Christmas Day 2017. I’m in a bustling Chinese restaurant in Santa Monica, California, surrounded by friends and families who have forgone slaving over a turkey in their kitchens at home. Sat with three of my closest pals, I’m revelling in my first holiday season outside of the UK, when suddenly everyone in the room grabs their phones simultaneously – including my own three wise men (and women).
Feeling like I’ve missed a Gossip Girl blast, I wonder if the meme to end all memes is circulating, or even if something terrible might have happened in the world. I, perhaps ignorantly, don’t have news alerts on my phone. Glancing over at one of my friends, I quickly realise they’re homed in on something else I don’t have: HQ Trivia. It seems even the holiest of feasts isn’t immune to its power.
Released as an iOS app in August 2017, HQ Trivia was created by Vine co-founders Rus Yusopov and Colin Kroll, and initially targeted a North American audience. Its daily quizzes are hosted live in New York City at 9pm EST (with an extra show at 3pm on weekdays) and when users tune in they’re competing against hundreds of thousands of players across the country. Most days there are 12 questions of increasing difficulty and the prize fund has been known to vary from $2,500 to $20,000.
After hosting its first million player game on 7 January 2018, HQ has now infiltrated the UK market and was given a free advert by NBC during this year’s Super Bowl. To put things in perspective, a 30-second ad slot during the game usually costs $5 million, yet the network just GAVE it away to HQ. That says a lot.
READ MORE: The Drinking Game Apps That'll Save Your Next Pre-Drinks
The Debrief - Drinking Game Apps
1 of 7Drink or Doom
Sounds ominous, I know. But never fear, it's not that scary. It's set up like a comic book and basically involves completing various challenges. They can be a bit risqué, to say the least so you'll want to play this one with people you trust not to broadcast the whole thing on Instagram stories. Android / iOS
2 of 7Drink & Tell
Three guesses what the premise of this game is? Nope, you won't get it. You chose from six categories – love, sex, life & death, personality, ethics and user generated', and then you'll be presented with a question with multiple answers that you have to read out to the group before you make your choice. Then everyone else has to guess how you answered and whoever gets it wrong has to drink. It's quite the test of friendship, really.Android / iOS
3 of 7Bomba Drink
Did you ever play pass the bomb at school? That high pressure, think on your feet and pretend and inanimate object is about to explode game? This is like that. You can play Classic mode which is the PG, punishment-free version, or Happy/Party modes which involve taking a drink if you lose.Android / iOS
4 of 7Picolo
This is right up there as one of the best, hassle free drinking game apps. All you have to do is input the names of the people playing and you're off. As the phone is passed from player to player you'll each be given an instruction. It can be anything from 'Player 1 has to drink every time Player 2 drinks' and 'Player 3 must speak in an Irish accent' to 'The first person to text a family member can give out 2 sips' and 'Name songs by Beyoncé, first person to repeat themselves or can't think of anything drinks 2 times'. Android / iOS
5 of 7Kings
I'm of the personal belief that this game is a bad idea for everyone involved. Mainly because I played it once back in 2011 and to this day have no idea what happened afterwards. But if you keep the drinking to sensible proportions (like always, obvs) then maybe you'll come out of it better than I did. Here's your card-free version of Ring of Fire. Android
6 of 7Game of Shots
If it's variation you want, Game of Shots carries a whole load of different drinking games in the one app. There's everything from (digital) card and dice games to classics like 'Truth or Dare' that you don't have to bother coming up with ideas for. There's also a little indicator of how boozy each game is out of six depending on what you want the vibe of the night to be. Android
7 of 7Seven Drinking Party
Another card game of sorts for ya. Choose between 'Original', 'Hardcore' and 'Ultimate' (guides to the required levels of consumption) game modes and be taken on a journey. There's 420 illustrated cards that'll give you various instructions. They range from standard 'player with the fullest glass drink' to 'tell us about one of your favourite books'. Android / iOS
The app is essentially a huge, often buggy game ofTrivial Pursuit, so why is it so popular? Why do my conversations with my friends stop, without fail, every time they get a notification to say the quiz is about to begin? And why, despite resisting downloading the app, do I find myself contributing to others’ games with as much competitive gusto as if I were a professional sportsperson?
Writer Robert Martin, who first played HQ in November 2017 and now runs Twitter account @hqtriviafans, thinks it’s the community aspect that has people hooked. ‘Most people have watched game shows or played mobile games, but HQ makes you feel like you're part of something bigger. You're sitting there looking at your phone, watching this guy talk, and somehow you're competing against a million other people doing the exact same thing. Getting a question right or wrong carries weight because there's real money waiting at the end of those 12 questions, even if most of us will never see it.'
Robert doesn’t know anyone who has won money through HQ, but loves watching videos on Twitter of people who have succeeded, like HQ player Lauren May who went viral for her reaction to winning $11.30. ‘I know if I ever make it to Q12 I'm demanding the people around me pull out their cameras just in case,’ says Robert.
However, the chance to win big (or small) and the sense of community aren’t the only draws for HQ players, oh no. Enter Scott Rogowsky, HQ Trivia’s main host, fondly known as ‘Quiz Daddy’. Loved by his ‘HQties’ far and wide, comedian Scott once went viral with a prank that involved reading books with inappropriate titles on the NYC subway, admits to using ‘snugger fit’ condoms and seems to be thoroughly enjoying his ride on the crest of HQ’s wave.
That doesn’t mean Scott’s moment as ‘Walt Quizney’ (as he calls himself on Twitter) hasn’t been without its issues. Back in November, his job was reportedly under threat, after HQ CEO Rus Yusupov got wind that Scott had done an interview with The Daily Beast. According to the website, Rus said that Scott would be fired if the piece ran, because it had not been prior approved by him. Thankfully, despite the profile (and Rus’ comments) being published, Scott remains on our phone screens and Rus even made a public apology via Twitter.
The CEO-host battle isn’t the only controversy to have rocked HQ, with fans calling for a boycott of the app in early February, when it was revealed that Peter Thiel is one of its financial backers. Thiel – a vocal Trump supporter who was involved in the shutdown of Gawker in 2016 – raised $15million for HQ via his venture firm Founders Fund. While the hashtag#DeleteHQgained plenty of traction, games are still hitting the one million user mark, suggesting not everyone is bothered about how their trivia addiction is being fed. My own social group, all intelligent, conscientious people, certainly haven’t let what’s going on behind the scenes get between them and their daily fix.
Controversy aside, how long can the HQ phenomenon realistically keep going and growing? Will its founding duo eventually sell up to another tech giant – as they did with Vine and Twitter – or will we all tire of trivia before that’s able to happen?
‘I think HQ is a proof-of-concept for a much larger vision,’ muses Robert Martin. ‘People are fascinated by the idea of interactive scheduled programming and I think that could lead to more experiences like HQ Trivia in the future. Imagine an entire network of interactive shows like HQ, but instead of trivia, it's sports or news. The possibilities are really endless and I think that's got the major television networks paying attention. You don't get a free Super Bowl ad for nothing.'
Follow Jennifer on Instagram @barbiesnaps
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.