Developing questions

A few minutes before 9 p.m., a notification pops up on your iPhone inviting you to play a game of trivia. Your thumbs tremble with anticipation. You pop the app open and are greeted by a timer slowly counting down to zero and a constantly updating chat window that is utterly overwhelming in the amount of messages being shared. Chat bubbles with “Dink” and “Dilly dilly” comments seem to be the most popular.

A number in the top left corner of your phone tells you there are 80,000 or 90,000 or maybe even 130,000 other competitors who have entered the game. Then, as the dwindling timer finally strikes zero, you are welcomed by a charming host, live from New York City. She greets you and everyone else who has tuned in to play. She introduces herself as Sharon Carpenter (Scott Rogowsky is the regular host), nonchalantly tells a cheesy joke and then moves on to what you – and everyone else – is waiting for: the trivia.

Over the next few minutes, Carpenter asks all the participating players 12 rapid-fire trivia questions. For each question, there are three seconds to choose from three possible answers. Some questions are strangely easy, while others would tempt you to use your search engine skills (if only there were enough time). When all is said and done, the number of people to answer all dozen questions correctly will be under 100 contestants, usually fewer than 50.

You, like most of the other tens of thousands of people participating, probably got a question wrong halfway through, and were eliminated. If, by some mixture of deep knowledge and extreme luck, you were able to answer all 12 correctly, you will split a cash prize of $1,000 (and in one instance so far, $7,500) with the other fortuitous players.

This is the experience of playing HQ Trivia, the new trivia game app from former Vine co-founders Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll. The pair have graduated from six-second (and often ridiculous) videos to an app that connects people with the lure of trivia and cash – and the thrill of quick competition.

What’s miraculous about HQ is that it’s less of an app and more of a game show. The now-viral game has taken the idea of Jeopardy! and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and completely morphed it to appeal to today’s smart phone-obsessed society. HQ allows for anyone who desires to gamble nothing but a few minutes of their time for a chance to win a small cash prize. While the initial appeal might be the money, the true draw of the game is that it’s an event; one you’ll end up talking about with pride or humility (depending on how long you’ll last) with other players you know in real life.

The unexpected charm of the game is that you can’t open up the app and play whenever you want. You have to wait for the schedule. As such, the notifications become a daily invitation to a party – one where loot bags will be awarded to only a small minority of special guests. In this sense, Yusupov and Kroll have created the first water-cooler app. And it’s growing quickly: a few weeks ago, only a few thousand players were involved. Now, as recently as Sunday night, there were 120,000 participants.

According to TechCrunch, HQ funds its prizes and development through seed funding, but won’t comment further on funding or revenue. As the number of users continue to grow, the opportunities for revenue become obvious. While ads or sponsored prizes seem inevitable, product placement and native campaigns might prove even more lucrative. During a recent game, Carpenter made an off-hand joke about the upcoming Star Wars. Just imagine what a brand would pay to see its product casually mentioned to a captivated audience of 130,000 by a host in complete control of their attention.

In a world where everything is accessible all at once, all the time, “appointment” entertainment has become increasingly difficult to find. In this sense, HQ Trivia is merely establishing a trend that we used to find regularly through television. However, as you watch the stream of comments in the chat window and feel your heart rate increase as the clock counts down to the first question, you get the unmistakable sense that you’re participating in something new – it feels as though you’re suddenly part of an episode of Black Mirror.