitches in one''), the only way to beat a player with a successful Express run is to cancel it out with another Snitch (and even then, the catching-up player often needs to have done fairly well in previous rounds to boot, since often the countering Snitch on its own ''still isn't enough''). Needless to say, this rarely happens, which makes the outcome of a game with a successful Express run highly predictable.
** When it existed, the Jackpot. It started at $5,000, increased with the value of every spin, and could be won if you hit the wedge, called a right letter, and solved. The Jackpot frequently went into five figures, and usually guaranteed its winner a trip to the Bonus Round.
** In Season 37, the $3,000 Toss-Up was replaced with the Triple Toss-Up--three ring-in-when-you-know-it puzzles in a row with the same category, worth $2,000 each, which actually serve to balance the scores more often than not. But starting in Season 39, a player who gets all three wins a $4,000 bonus for a total of $10,000, which can often vault the lead out of reach with only one or two rounds to go.
** The primetime spinoff ''{{Celebrity|Edition}} Wheel of Fortune'' removes most of the regular game's Snitches, and instead gives cash prizes (to charity) simply for solving the puzzle--$5,000 for Round 1, $10,000 for Round 2, and ''$20,000'' for Round 3 and (very rare) subsequent rounds. Even including a Triple Toss-Up after the second round worth $5,000 each, it's difficult for the celebrity contestants to earn more than $20,000 before the third round, making it very likely that the winner of that round goes to the Bonus Round.
* The British [[Series/SaleOfTheCentury Reg Grundy]] show ''Keynotes''[[note]]adapted from an unsold 1986 pilot in the US, and also briefly adapted in Grundy's native Australia as a summer replacement for their ''Sale'' in 1992[[/note]] has a particularly bad case of this: £30 for the first round, £60 for the second and £120 for the third. Not that all games were decided by the third round; at least one had a £30-0 victory.
* ''Series/BeatTheClock'', particularly the version hosted by Monty Hall from 1979-80, is a prime example. Even if you were behind by the maximum possible amount of $2,000, the game came down to who could get shuffleboard pucks the furthest in the Bonus Shuffle. Whoever was in the lead would go both first and last (admittedly a big enough advantage that an upset was uncommon), but as long the farthest puck that hadn't fallen off was yours, you won, ''even if you were behind the entire game!'' Not only that, but whoever won was that day's champion (and got to come back on the next show, unless reaching the $25,000 limit), even if they failed in the Bonus Stunt and ended up behind the other couple (by as much as $2000 to $300).
** And then there was the Gary Kroeger version, which had two: the first had points accumulated translated to positions in an untimed stunt, last to finish is out; the second was a variation on Bid-a-Note from ''Series/NameThatTune'' played between the last two teams (here's a stunt, whoever says they can complete it faster plays; if they fail, they hand the game to their opponent, and the first bid is determined by a trivia question).
** Both seem very fair in comparison to the 2018 version. Round 1 is worth $100, and round 2 is worth $150, with each team playing one stunt in each round. Round 3 has the teams competing in a stunt against each other, with the winners getting $300 and the right to play the bonus game. Why even bother playing the first two rounds?
* The first 50 minutes of ''Series/TheCrystalMaze'' concern the players completing challenges to win crystals. These crystals do nothing but increase the amount of time that the team is allowed in the Crystal Dome at the end (five seconds per crystal). This is made even worse by the fact that it didn't matter how much time you had: if you collected more negatively scoring silver tokens than positively scoring gold tokens, you failed anyway. (You had to get 100 points to win.) A perfect example of this can be found in a team that won 11 crystals (the average was four) and ended up with 198 gold... and 167 silver.
** The Crystal Maze wasn't a true example, but the ineptitude of many contestants made it seem that way. The amount of time in the dome ''should'' matter, if the team has enough common sense to use the earned time to sort and discard some of the silver tokens, rather than collecting everything indiscriminately.
* On the Canadian comedy-quiz show ''You Bet Your Ass'' (where the absolute top prize was $2,500, ''Canadian''), the setup was 1-1-2-''n''. First round had questions worth 100 points; second round did the same but mixed up how they were offered; third round had questions worth 200 points; the final round was effectively a series of three Final Jeopardies in a row to each player, with the ''minimum'' bet being 500. You have to build up an effective base to have a chance in the final round, true, but at that point almost anyone can catch you if they're bold and smart enough.
** Also each contestant got a different set of questions, so they'd just have to hope they get easier ones.
* Parodied by one Japanese variety show, in a game where the celebrity guests were asked questions worth 1 point each. However, the final question was worth 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) points. The score at the end humorously showed the winner's score as 1,000,000,000,003 (give or take a point or two) squeezed into very narrow digits.

