
HQ Trivia App Puts On-Demand Generation on a Strict Schedule - mudil
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hq-trivia-app-puts-on-demand-generation-on-a-strict-schedule-1513870073
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nemothekid
I play this game semi-often and as the popularity has risen, the performance
of the game has gone down hill.

Interestingly enough almost all the issues occur when starting the game -
after the first question the game runs (somewhat) smoothly, even though there
may be 400k+ viewers.

I wonder what technical hurdles their hitting that causes the app to lag at
the start (an issue the commonly delays the game by 30-60 minutes).

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chis
My theory is that they lag when logging people in and sending the questions
over. Seems like streaming video is a solved problem, but they’re struggling
to scale their custom logic governing the trivia.

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a13n
They've only had a few weeks to scale up from a few thousand to a few hundred
thousand concurrent websocket connections. It's weird that it works great
sometimes, and other times it doesn't.

I'd love to read their engineering blog!

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chasing
I hope it inspires competitors, because it's a fun concept -- gathering
together with a bunch of people at a certain time to play a game together. But
the HQ Trivia game itself is... terrible.

I'm aware they're beholden to certain design constraints. Such as making
something that's immediately understandable and fun to a wide range of people.
But. They have not risen to the challenge, in my opinion.

I expect there will be numerous competitors in this space. And some will have
much better game design chops. And one of those will do very well.

(And then the whole apps-like-TV-game-shows-everyone-plays-together market
will totally collapse after four hundred start-ups launch and obliterate the
novelty.)

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dandr01d
Can you be more specific in what how they’re not rising to the challenge?

I think the live stream quality and synchronization is incredible. All my
friends gather at lunch and the video and sound play together exactly.

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chasing
The game design. I meant user experience design constraints.

For example:

\- Most people will lose after fewer than half the questions have been asked
and have little reason to stick around.

\- The chance of having a meaningful "win" is so low as to be nearly
pointless. I won a round that, like, 100-ish people out of 50,000 won. That's
too low. Games can also have multiple flavors of winning.

\- Money is not a useful incentiviser. In fact, it can ruin the experience.
Again, I won a round (along with about 100-ish people). Won about $15. Which
after all of the hooting about $5k or $10k in prizes felt pathetic. (Also I
can't withdraw until I get $20, which felt sort of insulting or borderline
scammy and tainted the experience.) Good games create their value without
extrinsic prizes -- or, at least, the extrinsic prizes have to be valuable
enough to add significant drama to the game.

\- Straight multiple-choice trivia is the unflavored ice cream of game design.

I could probably come up with a few more things, but it's late and I've got
this third glass of half egg nog/half whiskey blend that I need to finish
before bed. (Not a Christmas thing, just my year-round nighttime ritual.)

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azinman2
I largely disagree with you.

It'd be nice if you could still win 'points' or have some other reason to
stick around. But I still do feel fulfilled even dropping out early. I think
it makes getting further feel even more special, because you're simply in the
game longer than normal.

Money is a great incentivizer to get people excited / interested. It's already
fun but the _potential_ of actual cash makes it feel more exciting. It's also
a better word-of-mouth hook.

The simplicity of multiple choice makes it easier to play with multiple people
and still select an answer. It gives framing (you know one is correct), but 3
choices is still enough drama after it starts to get hard.

I'm not saying there's no possible improvement, but I feel like they've really
hit the nail on the head with this one, and their growth curve seems to agree.

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TillE
> and their growth curve seems to agree

It's natural but probably wrong to assume that a product's success means it's
getting nearly everything right. I agree with the original point: they've hit
upon a really exciting concept in getting everyone around the world together
at certain times to play a game, but the specific game is not very good.

I think you could even plug in traditional TV game show formats (something
more like Jeopardy, for example) and do quite well. That would keep much more
of the initial audience around for the whole game, and watching the inevitable
forthcoming ads that will be required for the company to make any money from
this growth.

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CameronBanga
How many people got threatened to be fired for this article?

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ramzyo
I played for about two weeks starting early November then got bored and don’t
play anymore. I wonder if this will be the case with most other players over
time as well. Twice daily seems too much. Reminds me of when Who Wants To Be A
Millionaire went from once a week to every night in the early 2000s. In that
case viewership tanked and never recovered.

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c0nducktr
If you're hitting the paywall, you can get to the article by using the link
from the author's twitter.

[https://twitter.com/johnjurg/status/943894139657179142](https://twitter.com/johnjurg/status/943894139657179142)

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djinnandtonic
That didn't work for me. This did, though:
[http://archive.is/Xb2k8](http://archive.is/Xb2k8)

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Overtonwindow
Coming to you live from the greatest city on earth, the city that never
sleeps, Annandale Virginia.

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tomjen3
Can't get past the paywall. Can we ban wsj?

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catacombs
Buy a subscription and the support the journalists who write these articles.

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tomjen3
Sure, once I can get a subscription that covers what is actually linked here
and not just one article.

Anyway I thought hn had a no paywall rule.

