Inside HQ Trivia’s Meteoric Rise and Extra Epic Flop

HQ Trivia was a sensation that skyrocketed to success and pop-culture ubiquity as quick because it crashed and burned, making it one more Icarus-like story of a tech triumph turning to failure.

Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia is usually a nostalgia journey to some brief years in the past, designed to clarify what the hell went so horribly unsuitable with the sport present. The cautionary story is a well-recognized one. But it surely’s informed with sufficient flashy verve and humor, together with a gossipy bombshell audio recording, to play as a breezy non-fiction look again at a phenom that had its quarter-hour—or, at the very least, sufficient time to get by way of a night’s price of quiz questions—within the smartphone highlight.

Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia is a saga about foolishness and strife that has itself grow to be mired in controversy, courtesy of Alyssa Bereznak, who claims that director Salima Koroma’s CNN documentary, which premieres Mar. 5, borrows closely from her personal equally titled podcast, Growth/Bust: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia.

Given its subject material, such misconduct accusations really feel considerably apt for the movie, which initially concentrates on the meteoric ascension of HQ Trivia, a live-broadcast recreation that was performed by way of a cellphone or streaming-TV app and enticed contestants with the possibility to win cash by answering a collection of multiple-choice questions. It was a easy idea executed with environment friendly aptitude, marked by cutesy graphics, upbeat and comical sound results, and a wide range of hosts who quipped their manner by way of every program—none higher, and extra inherently related to the model, than Scott Rogowsky.

Rogowsky sits down for an intensive interview in Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia, offering a first-hand account of his experiences with the sport and firm, each of which have been the brainchild of companions Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll, who had beforehand made trade names for themselves with Vine. Yusupov and Kroll’s sale of Vine to Twitter earlier than it even launched made them an immediate $30 million however was a choice they later regretted, for the reason that app’s ensuing reputation (nevertheless temporary its lifespan) advised that they’d left appreciable cash on the desk.

As soon as Vine was unceremoniously canceled by Twitter, they struck out on their very own, and HQ Trivia was shortly thereafter born, seen by creative-visionary Yusupov as a must-play nightly sensation, and by superstar-engineer Kroll because the maiden step in a mission to revolutionize televised content material.

Yusupov doesn’t take part in Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia and Kroll died of a drug overdose on Dec. 16, 2018, thereby successfully cementing the corporate’s demise. Even so, the entrepreneurs’ voices are heard in archival interviews that help the movie’s talking-head claims that Yusupov was the smug and attention-hungry striver (in a single clip, he professes fandom for idols Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk) and Kroll was the media-shy techie who made the operation run.

They have been a yin-yang pair who, at the beginning, complemented one another. HQ Trivia swiftly picked up a following not solely due to its simplistic and cheery design and interface, however due to Rogowsky, a motor-mouthed comic who requested questions and allotted solutions whereas delivering a continuous barrage of one-liners.

Rogowsky is extra subdued and mournful in Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia than he ever was on HQ Trivia, a byproduct of being put by way of the rapid-fire up-then-down wringer. Reworked in a single day into a celeb, Rogowsky reveled in his newfound fame and in HQ Trivia’s quickly escalating user-count numbers, which by March 2018 have been topping out at over 2 million gamers per recreation.

Fueled by reporter Taylor Lorenz’s notorious The Every day Beast profile that was meant to be nearly Rogowsky however wound up additionally together with Yusupov’s loopy objections to the piece—thereby outing him as a control-freak prepared to badmouth his star performer—HQ Trivia turned a word-of-mouth hit, ultimately attracting a gaggle of A-list admirers within the course of, resembling Jimmy Kimmel and Dwayne ”The Rock” Johnson, each of whom guest-hosted for Rogowsky.

It was all too good to be believed, or to be sustained, and Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia’s second half lays out a well-recognized narrative of petty jealousies, bitter rivalries, and company backstabbing. Resentful of Rogowsky turning into the face of his creation, and intent on stopping Kroll from assuming CEO duties, Yusupov comes off the worst in Koroma’s documentary. Issues elevating money (even after a $15 million funding from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund) quickly mounted, as did glitches, complaints from customers about receiving their winnings, and inner tensions.

Within the movie’s most eye-opening second, Rogowsky performs a secret recording of Yusupov—on the eve of a vote to call the struggling firm’s new CEO—providing to make Rogowsky HQ Trivia’s head honcho, and furthermore, to create a reality-TV program that adopted him round whereas he carried out his new (and previous) job.

It was an concept as dangerous as HQ Trivia’s administration was screwy, though when Kroll subsequently assumed management of the ship, issues momentarily seemed up—even with a slowly declining consumer base—because of the upcoming launch of the corporate’s huge sophomore app, HQ Phrases. Sadly, Kroll’s premature 2018 passing put the ultimate figurative nail in HQ Trivia’s coffin, with Rogowsky bailing and the app shutting down in February 2020 (solely to then resurrect itself a number of months later in zombie type).

As made clear by the journalists, workers, and followers featured in Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia, it was a narrative as previous as Silicon Valley, with unchecked ambition driving intense development and, with it, all types of dangerous conduct, which on this case was principally perpetrated by the app’s architects: Kroll was beset by nagging harassment claims (a few of them sexual), and Yusupov was accused by Kroll (and others) of getting doubtlessly leaked these fees with a view to acquire the higher boardroom hand.

That HQ Trivia vanished nearly as rapidly because it appeared makes it no completely different from numerous different flashes within the pan, and the teachings gleaned from its demise are by now clichéd. Nonetheless, there stays one thing notably bittersweet a few recreation that nearly introduced folks collectively collapsing a mere month earlier than the beginning of the 2020 COVID-19 quarantine.