Trivia is back in the spotlight these days, thanks in large part to the viral sensation that is HQ Trivia. Currently exclusive to iOS, HQ Trivia is a daily trivia game show that lets players play with hundreds of thousands of others for a chance to win cash. While HQ Trivia plans to launch an Android app by Christmas, a new challenger has emerged from beta ready to try and challenge HQ Trivia for the hearts and trivia minds of Android users.
It's called The Q, and the app has just gone live in the Google Play Store. Just like HQ Trivia, it's free to play with real cash on the line for every game. I've been playing The Q throughout its beta-testing phase and I also play HQ Trivia, so I can confirm that it offers a very similar experience to playing HQ Trivia — even down to the laggy video and other technical difficulties.
This is an exciting new breed of live-streaming technology that tries to simulcast a live quiz show to thousands of devices, and there have been a bounty of growing pains. Case in point, The Q currently has one of the worst app store ratings I have seen as people complain about the stream quality. The complaints are valid — in my time playing, I've seen games postponed or canceled due to all sorts of behind-the-scenes chaos. But when it works, the concept is pretty amazing.
At this point pitting The Q and HQ Trivia against each other is the trivia equivalent to David vs. Goliath — HQ Trivia has a self-imposed cap of just over 400,000 players per game, while The Q draws in just over 4,000 players for its daily games. HQ's prizes, too, are super-sized compared to TheQ's modest offerings, but with a significantly smaller pool of players, the odds and payouts are actually better on average. The only downside is that you need to use your Facebook profile to sign up and play.
Most importantly, the folks at The Q have come up with a number of clever ideas such as a Star Wars Trivia Night planned for Thursday along with a Survivor mode planned where the game will continue until only one winner remains. Differences like that will go a long way as The Q try to build a quick following before HQ brings its clout to Android later this month.
