Imagine the intellectual and social pressure of a pub quiz, then multiply it by more than 2 million people.
Every day, at 3pm and 9pm sharp, an army of teenagers, students, pensioners and office workers stop what they are doing, whip out their smartphones and fire up an app to take part in a new online craze called HQ Trivia, the pub quiz brought kicking and screaming into the smartphone era.
As many as 2 million people in the US and about 200,000 playing the UK version at the same appointed hours watch a live quizmaster broadcasting from a New York studio surrounded by colourful graphics bursting from the screen.
The host asks players a series of increasingly difficult questions in a 15-minute version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire crossed with the Hunger Games.
There’s no forgetting the game times. Players, called HQties, are reminded by a phone notification. Anyone and everyone can play for free all at the same time, eliminated with one wrong answer.
The prize pot ranges from £500 to £200,000 or more, to be shared among the winners. Answer 12 heart-pounding multiple-choice questions right and the money is yours.
Few are going to get rich playing. In Thursday night’s UK game more than 160,000 people started playing, and 51 answered all of the questions correctly. With a prize pot of just £550, they banked £11 each.
The catch is that players have to answer each question within 10 seconds, which is barely enough time to figure out what’s being asked, let alone answer with any real thought.
The 10 second slot means the answers can’t be Googled, because by the time contestants brains have assessed the three possible responses the time has run out. There are also distractions – a constant stream of inane chat from the app’s hundreds of thousands of viewers which streams across the bottom of the screen and “shout-outs” – birthday wishes and other mentions blurted out by the host between questions.
The game, which is available for Android and the iPhone, is the brainchild of Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll , the co-founders of Vine, the six-second video-sharing app bought by Twitter for $30m (£22m) and since closed down.
It is currently burning through $15m of capital venture money provided by Lightspeed Venture Partners, an early investor in Snapchat, and an investment fund set up by PayPal’s founder, Peter Thiel.
The app launched in the US in August 2017 and is hosted by the New York standup Scott Rogowsky, who has quickly gained cult status as the “quiz daddy”.
The UK version is hosted by British-born, New York-based Sharon Carpenter. It was launched in January and is following a similar trajectory to its US sibling. Carpenter answers in her couldn’t-be-more-British daytime TV manner and delivers snippets of extra trivia between questions.
Thousands are eliminated as the rounds go by. In particularly gruelling “savage” questions tens of thousands can be ruled out. Once a week there’s even a special edition of the game in which remaining players continue to answer questions until only one is left holding the whole cash prize. It can be quite riveting.
The popularity of the app has not gone unnoticed. Celebrities and brands have queued up to appear as guest hosts in the US or to sponsor the games. Sting, Shaggy, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Robert De Niro and Ryan Seacrest have all made appearances. Nike gave away Air Max trainers on one $100,000 game and the movie Ready Player One pumped the prize up to $250,000 for another.
The hope for the investors ploughing their money into the game and financing the prize pots is that at some point down the line HQ Trivia will be able to take advertising, offer more sponsored games and product giveaways or pivot users away from the quizzes into more direct-to-smartphone live interactive entertainment.
The app has faced its fair share of controversies already, primarily about its founders and investors, and apps such as The Q and QuizBiz are lining up with similar combinations of cash prizes and celebrity hosts.
Right now though the live-stream quiz crown is HQ’s to lose.
12 questions
Here are the dozen questions, in order, played at Thursday 3 May at 3pm (BST). Correct answers in bold:
1 What did the “N” stand for in the SNES gaming console?
Non-denominational
Nothing
Nintendo
2 In computing, the abbreviation “WWW” stands for which of the following?
Weird wired wellies
Wonderful Welsh weather
World wide web
3 What does the Queen listen to every day at 9am when she is at Balmoral?
Bagpipes
Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw
Changing the Guard
4 In science, which of these is regarded as the opposite of the Big Bang?
Big Crunch
Big Contraction
Big Squeeze
5 Which of these characters was NOT a member of staff in “Downton Abbey”?
Mr Carson
Mr Hudson
Mrs Patmore
6 Which of these US states has the longest coastline?
Florida
Texas
California
7 In the latest Times overall “World University Rankings” list, which is the only Asian country to make the top 25?
South Korea
Singapore
India
8 Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window inspired which of these horror movies from the noughties?
Paranormal Activity
Let the Right One In
Disturbia
9 Which of these seas creatures does NOT eat lobster?
Eel
Swordfish
Flounder
10 Which of these celebrities has starred in a Duran Duran video?
Davina McCall
Claudia Winkleman
Tess Daly
11 After Marita Koch, who was the next female athlete to win three gold medals at the same World Athletics Championships?
Merlene Ottey
Allyson Felix
Marion Jones
12 What codename did Jason Bourne use when he was originally deployed in south-east Asia?
Alpha One
Delta One
Bravo One