HQ Trivia的直播手游答题秀赌局：238万玩家、融资1500万美元、2020年关停

做的是什么生意

HQ Trivia is a live mobile game show, created by two of Vine's co-founders under parent company Intermedia Labs, where players answer 12 questions twice a day to split real cash prizes.

启动资金：More than $15 million raised, including a 2018 round led by Founders Fund with Lightspeed, at a reported $100 million valuation (Variety; TechCrunch).

起因

Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll, two of the creators of Vine, launched HQ Trivia in 2017 under Intermedia Labs. TechCrunch wrote the first coverage of the 12-question live game in October, and the app debuted on iOS before an Android beta arrived later that year (TechCrunch; The Verge).

经过

HQ went viral over the 2017 holidays: The Verge reported 500,000-750,000 players per game, then a 1 million-player milestone on January 7, 2018 as the Android beta pushed it further, with prize pots climbing as high as $20,000. Intermedia raised $15 million led by Founders Fund at a reported $100 million valuation in 2018 (Variety). At its peak, on March 28, 2018, a Warner Bros.-sponsored game drew 2.38 million concurrent players (TechCrunch). The decline followed fast: monthly installs fell from more than 2 million in February 2018 to about 560,000 by July, as cheaters, worldwide copycats and slow development wore the novelty down (TechCrunch).

结果

An acquisition fell through at the last minute, investors stopped funding the company, and on February 14, 2020 HQ Trivia laid off all 25 employees and moved to dissolution (TechCrunch; Variety).

可借鉴之处

直播稀缺性带来一夜爆红，但无法成就持久产品：作弊者、模仿者和缓慢的更新侵蚀了HQ 238万玩家的峰值，钱在下一幕开始前就已用尽。