* ''Series/TheNewlywedGame'', Carnie Wilson's version. First round, where the women are asked about the men, each question is worth 5 points. Second round, where the men are asked about the women, each question is worth 10 points. Except for the last question, which has two parts, each worth 15 points. The most famous version with Bob Eubanks was basically the same, except the final was a single question worth 25 points.
* Creator/{{MTV}}'s ''Series/{{Trashed}}'', to an extent: Questions in the first two rounds earned 50 points and 100 points each, respectively. The show's final round featured rapid-fire questions at 150 points each for 39 seconds, making come-from-behind victories quite easy. However, winning the earlier rounds had a significant advantage: the more possessions you saved, the longer your time limit in the BonusRound.
* MTV Brazil's BattleOfTheBands contest ''Covernation'' had the final contest, an instrument duel, being worth exactly enough for the band behind in the score to take the lead (though if that backfired, it could translate to a CurbStompBattle).
* The German game show ''Series/SchlagDenRaab'' (internationally syndicated as ''Beat the Star'') consists of 15 games (which can be comprised of sports (often unknown ones), games, trivia quizzes, any ability test of strength or dexterity, or tests of luck). Scoring is similar to a game of rotation (except that the rules of said pool variation don't apply here) the points in each game are scored 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15 for a total of 120 - first to 61 or more (which is more than half of the point total, so impossible for the opponent to catch up with) wins.
* The question editor of British show ''Series/OnlyConnect'' proudly announced that, due to adjustments to the difficulty of the Connecting Wall (making it harder) and the Missing Vowels round (making it easier), Season 2 saw the rounds give, on average, equal points as each other to within a point... Despite the quick fire nature of the missing vowels round making it feel like it should be swingy compared to the other rounds.
* British show ''Fluke'' saw rounds of quick fire questions interspersed with entirely arbitrary elimination rounds, with the points only giving the privilege to pick first in chance based games where whatever position you played in gave the exact same chance of being eliminated (such as getting the choice of two ovens, one with a cooked goose and one with an uncooked goose, where if you opened the oven with the cooked goose it meant your goose is cooked which means you're out, to pick the final bye-bye game in the final episode as an example). Lampshaded via a catchphrase - "What are points?" 'Pointless!' - Not that the questions were any more than fifty/fifty toss ups for the entire show, including in the bonus round. Still, money would be given per correct answer.
* ''Series/FamilyGameNight'' on Creator/TheHub, for the first two seasons, awarded one "Crazy Cash Card" to each family at the start of the show, then an additional card to the family who won each game. Most cards were worth no more than $1,500 or so (and generally only a couple hundred bucks), but one card, the Top Cash Card, is worth anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000. Thus, a family could lose all five games and still win the grand prize if the card they chose happens to be the Top Cash Card. (That said, both families keep whatever they won in their games, so at least a family who misses out on the grand prize in this manner still walks away with a great haul of their own.)
* Played with in ''Series/BeatTheGeeks'' with the "Geequalizer". Each contestant is given rapid-fire questions worth 10 points each, but one wrong answer ends the round for them. There are ''just enough'' questions that if one contestant got every single point possible and the other contestant had zero, that contestant could come back from behind, but only if they finished the entire Geequalizer (pretty much unheard of), and the other contestant missed the very first question.
* The short-lived ''Scavengers'' had an odd variant-- points were awarded for collecting salvage during each game, rather than for winning the round. However, the final round essentially reset everyone's score, requiring them to carry the salvage they've already earned across a deep gorge over several trips. The more they've got so far, the more points they can earn, but if they mess up then the leading team can finish with fewer points than they started with, allowing the trailing team to overtake them.
* The Nickelodeon game show ''Series/WildAndCrazyKids'' was terribly guilty of this as their shows had a 3 event structure, with double points being awarded to the winners of the second event and triple points (or higher) to the winners of the third. This allowed the host to utter the line "So anybody can still win" before each event. This appeared to insult the intelligence of children about their understanding of competition.
** That said, it was clear the show didn't actually award any prizes -- it was simply about letting kids have fun by doing all sorts of wacky stuff, so in this case this may have verged into "doesn't matter at all" territory.
* The finale of ''WCG Ultimate Gamer'' has two contestants competing against each other in three different video games, worth 1, 2 and 3 points respectively, meaning all three games had to be played in order to guarantee a winner, and a player who won the first two games may still lose if they don't win the final game. In Season 2, the final game was ''VideoGame/HaloReach'', where one of the two finalists was ''one of the top Halo players in the world''. Yep, isn't that fair?
* In the ''Series/HorribleHistories'' game show ''Gory Games'', winning a round gets you a Year Sphere containing a hidden year. At the end of the game, the spheres are opened and the years are added to determine the winner... but BC dates are ''subtracted'', and they go back a long way. If you grab, say, a 1.5 '''million''' BC sphere, it'll knock you into flat last regardless of how many rounds you've won, because the positive scores are things like 1066 and 1492. And winning more rounds makes you more likely to grab the dud. It's quite possible, although unlikely -- most year spheres are positive -- to win no games, gain no spheres, score zero, and be declared champion because the other two competitors got negative scores.
* ''[[Series/{{Gambit}} Catch 21]]''. In the final round, the scores are wiped clean, and the two finalists play that round without ScoringPoints. Winner of that hand wins the game. Say you curb-stomped both of your opponents in the first two rounds (say, 1,500-100-0). You're obviously going through to the final, and the guy with 100 points goes with you, since he's in second. Now, your opponent is dealt an ace to start the final round, then answers just one question correctly and pulls a 10-value. Well, buddy, you're screwed. Hope you made a 21 earlier so the bonus prize goes home with you.

