HQ

[Petrichor]

I've been playing HQ since my sister introduced me to it a few weeks ago, and I was wondering if anyone else on here played!

If you've never heard of it, HQ is a free app that hosts live trivia game shows, usually twice a day at 3:00 pm and 9:00 pm EST. Depending on the day and how much money they're giving away, they usually ask between 12-15 questions. If you win, you earn real money, although it's divided evenly between all the winners, so you could get like $1.67, or you could get a few hundred, depending on the day.

And if this description piques your interest and you decide that you must play, use my referral code spatrichor when you sign up and I get an extra life! Sadly there is nothing in it for you if you use my code, except the satisfaction of knowing that I get an extra life in HQ.

[bookworm]

I just learned about that last week, and then saw an ad for it during the Olympics. I haven't played, but I think it's an interesting concept.

[Petrichor]

It really is pretty fun, although it's still kind of glitchy. I don't know how much of that is due to development issues, and how much is just my bad wi-fi connection.

I'm not 100% how they make money off of the app, since it's free to play, and they do give out fairly significant amounts of money every day.

[bookworm]

I'm not 100% how they make money off of the app, since it's free to play, and they do give out fairly significant amounts of money every day.

That was my question also.

[NatetheGreat]

Do people have the option of buying extra lives? That seems like it might be a pretty straightforward way to foot the bill...

[bookworm]

I don't know if enough people would actually pay for extra lives, since the prize payout each game is unknown and has good chance to be less than whatever price the lives would cost. Unless they make the lives super cheap, but that would tip it the other way because everyone would do it, increasing the number of people who reach the end, decreasing the prize amount they each get, and thereby decreasing the incentive to reach the end, thereby decreasing the incentive of buying extra lives.

[Petrichor]

As far as I know, the only way to get extra lives is by referring people to the game. Buying them would be an interesting concept, although their policy is that you can only use one extra life per game, no matter how many you might have accrued. I could see it being more a spur of the moment purchase where you've gotten to question 10 out of 12 and you miss, but you have your credit card information hooked up and you get an option to "Buy an extra life now for only $3.99 to keep playing!" In my opinion, that would be a bad idea, since you aren't guaranteed to make your money back even if you do win.

From my very brief research into this, it doesn't seem like the app is actually generating any revenue right now; they have their sights set on more long-term branding or advertising or something, and are operating off of investors' capital at the moment.

[NatetheGreat]

lol An app that disperses investor capital in a creative way! Tech startups are something else. Hopefully it works out for them.

[bookworm]

-- 22 Feb 2018 05:03 pm --

It's apparently from the people who made Vine. Whether that gives more or less hope for longevity I don't know.

-- 16 May 2020 06:26 pm --

So I heard this shut down a while ago. Then I heard it came back.

Never got a chance to play it before, but now that I reliably have internet during the game times I've been playing for a couple weeks. It's fun.

[Petrichor]

Oh, is it back? I heard it got deleted a while ago, but I hadn't heard that someone had resurrected it. I never bothered to reinstall the app when I got a new phone a year ago, but I may check into it again. I also have much better internet now, so maybe it will be less laggy.

Have you ever gotten close to winning a game, bookworm?

[bookworm]

Have you ever gotten close to winning a game, bookworm?

Depends on how you mean that. A few times I've only not known one of the answers, so I was one question from winning - but that question was not the last one in the game, so I wasn't one question away from winning.

[snubs]

I've heard of this game, and watched my friend play it a couple times, but I never cared enough to actually download the app. =P

[Monty]

I won a few games before they switched the model up, but I wouldn't want to get invested again in it hahaha. Fool me once...

[Sparrow]

I won a few games before they switched the model up, but I wouldn't want to get invested again in it hahaha. Fool me once...

Oh, wow, that's super cool that you won a couple of games! Can I ask how much your winnings ended up being? Was it in the $1 - $5 range, or was it a bit more substantial?

[Monty]

Not much more substantial haha. I ended up with a couple bucks on one of the games. Ended up with a little over $10 in lifetime winnings.

[bookworm]

First win!