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Comment by chasing | Hacker News Reader

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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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.

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.)

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.

> 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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