* The very last round of ''Series/TalkinBoutYourGeneration'' is always worth one point more than the difference between the losing time and the winning team, "which means that anyone can win!" Of course, ThePointsMeanNothing anyway; the only real stakes are bragging rights.
** On at least one occasion, Shaun just admitted he didn't remember what the score was and set the final round at an arbitrarily high number of points.
* ''[[Series/Chase2008 Cha$e]]'' claimed that contestants accumulated money for every second they could avoid the Hunters and lost all their winnings if they were eliminated (by being tagged by a Hunter or otherwise), but there was no way to take that money and leave (although the show did have offers to quit the game for a fixed amount). Thus all that mattered was not being eliminated until the last few minutes, then being the first to reach the exit point. A player could easily reach the end with every utility and be eliminated simply because they couldn't reach the exit point first.
* ''Series/CouchPotatoes'' had the "Couch-Up Round", in which players took turns answering buzz-in questions. Buzzing in also stopped a computer that shuffled random point amounts as well as the phrase "Couch-Up"; answering a question with "Couch-Up" lit immediately tied the score if your team was behind, effectively making the first part of the show meaningless.
* Spanish TV contest ''Gafapastas'' is a real-life shining example of this. It has five rounds, the first four are worth €600 if you manage to do everything perfectly and the last one is ''€1,200'' for the same. Not only that, but while the first four are individual rounds (meaning both players can get the €600), the last one is head-to-head answer-this-first squareoff, so a losing player can quickly CurbStompBattle their opponent and win by with a huge margin. The current champion has won many games simply because he's really good at the last round. The worst part? For a while, it was €800 for the first 4 rounds and €800 for the last. That's right, they changed it to make the rounds ''more'' unbalanced!
* ''Series/LetsAskAmerica'' has a question worth as much as ''all questions up to that point'' at the end of each of its three rounds, with money totals being cumulative throughout the game. The player with the lowest total gets eliminated at the end of each round. The format is 1-2-3 for the first round, 4-5-15 for the second, and 20-50 for the third round. Answering the last question of any round correctly will allow the contestant to at the very least tie, but more likely pull ahead of anyone who did not answer the question correctly.
* Creator/JayWolpert's ''Series/WaitTilYouHaveKids'' uses a "1-2-3-4×2" format, though more than one couple can score per-round. In the final round, both members of each couple answer and score score individually, allowing up to ''8'' points to be won!
* On the original ''Series/{{Concentration}}'', if a game ended in a draw, a new game was started with each contestant allowed to retain up to three prizes from the draw game. This also applied if time was running out on a show and a puzzle was 3/4ths exposed. The puzzle was revealed, the game is ruled a draw, and a new game is started on the next show with the players allowed to retain up to three prizes from that default draw game.
** On ''Classic Concentration,'' a player could match no prizes, win both games and lose the car round both times, going home with nothing but the consolation prizes they give to the losers. On the original show, a player won $100 winning a game with no matched good prizes (and/or the $500--later a car--bonus for selecting two Wild Cards on the same turn).
** On all versions, a player could have all the prizes and not know what the puzzle is while the other could have no prizes (or gag prizes on the original) and be able to solve it. This is what original host Hugh Downs referred to saying the show was rig-proof when the Quiz Show Scandals broke.
* ''Series/TheKryptonFactor'', in pre-1995 series, had the General Knowledge round at the end of the game. Whilst in most rounds the contestants scored 10, 6, 4 or 2 points according to their ranking in that round, in the General Knowledge round, you simply scored 2 points for a correct answer and lost 2 for an incorrect one. It didn't matter how good your Mental Agility, plane-landing skills or completing a gruelling assault course faster than anyone else was, the General Knowledge round (often comparatively easier) could essentially undo all that. The 1995 series had the final Super Round, with all previous rounds merely buying "advantages" that could be used at the end.
** The pre-1995 format was less of an example that it initially appears-- there were slightly more points available than in the earlier rounds, and potentially a back-runner ''could'' make up ten or more points on the leader and snatch a victory, but this would have required them to be significantly stronger on general knowledge than all three opponents, which was unlikely. The more likely outcome was a distribution of points broadly in line with the other rounds. So in theory a Golden Snitch was available, but unless three of the four contestants were hopeless on General Knowledge, it would be almost impossible to pull off in practice.
* Yes, ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' has this, too. No matter how many immunity challenges or rewards you have under your belt, or who’s at the head of the alliance, or anything else, it’s all just buildup for the main event. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80JurDQe0wI You have to win the votes of the jury in the end.]] If you can’t win over a jury (made up ''entirely'' of the competition you eliminated), then being the best physically and the best strategically, all the strategy and moves and blindsides and whatnot, means absolutely nothing. (Unlike the ''Series/DancingWithTheStars'' example, it is ''always'' and ''entirely'' possible to turn things around at the absolute last second.) [[Characters/SurvivorSamoa Natalie White]] and [[Characters/SurvivorPearlIslands Sandra Diaz-Twine]] ([[Characters/SurvivorHeroesVsVillains both times!]]), in particular, understood this point perfectly, and that’s why both of them wound up with the million.
* ''Series/PanelQuizAttack25'' has the "Attack Chance," which kicks in when there are five boxes left on the board. The player who gives the next correct answer makes their regular capture, then targets one of their opponents' previously-captured boxes. That box can then be recaptured on a later question. If played correctly, a player in a distant third or fourth place often comes back from near-nothing to win the game.
** This also has the potential to backfire spectacularly if the targeted box is in line with another opponent's boxes, or if the targeted player reclaims that box.
* The comedy panel quiz podcast ''International Waters'' (before it was renamed ''Troubled Waters'') used to award one million points for the final question (while pre-final-round scores tend to fall in the single or low-double digits). Even repeat guests who were fully aware of this gag often seemed to lose track of it and worry about meaningless early-game leads.
* There are six rounds of ''Series/{{Idiotest}}'', worth respectively $300/$300/$500/$500/$1,000/$2,500, so the last round is worth just $100 less than the first five combined. The rub is that the clock starts as soon as a puzzle appears onscreen and players lose 4-5% of the money for each second they do not answer.
* The 1985 clunker ''Series/TimeMachine'' used a 1-1-2 point system during its second format. Each of the three minigames was worth a prize, so there was still incentive to play perfectly.
* The ''Series/AmericanNinjaWarrior'' {{spinoff}} ''Team Ninja Warrior'' consists of a tournament of four teams (of three players each) in each episode. Each tournament is three rounds. The first round is only used for determining seeding of the second round (the winners of each branch of the tournament's first round face the losers of the opposite branch). It is only the second round that determines which teams move on to the third round. From a game-theory perspective, the absolute best strategy would be to immediately jump off the obstacle course and lose every heat of the first round, thus preserving the team members' energy and eliminating any risk of injury, to be fully prepared to take on the second round, where it actually matters if you win.
