Who owns HQ Trivia? | The US Sun

HQ TRIVIA was an extremely popular online quiz show that had millions of users tuning in nightly at 9pm EST to answer a series of questions.

The app was an overnight sensation but ultimately crashed just as fast, becoming the second failed app by its creators.

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Who owns HQ Trivia?

When players tuned in on HQ Trivia, they had just 10 seconds to answer multiple-choice questions that increased in difficulty as the game went on.

At its peak, the game was giving away up to $300,000 to the winners who answered all 12 questions correctly, but as time went on, the grand prize decreased to just $5, according to PEOPLE.

Its downfall was similar to Vine, the now-defunct video-sharing site that introduced the world to the likes of King Bach, Lele Pons, Brent Rivera, Nash Grier, Cameron Dallas, and Rudy Mancuso.

While some users were surprised by HQ Trivia's undoing, those who took a look at its founders' history were not.

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HQ Trivia was created by co-founders Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll, who also created Vine.

Where was HQ Trivia founded?

HQ Trivia was created by Yusupov and Kroll, developed for Apple and Android devices by Intermedia Labs, and based in New York City.

The game show's primary host was Scott Rogowsky, but as popularity soared, the company also hired Sarah Pribis and Sharon Carpenter.

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What happened to HQ Trivia?

No one on the HQ Trivia team could've predicted how fast the “game show on your phone” app would grow but after a series of bad financial decisions and corporate clashes, pared with the death of Kroll, the company went bankrupt.

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"The blend of tech and media was always a bit of a tension, and it’s ultimately what led to the downfall, I think," Rogowsky said during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

"But it’s also what made it successful to begin with. It’s the reason we had a professional looking show with a professional host with technology that was unmatched anywhere else in the world. It was a wild ride, man. I would have done it for 20 years. Unfortunately, it burned out almost as quickly as it shot up."

While HQ Trivia might've crashed, its legacy still lives on because of its unique format.

“[Game shows] are looking to find their unique twists in that formula and capture people’s imagination, and HQ was able to scratch that itch in a unique way that it hadn’t happened before," Mike Miley, author of Truth and Coincidences: Game shows in truth and fiction, said during an interview with CNN.  

Those who are interested in learning more about HQ Trivia's rise and fall can do so by watching the CNN film, Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia, which began streaming on Max, formerly HBO Max, on July 20, 2023.