
HQ Trivia shuts down after acquisition falls through - klinskyc
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/14/hq-trivia-shuts-down/
======
ficklepickle
Shameless plug for my new open source trivia PWA Just Trivia[0]

It has no ads, tracking, social integrations or monetization of any kind. It
can never go out of business, it already is out of business! It's an MVP, I
just stood it up two days ago.

The whole app bundle is around 700k before splitting. Each 10 question uses
about 7kb of additional data. No CSS frameworks, minimal 3rd party deps. Uses
the awesome illustrations from undraw.co

I'm working on an offline mode, with the db cached and the service worker
acting as back end.

Sorry that got long. I'm going to do a show HN soon. But check it out if you
want a simple trivia game on phone or tablet. It's a passion project, in case
you can't tell.

[0] [https://justtrivia.fun](https://justtrivia.fun)

Repos: Front github.com/jeremy21212121/trivia-frontend Back
github.com/jeremy21212121/express-trivia-server

~~~
bruceb
I tried it. Its clean. One thing, after completing one category, computers, I
tried clicking on others and nothing happend. Even after refreshing page. This
was on firefox

~~~
ficklepickle
Thanks for trying it! Strange, I can't replicate that.

After a game, it should return you to categories with your category/categories
still selected. Pressing next should start a game of the same category.

I'll dig into the server logs and see if I can figure it out. If you feel like
it you can open a github issue.

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miguelmota
HQ Trivia was great at first but it got boring fast, especially when they
replaced host Scott Rogowsky and did the show multiple times a day instead of
every few days which created more hype. The sudden death of cofounder Colin
Kroll was also a bizarre event to add to the mix.

~~~
TaylorGood
There was a hot three weeks where I was all about it, and told anyone around
me to watch or download it. Your points, along with primarily never making it
past the third or fourth question was why I stopped. Was easy to forget about.

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stirlo
Same thing happened to Draw Something and Words with Friends. The trick is to
get the 9 figure valuation, raise as much funding as possible and then put as
much in your pockets before the hype dies down.

~~~
benzible
Words with Friends managed an actual exit (8 figures, mostly cash):
[https://venturebeat.com/2011/07/05/zynga-paid-53-3m-to-
buy-w...](https://venturebeat.com/2011/07/05/zynga-paid-53-3m-to-buy-words-
with-friends-mobile-game-maker-newtoy/)

~~~
tootie
That's just unbelievable. Digital copy of a decades-old game is worth $50M
because of its app store rating.

~~~
giarc
Let's not fail to mention the millions of people that opened the app 50x per
day and were shown 25 ads each time.

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_bxg1
It was a neat idea. I'd be interested to see what else people could come up
with around live events you participate in via your phone. Obviously there's
generic video streaming, but the more specific something gets the more
interesting the cultural impact. Remember Twitch Plays Pokémon?

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cletus
This should be surprising to precisely no one. And this is nothing against HQ
Trivia (although the founder seemed like a tool [1]) but any sort of format
has a shelf life. Long-lasting shows like Jeopardy are outliers. The more
typical case is where a given show will play for a few years, people will get
bored with it and it'll be replaced by something else.

That's really all that happened here. HQ Trivia had a novelty value that
eventually went away. Losing Scott probably didn't help. Just like Alex Trebek
is probably a big part of the reason for Jeopardy's longevity, I think Scott
was a big part of the reason for HQ Trivia's popularity.

[1]: [https://theoutline.com/post/2517/is-hq-trivia-holding-its-
ho...](https://theoutline.com/post/2517/is-hq-trivia-holding-its-host-
hostage?zd=1&zi=iduliajj)

~~~
jedberg
> Just like Alex Trebek is probably a big part of the reason for Jeopardy's
> longevity

Off topic, but I do wonder what will happen to their ratings when he retires
in the next few years.

The Price is Right pulled it off, their ratings are apparently higher now than
they had been, since they started putting clips on YouTube and other types of
"millennial marketing".

~~~
not2b
Trebek had a strong vision of what the show should be that would be at odds
with what most studio execs might prefer. When he's gone, there will be
pressure to dumb it down, make the questions easier and more trendy, make it
more flashy. If they do that it will no longer be special and will wither
away.

~~~
jedberg
> there will be pressure to dumb it down, make the questions easier and more
> trendy, make it more flashy.

You could see this already in their recent GOAT primetime special. Someone did
the numbers, it was like 12% of the questions were about Disney properties.

~~~
tialaramex
But were the questions easier or just on a more modern topic?

Arguably the hardest quiz on TV (Only Connect) sometimes has stuff from kid's
TV shows (e.g. the surnames of Scooby's human companions) but it's still
stupidly hard. There's a difference between needing to know which Disney
resort is in Florida and needing to be able to know the first four animated
feature films Disney made in order.

~~~
jedberg
Not easier, just "culturally relevant".

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pascoej
HQ was a daily part of my life for a few months in my last year of college. It
was pretty cool way to get a large group of friends together twice a day.

Building software to assist in answering questions and win was fun too ;)

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freepor
Some of these consumer startups should be financed and built like a movie, not
a company. Use off the shelf tooling, experienced staff, and expect the thing
to die off in revenues over a couple of years with some residual revenues in
maintenance mode.