** Within each round, there is also the 1-1-2 version of the Golden Snitch, as the first and second heats are worth one point each, and the third worth two points. A fourth heat is used if a tie-breaker is needed.
* In the UK show ''The Edge'', points (which are converted to prize money) are earned by bowling a ball down a lane marked with amounts from £1 to £950. Stopping the ball on the very last segment ("[[TitleDrop the edge]]") earns £1,000, £2,000 or £3,000 in successive rounds - enough to be essentially an InstantWinCondition for that round. If this happens in the final elimination round, then one player stopping on the edge forces their opponent to do likewise. Hitting the edge is so difficult to do on purpose that it comes down to a LuckBasedMission, which if anything makes it ''worse''.
* The ''Series/{{Countdown}}'' Conundrum (the single-question final round) comes close to being either a Golden Snitch or completely worthless. Seeing as someone nearly always gets it correct, it doesn't matter if you're 9 points ahead or 9 points behind at this stage, the winner is the person who gets this single question correct first, as they will score 10 points and the game will be over. On the other hand, if the gap is more than 10 points, this round will have no impact on the winner.
* In ''Series/{{Swashbuckle}}'', the third round, ''Shipwreck Rummage'', is the only one the team has to win in order to win the whole game. Winning the first two rounds cuts down the amount of items you have to find against the clock in the third, but it's still completely possible to lose the first two, then win the third and the game.
* Even though teams on ''Series/TheAmazingRace'' have their time disparities preserved across legs (if you checked in N minutes after the first team on the previous leg, you have to wait N minutes after the first team departs on the current leg before you can depart), the show will usually set up an equalizer near the start of every leg where all the contestants end up arriving at an airport several hours before the first flight, or (more uncommonly) at a task location hours before it opens. The vast majority of the time, this wipes out most if not all advantages and disadvantages between teams had from the previous leg[[note]]Exceptions do happen, albeit very rarely, such as Nick & Vicki in Season 18 -- at over 6 hours behind the second-to-last team, they couldn't make it onto the same flight as the other teams, and ended up 9 hours behind by the time they arrived in South Korea[[/note]]. However, demonstrating that [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Tropes Are Not Bad]], the first season's lack of these equalizers led to two teams being over 12 hours ahead of the rest by the end of leg 9, making the game essentially {{Unwinnable}} for the rest and making most of the remainder a ForegoneConclusion.
** They also have non-announced "non-elimination" rounds, which, since the idea is to be the last team standing, makes the entire leg pointless. The first team may or may not win a prize, but all teams continue to the next leg and the order in which they arrived really does nothing to alter the odds. They also have "Fast Forwards" which if completed first allow one team to skip over all other tasks. It has however happened a handful of times that the fast forward has been completed, but still didn't win the team first place, typically due to long commute times or getting lost.
* In ''Series/CanadasWorstDriver'', the Worst Driver trophy is generally given to the contestant who did the worst on the final challenge, regardless of how well (or badly) they did on the earlier challenges. The final challenge is driving on public roads, which is by far the most important test of the person's driving ability.
* The 1994 French game show ''Trésors du Monde'' pitted a single team against five challenges; the first four challenges set up the prize money, but the fifth challenge was the one that decided whether the team won or lost the prize.
* ''Series/TheGreatBritishBakeOff'': Paul and Mary have admitted that the showstopper is generally all that separates the contestants, though contestants in the bottom half of the technical challenge automatically become candidates for elimination. Proven most notably in series 3; Ryan came last in the technical challenge, only for his key lime pie showstopper to prove so amazingly excellent that he was named Star Baker that week, ahead of bakers who had consistently delivered in all three rounds.
* ''Series/{{Winsanity}}'': In the second season, the format became one with two contestants stacking facts. In the first two rounds, each player got $100-$200-$300-$400 for up to four correct answers, for a total of $1,000 (and a $1,000-$1,000 tie after the 2nd round was referred to as a "perfect game"). In the third round, there are four more answers, where if a contestant got the stack wrong, their opponent got the cash. Those four answers were worth, in order, $500, $600, $700, and ''$1,750''. The last question is worth $50 less than the first three, so if one contestant was tied or ahead and got the first three, they couldn't be beat. Every other scenario, however, brought the last question into play (except ultra lopsided scenarios like $1,000-$0 after 2 rounds).
* The series ''Spook Squad'' had this in the final round. The object of the game was to win minigames in a haunted house and collect ectoplasm to banish the ghost haunting it. The final round takes place in the room the ghost died in, where the ectoplasm is used to create letters, which will spell out the item the ghost needs to gain special powers and/or immortality. (blanks are used in place of missing letters) The team must then find said item before the last stroke of midnight to win the game. Theoretically, a team can gain all of the ectoplasm and figure out what the item is, but still lose because they couldn't find it.
* The ''Championship Gaming Series'' ''truly'' screwed the pooch on this one- the contest's five disciplines were hugely [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Championship_Gaming_Series#Scoring_system idiosyncratically scored]]- aceing both ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' rounds five-nil, (for a total of ten points) taking the top two spots in ''[[VideoGame/{{Forza}} Forza Motorsport]]'' (taking six points and conceding one), and winning {{FIFA}} by ''three'' clear goals (Net profit of three points) will result in a tie if the opponent team wins all the ''VideoGame/CounterStrike'' rounds (18 points). Of course, ''which'' discipline counts as the golden snitch is up in the air, as the rounds were never played (or at least broadcast) in any specific order.
* ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'':
** In the first five seasons, winning a challenge in an early round earned a contestant immunity from elimination in the next round. This ended as of season six.
** Matching a contestant's answers during "Snatch Game" is meaningless. The goal is to deliver an entertaining celebrity impersonation.
** Subverted to a degree in that sometimes winning a mini-challenge can put a target on the winner's back. If the main challenge is a team performance, the mini-challenge winners are the team captains and are held responsible for the team's overall performance. Winning the mini-challenge before a Ball main challenge saddles the winner with the task of choreographing a group dance performance, which can add to their overall stress and give the judges another reason for a harsh critique.
* All versions of ''Series/SplitSecond1972'' used a handicap called the Countdown Round in their third segment. The players had to get a certain number of answers based on their score position after round two. The player in the lead had to get 3 answers (ABC, 4 on the syndicated show and GSN), second place had to get 4 (ABC, 5 syndication, 6 on GSN) and last place had to get 5 (ABC, 6 syndicated, 8 on GSN). So the last place player could ring in fast enough and run the table to win the game.

