Leaderboard

Those are bigger effects, not more numerous. So it is close. The point still remains that the quality of the show is not because of the ticket price. The park got rid of pre-shows and police academy long before the price dropped. They lowered the quality of experience at MW and SW and then had to lower the ticket price to match. This includes operations, food quality, shows, pre-shows, theming (look at GL and Batwing, it barely exists). You've consistently made the point that parks are 'giving away the gate', except that is what people are willing to pay for the experience on offer and even at these prices, they're still having to offer discounts and incentives because the parks don't offer enough value for that price. Currently I'm willing to pay exactly $0 for a VRTP experience. I let my pass expire and didn't bother to renew it because I got tired of rude staff, tired looking parks, constant ride closures, overpriced and poor quality food, and extremely long lines because of slow operations (FOTWW had 7-11 minute turnarounds from a train arriving at the station to departing the station). At MW, a full day experience required 4-5 visits to the park just to do everything, not because there is so much to do but because you had to play the lottery as to whether or not things were actually going to be open and not close part way through the day. When people complained, the park blamed them for 'not checking the website'. The de-valuing of the experience at VRTP parks started long before BGH and long before the price drops. MW could easily bring back a show at the level of Police Academy. The current show has similar elements already, it's just a weaker script that relies a lot more on vehicles than stunts. I think the main reason the quality started to drop was because Warner Bros exited the parks business and shifted to just licensing IP to operators instead. They were likely the ones pushing for story-based experiences linked closely to specific movies, and once it became a licensing business they just didn't care what parks did as long as they paid. That's when VRTP started building rides (without shows) based on comic book versions of characters, rather than movies. That's when it stopped being 'Movie World', and that is when the concept of the park shifted to a Six Flags model rather than a movie-themed, story-driven park.

Maybe, but I’m this case bigger is better. I don’t think the effects for Spy Chase are anywhere near as good as the ones PA had. Even if Spy Chase wins on quantity, PA smashes it out of the park with the quality and volume.

Not quite! Spy Chase has 8 cast members, while Police Academy had 10. Plus, PA featured 2 police vehicles, a hot rod, a golf buggy, another golf buggy stuck in a police vehicle, a police motorbike with a drivable sidecar, a trailbike and a smaller motorbike. As for special effects- not even close

MW giving away the gate is why you’ll probably never see another show on the same level as Police Academy, or another proper preshow at MW. That was the kind of stuff that made MW great.

@noll_57 You’d expect the bigger crowds Dreamworld has been seeing to hurt the ratings, but over the last 12 months the score has actually strengthened.