Those of you who work 40 or more hours per week probably don’t have a lot of time to try to make extra money, especially if, like me, you have a spouse and children who would like your attention after work. But what if, for a little amount of time invested, you had a chance to win money, with no risk on your part?
Enter the new genre of app: the live streaming trivia app.
A Game Show On Your Phone
Anyone who knows me will know that it is on my bucket list to be on Jeopardy. (I did, once upon a time, appear on a different game show, and I think I did pretty well…more on that in a future post.) I enjoy the competition, and the chance to win prizes is a bonus for me.
There are two live streaming trivia apps that I have downloaded at this point: HQ Trivia and The Q Trivia.
The Trendsetter
HQ Trivia was the original app, though I have experience with other live web-based trivia competitions dating back almost as far as the start of the web itself.* Its success can be measured by the fact that The Q Trivia is set up in almost the exact same way.
HQ Trivia, which was originally only an iOS app but which recently and finally released an Android version, has two shows a day presently (3pm and 9pm Eastern time). In the past week (as of this writing), HQ set a new record for viewership: its Sunday, January 21, 2018 evening competition had over 1.6 million people playing. (As a reminder, that is over twice the entire population of the state of Wyoming.)
HQ features a jovial, if snarky, host, usually Scott Rogowsky (@scottrogowsky), though Sarah Pribis (@sarahpribis) and Emma Tattenbaum-Fine (@emmatattenbaum) have occasionally filled in when Scott is out.** Most, if not all, of these hosts have taken to referring to their viewers as “HQ-ties”, to the annoyance of some of the people whose chat messages scroll along the bottom of the screen at something approaching Warp 2.***
Oh, and HQ, recently, did have a fairly well known guest host:
Yes, that is Jimmy Kimmel guest-hosting the January 11, 2018 competition. Picture courtesy @jimmykimmel.
Gameplay
Every show is set up in the same way. Answer 12 questions, win money. And that money is nothing to sneeze at. The aforementioned January 21 competition, for example, had a prize of $15,000, which ended up being split among seven winners.
It’s simple, right?
Except it’s not.
The questions get harder and harder as you progress (as you might imagine, even if you haven’t seen this app yet). Miss one question? That’s it. You are eliminated from that game, though of course you are welcome to continue to watch other people win money instead of you. You know, if that sort of thing appeals to you.
But wait!
HQ Trivia has an extra little wrinkle called an extra life. It’s exactly what you would think. If you miss a question but have an extra life, you are allowed to continue in the game. And how do you get extra lives, you might ask? Simple. Just have someone else sign up for the game and list your username as their referral. For example, if you list “snowedin” as your referral, I will get an extra life. (How that name came about is a medium-length and low-reader-interest story.)
The Knockoff
The Q Trivia was the knockoff of HQ Trivia, enough so that HQ has tried, in the past month, to get The Q kicked off Google Play. Started because of the streaming issues that HQ Trivia has had (which is not surprising, given that HQ has hundreds of thousands of viewers per episode), The Q has had, in my experience, better streaming quality, though part of that may be due to the fact that HQ has about 100-200 times the number of viewers as The Q. (Of course, having fewer players means that you have a better chance of winning, right?) Also at present, the money prizes are about a tenth of those offered by HQ. But hey, free money is free money.
The Q is hosted by Joseph Monahan, who appears to have much less hosting experience than the HQ hosts. On the upside, his hosting style leads to faster games, which is good for those playing on a break at work. Also, Mr. Monahan’s Twitter account (@joseph_monahan) is good for one free answer a day, which is usually offered in the hour before the daily game he hosts, which is usually, these days, offered at 5:30pm Eastern, which means that it doesn’t conflict with HQ’s games at all. (The Q also has a 1pm Eastern game, though that game typically is not hosted by Mr. Monahan.)
Which One Do I Prefer?
So which is better? Well, The Q, as stated above, has better streaming quality, while HQ is rapidly becoming infamous for its lag. Virtually every night brings a few tweets with pictures like this one, only pixellated or with the spinning circle of lag:
The Sunday, January 14, 2018 competition featured 1.3 million players and, for far too many, a lot of lag/freezing issues.
Picture courtesy @ScottRogowsky.
But if the lag at HQ doesn’t cause problems for you, you could always try both. Both apps have the same gameplay, and as they are typically never going on at the same time, why wouldn’t you?
Remember: get HQ Trivia by clicking here (for iOS; otherwise, use the Google Play store), and use the referral code ‘snowedin’.
* I could go on and on about those competitions of the past, but I’ll just namecheck some of them for those who might remember, fondly or not: Riddler, Goldpocket, Playcafe. They had various degrees of success.
** I am told there have been others. I haven’t had the app terribly long, since I own an Android.
*** For those who find the chat in the HQ app too distracting, it may be dismissed by swiping right.
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