* Due to the loose rule enforcement, it is stranger when the Red Squad vs Black Squad TagTeam {{Battle Rap|ping}} that ends every episode of ''Wild N' Out'' doesn't rack up at least as many points as every preceding contest in the episode combined. If one squad performs poorly, or exceptionally, no amount of early game dominance can cushion it.
* The TruTV series ''[[Series/HotOnesTheGameShow Hot Ones: The Game Show]]''. Three rounds, three questions each. 1-2-3 within a round. OK, not so bad. Across the three rounds? 1-2-''10''. That's right, round 3 questions are worth 10 times as much as round 1 questions.

* In the Creator/WayneBrady game show ''Game of Talents'', the first and second performers are worth $10,000, the third and fourth performers are worth $15,000, and the fifth performer (where the round is played in a head-to-head format) is worth a whopping $60,000. This means that a team that has been shut out in the previous rounds can buzz in correctly (or have the other team buzz incorrectly) and win the game.

* ''Series/ForgedInFire'' usually averts this, being EliminatedFromTheRace type of competition, but ''Summer Forging Games'' two-parter has the downplayed example of this. There are four rounds total, where each competitor has to complete a given weapon, with some point reward after each round (or none if they fail to complete the task). However, third round awards twice as much points as the first/second round task, and the last one ''quadruple'' of that (so basically win in fourth round gives as much points as win in three previous rounds combined). However, this is justified because the last round has the most complicated task by far and if one keeps doing consistently well in previous rounds they should have sufficient margin, but it still can shuffle order; indeed the guy who was consistently placing at third place and as the only one failed to turn in a completed weapon in third round (so he didn't get any points for it) ended up second because he took the fourth round.

[[folder:Pinball]]

* In ''Film/DeathRace'', a "Race" actually consists of three separate races. The first two races are elimination matches where the only point is to survive/kill the other players to make the final round easier. Whoever places first in the final race is designated the winner and that race is added to their countdown to freedom. This means there is no reason to actually try to win as opposed to hanging back and taking out the other drivers or simply hiding until the coast is clear. Of course, this is pretty much Combat Racing Game: The Movie so no one ever figures it out.

It seems kind of stupid, but there are [[TropesAreTools good reasons to do this]]. {{Game Show}}s in particular will do something like the "1-1-2 rule" -- if there are three rounds (and game shows usually have a fixed number of rounds), the third is worth double the first two. The idea here is to preserve tension throughout the program. If all the rounds are weighted evenly, and someone wins the first two, no one will stick around to watch the third because the game has already been decided. But if the third round is weighted ''more'' than double the first two, the beginning of the program will become a waste of time because the entire game can only be decided by the final round. The "1-1-2" resolves both problems because now all rounds always matter -- even a badly losing player coming from behind to win the third round will only tie the score, often leading to a SuddenDeath round which can be ''really'' dramatic.

** After the game reverted to 1-1-2-3 in 2003, the rules changed again. If neither team had reached 300, then there would be a triple-value SuddenDeath round, usually with a simple question whose #1 answer would have an extremely high point value.

* ''[[VideoGame/WarioWare WarioWare: Mega Party Game$!]]''

A Golden Snitch is a mechanic in a competition involving a series of events or activities in which the final round counts for a disproportionately large percentage of the team's total score -- often more than all previous events ''combined''. Thus, whoever wins the final round earns enough points to win the ''entire'' match, regardless of just about everything else that happened before it. In physical sports or games that feature it, this is roughly the equivalent of a FinalBoss since completing it would end the game.

A Golden Snitch is a mechanic in a competition involving a series of events or activities in which the final round counts for a disproportionately large percentage of the team's total score -- often more than all previous events ''combined''. Thus, whoever wins the final round earns enough points to win the ''entire'' match, regardless of just about everything else that happened before it. In physical sports that feature it, this is roughly the equivalent of a FinalBoss since completing it would end the game.

A Golden Snitch is a mechanic in a competition involving a series of events or activities in which the final round counts for a disproportionately large percentage of the team's total score -- often more than all previous events ''combined''. Thus, whoever wins the final round earns enough points to win the ''entire'' match, regardless of just about everything else that happened before it.

* 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.