~~~
fyfy18
That doesn't really fit into the SV narrative of unicorns though :/

There was an article last week about new forms of funding that may make
supporting this model more common:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22275550](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22275550)

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HaloZero
It almost sounds like a Game of Thrones esque style episode of Silicon Valley.

Huge success. Co-founder dies. There was a mutiny to remove the CEO from it's
employees Layoffs and now shutdown.

This happened all within about a year? (Cofounder passed in December 2018)

~~~
MuffinFlavored
How do you successfully co-found a massive hit while being addicted to heroin?

~~~
zweep
It's called high-functioning addiction and there are tens of millions of such
people (mostly addicted to alcohol).

~~~
th0ma5
I had heard high functioning is a misnomer. They may have one area of focus
they can succeed under some definition, but the overall quality of life and
relationships is very poor.

~~~
Marsymars
My understanding was that "high functioning" is relative to what is
essentially "non functioning", where the person is unable to keep up even the
semblance of a normal life.

~~~
th0ma5
Yes yes... But not anywhere near normal functioning.

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DevX101
Any write-up on their tech stack? I imagine it's not an easy problem at the
height of their popularity to scale so many live video feeds with real-time
interactions.

~~~
untog
If you have money (and they did) it’s actually not too difficult to solve.
There are services out there to scale both video streaming[1] and
websockets[2] for you.

[1]
[https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/streaming/](https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/streaming/)
[2] [https://pusher.com/](https://pusher.com/)

~~~
dep_b
Ultra low latency that allows real-time interaction is really hard to scale. I
have built an HQ clone and the only right way in terms of latency seemed using
WebRTC.

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zacksinclair
What a quick ride. It was so popular, so quickly. There must not have been
great retention? Or poor monetization?

~~~
kick
One of the founders overdosed, they switched hosts, and overall seem to have
done everything in their power to tank themselves.

------
dep_b
I still believe interactivity like this is the future of TV, but the real
killer app hasn’t been found yet.

------
dorchadas
Count me as one of those who slowly quit playing when Scott quit hosting. He
was definitely part of the reason I tuned in to play last year for a few
months. And the fact that it was nightly, and not many games seeming to happen
all the time.

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jkaljundi
What are the best trivia apps nowadays? Have been looking but haven't found
anything great. Still feels like there is an unmet need. I still love Quizup
though ...

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1zael
This always happens with products built to focus on short-term engagement
instead of driving long-term retention.

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pid_0
Wow totally forgot about HQ... kind of obvious why it shut down because so did
everyone else.

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perseusprime11
founders could have made money if they accepted that it was a fad.

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vl
MATT AND ANNA ARE DOING FINAL BROADCAST RIGHT NOW!

~~~
vl
Well, that was both entertaining and heartbreaking. They both are great hosts.

------
veemjeem
I'm sure death among heroin addicts is common. It's only a matter of time
they'll come in contact with a fentanyl laced dose.

~~~
robbrown451
It's not bizarre among heroin addicts, but death by heroin overdose is a bit
bizarre among cofounders of high profile companies, isn't it?

~~~
unlinked_dll
I'd guess they usually have access to better drugs. Addiction affects people
from all walks of life, and people who can afford their addiction don't
necessarily have it impact their work.

~~~
johnpowell
Heroin is very good. I'm having a hard time coming up with something better
that could be used for prolonged periods of time as efficiently.

Cocaine is great, not as great as heroin and cocaine has some drawbacks
(sniff). Like everyone knows you are on it. And you can only snort so much
before you get nose bleeds. And I have been that guy where my right nostril
starts pouring out blood so I snort with my left. Heroin is relatively tidy.

Looking back on things it is probably for the best I made minimum wage after
high school. The only thing that really tempered my substance abuse was
poverty and my aversion to stealing peoples stuff to get high.

~~~
droithomme
That's very interesting, thanks for sharing that.

Closest I've gotten was Valium given by my oral surgeon as part of some tooth
extraction. Wow, Valium is great. I would eat it every day if I had access to
it. As a result, I stay totally away from everything. I have back problems
that qualify me for opioids, but based on my Valium experience, there's no way
I wouldn't go all in. So I manage the pain other ways, exercises, posture, and
just gritting my teeth and dealing with the pain.

I had a friend that made homemade Laudanum for helping with cancer pain. Maybe
I would do Laudanum if I had that problem and made it myself.

~~~
stordoff
Based on my experiences with benzodiazapines (diazepam, tamazepam), there's
definitely a feeling of "More of this would be _great_", even at very lose
doses when I'm not really noticing it doing a lot else. With weak opioids
(codeine, tramadol), I've never really noticed the same, even though they
induce a far more noticeable high-like effect.

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throw7
I don't know... when I first heard about it, it was iPhone only? I believe,
and, honestly, I'm not the type to just install just any "app" on my cell
phone. So, for me, the interest or "hype" was doa.