* 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.)
* 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/TheSpellcastingSeries Spellcasting 301]]'', it doesn't really matter how well the Pharts do in the challenges. Whether they stomped the Yus, got stomped or ran a close competition, at the end of the final scheduled challenge, the Judge will declare that since the scores are so close (Which they might not be), there will be one last challenge, which will earn the frat to complete it enough points to guarantee a win. [[spoiler: This is because the Judge is secretly the series BigBad, and the whole point of the competition from his perspective is to manipulate ''somebody'' into completing this final task, which will provide him the MacGuffin he needs to enact his evil scheme]].
* In ''VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefront: Elite Squadron'', there is a skirmish mode. It consists of three rounds. The first and the second have no effect on the final victory. They just provide offensive and defensive bonuses in round 3, which decides whether or not the game is won.
* In ''Videogame/{{Rampage}}: Through Time'' the usual city smashing only provide bonus points (awarded to a monster with the most destruction) for the minigame after smashing three cities in a particular timeframe. Finishing the minigame determines the true winner, and in the campaign mode, the only way to progress.

* The Vs. Mode Minigames of ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' will give 100 stars to whoever player that wins the last round of Shuffle Mode, which mostly guarantees a win to anyone who isn't in first place (unless they are far behind).
* ''[[VideoGame/WarioWare WarioWare: Mega Party Game$!]]''
** Dribble & Spitz's "Milky Way Delirium" mode has one of these in the form of a giant robot. The player who owns the most tiles at the end of the game must "battle" this robot by playing one final microgame, and if they lose he crushes their spaceship with his hands and all of the other players win a joint victory.
** Although it doesn't always happen, this can also occur in 9-Volt's "Card-e Cards" mode. In order to win, you need to have the most cards in your stack at the end of the game, and you earn the cards by winning the microgames shown on them. If you lose any of the microgames, however, the games you had beaten before losing, the games you had left to play, ''and'' your entire stack all go to the Pile. At the end of the game, if any cards are left in the Pile, the players play a versus microgame for it. This means it's highly likely for any given game of Card-e Cards to come down to a battle for a huge stack of cards and a highly likely victory.

* Zig-zagged in Spin-Off in ''VideoGame/WiiParty''. When several x2 or x3 spaces are landed on without playing a mini-game, the bank will have an absurd amount of coins, and the player who wins the next game will usually get an incredible lead. That lead can easily be taken away in a duel mini-game though, where the challenger (who gets to choose their opponent) gets half the opponent's coins if they win. A win here will usually give the challenger a slight lead over their opponent and overall.
* ''Creator/JackboxGames'' have a some degree of this in general.
** VideoGame/TheJackboxPartyPack has many games that are played in three rounds (Fibbage, Quiplash, etc). The second round is worth double points meaning the first round is far less important. Somewhat unusually the final round is often far less important, as it will only have a single question while the previous two rounds will have several, making the second round the most valuable overall.
** The Triva Murder Party games feature several rounds of trivia questions and minigames where most of the players will die. However the winner of the game is decided by a final round that everyone gets to participate in, with players who did better getting moderate head starts. Someone who did not get a single trivia question right until the final round can still win.
** The Jack Attack segments in the ''VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack'' games are so much more valuable than everything else it generally decides the game. Not only are they worth far more points than anything else, you can also ''lose'' enormous amounts of points by repeatedly getting lots of wrong answers, including losing points for hitting the same wrong answer more than once.
* ''VideoGame/MarioParty''. In almost all games, the last five turns tend to come with an event that activates to change things around, usually to the point the entire flow of the game is altered in about five seconds. Some of these events include:
** Coins given or taken away by landing on Blue/Red spaces are doubled or tripled.
** All Red Spaces become Bowser Spaces (a 30% or so chance of something bad happening to a random person every turn.) ''9'' has Bowser turn an indiscriminate number of spaces remaining into Bowser Spaces near the end.
** 5 Star Spaces at once (''Mario Party 5'') -- and unlike earlier games that could have multiple Star Spaces, all of them are real. If this happens, a player with a lot of coins could gain 2 or 3 Stars in a single turn, and still have enough for more Stars later.
** Bowser Revolution, where everyone's coins are taken and shared equally between all players.
** The postgame Star giving awards, in which players get free Stars for various 'achievements' such as landing on the most happening spaces or moving the most spaces. In ''5'' and beyond, these bonus stars are selected totally at random. These can also take someone right from last to first (or vice versa), and right after the game's technically "finished" to boot!
** Chance Time, present in the first three games, as well as ''5'' and ''6'', has a chance of stars being swapped, potentially plunging the First Place player into last place -- and vice versa. The fourth game introduced the Reversal of Fortune space instead of this, which besides the possibility of swapping stars, coins can be interchanged, '''both''' stars and coins may be swapped, or player A gives two stars to player B.
** All the boards except Toad Road in ''9'' have a mechanic that can take away half of a player's Mini Stars. There's also a Bowser event that does it… Unless you’re in last, in which case he'll ''double'' your Mini Stars instead.
* Finding [[spoiler:Detective Marlowe's]] body in the second chapter of ''VideoGame/TheWitcher'' automatically resolves the investigation quest arc that can be failed in oh-so-many ways if you only go by the bits of evidence you can collect otherwise.

* ''VideoGame/KanColle'' downplays this with normal damage calculations, where the flagship gets disproportionate weighting, such that it's possible to get a C-rank (tactical defeat) despite having heavily damaged all the other enemies so long as the flagship only has light damage. Also played straight with bosses, where sinking them is the only thing that lowers the gauge, and all damage to the accompanying mooks doesn't count.
* Somewhat ironically, Quidditch in the 2003 game ''VideoGame/HarryPotterQuidditchWorldCup'' is nowhere near as susceptible to this as in the movies or books. In an attempt to balance the game so it didn't rely so heavily on the Golden Snitch it was seemingly overlooked that maintaining control of the field is so easy that running your score over a hundred points over your opponent is commonplace. It's also subverted with two challenges in the game; one of Germany's Team Special challenges requires you to win the game without catching the Snitch, while one of Bulgaria's requires you to ''lose'' the game while catching the Snitch.

* Several {{Light Gun Game}}s such as ''VideoGame/LetsGoJungle'', ''VideoGame/LetsGoIsland'', ''VideoGame/HauntedMuseum'' and ''Monster Eye'' run like this. The ending that the player gets only depends on one factor -- whether you succeed or fail at the ''very last'' challenge of the game, which is also a NintendoHard or plain tricky one.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'': During the Festival of the Hunt, several characters compete to earn points by defeating the various monsters that have been released throughout Lindblum. However, whether the main character walks away with the prize or not is determined entirely by whether you take down the Zaghnol, which only appears in a certain area with a certain amount of time remaining on the clock. It's worth by far more points than any of the other monsters. Most notably, trying and failing to take this yourself is the only semi-consistent way to get [[EarnYourBadEnding Vivi to win]], as Freya (who is uncontrollable outside this fight, and can be purposefully KO'd) will take it out herself and win otherwise.
* In ''VideoGame/FallGuysUltimateKnockout'', one of the possible final rounds is "Royal Fumble". In this mode, one player has a tail, which can be stolen by other players. Whoever has the tail once time runs out is the grand champion. This makes most of the round's duration unimportant, since there is no difference between keeping the tail for most of the game and successfully fleeing from everyone else for that long compared to just grabbing it near the end.
** For the "show" as a whole, all finals work like this. Aside from Kudos and Fame rewards outside the current match, qualifying by placing 1st in a race is the exact same as qualifying by placing 45th, and players gain no advantage by doing better in any round before the final. It's actually generally advisable to DoWellButNotPerfect in all rounds that aren't the final, so you're saving your actual best performance for the only round where it matters. Additionally, even if you don't care about crowns, winning the final round earns you a massive quantity of Kudos and Fame, more than you could possibly get from all previous rounds put together even if you got gold on all of them.
* In ''VideoGame/PokemonUnite'', Zapdos appears during the final two minutes of a standard 10 minute match. Defeating it will award all active players on that player's team with the maximum 50 Aeos Points and deactivate the barriers on opposing goal points for 30 seconds, allowing for instant goals during that time. On top of that, all points scored (for all players) during those last two minutes will be doubled. Due to the map layout, it's extremely difficult for any team to get more than 400 points before Zapdos unless that team is completely dominating and coordinated. Since Zapdos essentially awards a free 500 points, it's extremely common for Zapdos to make the entire prior 8 minutes in a match completely moots, and it's entirely possible to win with nothing but the points from Zapdos alone.
* The original arcade version of ''VideoGame/DoDonPachi [=SaiDaiOuJou=]'' has a score overflow bug that causes the scoring to go off the rails when a certain {{Cap}} on the enemy point value is exceeded. Literally over 99% of the scoring in the entire run happens at the ends of stage 3 and 5. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEo3haktua8 Example.]] (watch at 9:07 and 22:07). By comparison, without the overflow bug, [[note]]in subsequent releases like the Xbox 360 port, the overflow bug can be turned on or off but is off by default[[/note]] high scores are in the 30 billion range.
* 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).

* ''VideoGame/WarioWare: Mega Party Game$: "Milky Way Delirium" tasks players with taking planets on a 5x5 reversi-style board by winning microgames... however, once the board is filled, the winner is decided by having the player with the most planets play one final microgame, with planets belonging to anyone else [[InterfaceScrew remaining on-screen to block their view]]. If they win this microgame, they win the whole game -- if not, all the other players do.

* Parodied by one Japanese variety show, in a game where the celebrity guests were asked questions worth 1 point each. However, the final question was worth 1,000,000,000,000 points. The score at the end humorously showed the winner's score as 1,000,000,000,003 (give or take a point or two) squeezed into very narrow digits.

* ''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]].

* Literature/{{Redwall}}: In ''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.

* ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'' pulls off something similar to ''Naruto''. During an astronaut qualification exam, there is a "bonus" question about describing the test papers ([[labelnote:answer]]when the three test papers are held up to the light, an outline of a star appears in the field for the bonus question[[/labelnote]]). Gentaro and CloudCuckooLander Yuki pass the exam answering ''only'' the bonus question, meaning that regardless of score, answering that bonus question is enough of a qualification. The exam proctor mentions that the school board chairman (also the series BigBad) only put it in for "a little joke".

* ''Series/FamilyGameNight'' on Creator/TheHub, for the first two seasons, awarded one "Crazy Cash Card" to each family at the start of the show, then an additional card to the family who won each game. Most cards were worth no more than $1500 or so (and generally only a couple hundred bucks), but one card, the Top Cash Card, is worth anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000. Thus, a family could lose all five games and still win the grand prize if the card they chose happens to be the Top Cash Card. (That said, both families keep whatever they won in their games, so at least a family who misses out on the grand prize in this manner still walks away with a great haul of their own.)

* ''[[Series/{{Gambit}} Catch 21]]''. In the final round, the scores are wiped clean, and the two finalists play that round without ScoringPoints. Winner of that hand wins the game. Say you curb-stomped both of your opponents in the first two rounds (say, 1500-100-0). You're obviously going through to the final, and the guy with 100 points goes with you, since he's in second. Now, your opponent is dealt an ace to start the final round, then answers just one question correctly and pulls a 10-value. Well, buddy, you're screwed. Hope you made a 21 earlier so the bonus prize goes home with you.

* In the Creator/BillEngvall version of ''Series/{{Lingo}}'', the setup is now 1-2-'''5'''. Mitigated by only having 3 words in round three, but still true if the in-behind team gets all 3 words ''and'' a lingo, $2000 usually being enough to overtake anything of a lead the competition might have had.

* Spanish TV contest ''Gafapastas'' is a real-life shining example of this. It has five rounds, the first four are worth 600€ if you manage to do everything perfectly and the last one is ''1200€'' for the same. Not only that, but while the first four are individual rounds (meaning both players can get the 600€), the last one is head-to-head answer-this-first squareoff, so a losing player can quickly CurbStompBattle their opponent and win by with a huge margin. The current champion has won many games simply because he's really good at the last round. The worst part? For a while, it was 800€ for the first 4 rounds and 800€ for the last. That's right, they changed it to make the rounds ''more'' unbalanced!

* Creator/JayWolpert's ''Series/WaitTilYouHaveKids'' uses a "1-2-3-4x2" format, though more than one couple can score per-round. In the final round, both members of each couple answer and score score individually, allowing up to ''8'' points to be won!

* There are six rounds of ''Series/{{Idiotest}}'', worth respectively $200/$200/$500/$500/$1000/$2500, so the last round is worth more than the first five combined. The rub is that players lose ten percent of the money for each second they do not answer. Even then, the minimum value of a correct answer in round six is worth more than the maximum value of either of the first two rounds.

* In the UK show ''The Edge'', points (which are converted to prize money) are earned by bowling a ball down a lane marked with amounts from £1 to £950. Stopping the ball on the very last segment ("[[TitleDrop the edge]]") earns £1000, £2000 or £3000 in successive rounds - enough to be essentially an InstantWinCondition for that round. If this happens in the final elimination round, then one player stopping on the edge forces their opponent to do likewise. Hitting the edge is so difficult to do on purpose that it comes down to a LuckBasedMission, which if anything makes it ''worse''.

* Even though teams on ''Series/TheAmazingRace'' have their time disparities preserved across legs (if you checked in N minutes after the first team on the previous leg, you have to wait N minutes after the first team departs on the current leg before you can depart), the show will usually set up an equalizer near the start of every leg where all the contestants end up arriving at an airport several hours before the first flight, or (more uncommonly) at a task location hours before it opens. The vast majority of the time, this wipes out most if not all advantages and disadvantages between teams had from the previous leg[[note]]Exceptions do happen, albeit very rarely, such as Nick & Vicki in Season 18-- at over 6 hours behind the second-to-last team, they couldn't make it onto the same flight as the other teams, and ended up 9 hours behind by the time they arrived in South Korea[[/note]]. However, demonstrating that [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Tropes Are Not Bad]], the first season's lack of these equalizers led to two teams being over 12 hours ahead of the rest by the end of leg 9, making the game essentially {{Unwinnable}} for the rest and making most of the remainder a ForegoneConclusion.

* Goodson-Todman's 1961 show ''Series/SayWhen'' had the objective of accumulating prizes without going over a value ceiling. A test episode (made before it went on the air in 1961) had a rule that after selecting a prize you could stop. At that point that prize's value is not disclosed until the opponent's turn was completed. In a championship game where the value ceiling was $2000, a contestant selected a prize that put him at $2000 on the nose. However, he didn't [[TitleDrop say when]] and was forced to select another prize, which obviously put him over. The opponent had the prospect of going over as well, but didn't.

* On the Canadian comedy-quiz show ''You Bet Your Ass'' (where the absolute top prize was $2500, ''Canadian''), the setup was 1-1-2-''n''. First round had questions worth 100 points; second round did the same but mixed up how they were offered; third round had questions worth 200 points; the final round was effectively a series of three Final Jeopardies in a row to each player, with the ''minimum'' bet being 500. You have to build up an effective base to have a chance in the final round, true, but at that point almost anyone can catch you if they're bold and smart enough.

** The "$3,000/$4,000/$5,000 + one spin" spaces in the final round can usually help a contestant lagging behind to overtake the leader and win the game, even more so if they land on the space multiple times.

** The "$3000/$4000/$5000 + one spin" spaces in the final round can usually help a contestant lagging behind to overtake the leader and win the game, even more so if they land on the space multiple times.

* Both versions of ''Series/SplitSecond1972'' used a handicap called the Countdown Round in their third segment. The players had to get a certain number of answers based on their score position after round two. The player in the lead had to get 3 answers (ABC, 4 on the syndicated show), second place had to get 4 (ABC, 5 syndication) and last place had to get 5 (ABC, 6 syndicated). So the last place player could ring in fast enough and run the table to win the game.

[[folder: Real Life -- Games]]

[[folder: Real Life -- Other]]

This, unfortunately, isn't the way it often works in fiction. They usually skew the final round to be insurmountable; instead of 1-1-2, you're looking at 1-1-3, or in extreme cases [[PinballScoring 1-1-1000]]. Sometimes it's tempered by making the Snitch optional; you don't ''need'' it to win, and it rarely happens because you need a very specific skill (which the heroes will often have). In any event, it essentially makes the remainder of the game pretty pointless; either you see the protagonist fight for the Snitch while everyone else is doing things in the background that won't matter, or you see everyone play the "normal" way and then suddenly go for the Snitch -- even though going for the Snitch to begin with is probably the optimal strategy.