4 ms·

Lots of drama here, but the real problem was obvious from the start: no path to making money. They literally gave it away daily. Anyone with half a brain could

Lots of drama here, but the real problem was obvious from the start: no path to making money. They literally gave it away daily. Anyone with half a brain could see where this was headed.

whatshisface 7y ago
Gameshows have given away money with ad support for decades.
- nihonde 7y ago
  Made sense on syndicated television for a generation that grew up on that medium.
cooperadymas 7y ago
The app typically shows 350k - 500k participants in their nightly shows. They're giving away usually $5000. Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune have around 10 million viewers each with over 30 years of history. Jeopardy gives away around $23k each day, I believe WoF rings in a little higher. They air 5 days a week and clock in around 200-230 episodes per season. Back of the napkin math puts that at $0.53 per viewer per year. HQ is still at $4.29 per viewer per year. At their current rate they still need about 10x growth to match J! or WoF. But HQ is also only 2 years old on a somewhat new media format (live interactive entertainment). Those numbers are just for the prize money. Pat Sajak and Alex Trebek each earn north of $10 million per year (and Vanna White somewhat less, but still in the millions), and the shows almost certainly have larger staffs. The actual value difference is probably closer to a 3-4x multiplier rather than 10x. That said, since HQ is phone based there's a good chance the viewers are more valuable to advertisers since they can collect more information than on broadcast television. I don't think HQ would/could have a path to profitability (setting aside internal business politics), but it's a matter of 1) convincing businesses that a new media format is worth their advertising dollars, 2) keeping players long-term, 3) finding effective ways to advertise in the more limited format that the game affords.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  And as it relates to cost per viewer, HQ doesn't scale well. Doubling or tripling their viewership would result in winners getting paid significantly less, thus decreasing the appeal and losing viewers. While scaling prizes with viewership will keep the same approximate cost per viewer. They'd need to scale advertising rates/sponsorships faster than both in order to beat this curve, but I don't think a doubling of the audience will result in more than a doubling of the ad prices. The could do more ad spots per show, but again that risks alienating viewers. They could make the trivia questions harder, thus keeping prizes larger and mitigating the problems with low prize amounts, but the difficulty increase also risks alienating viewers. It's much less fun to play when you get only 3 or 4 rights and feel you have no chance of actually winning.
- dwild 7y ago
  > They're giving away usually $5000. They are now closer to 1000$ per show. > That said, since HQ is phone based there's a good chance the viewers are more valuable to advertisers since they can collect more information than on broadcast television. The viewers are also the players. Cash cows are what makes mobile games so profitable and theses cash cows only care about being the best, not about how much they spent to be. You can buy 3 lives on HQ for 10$, so essentially, some cash cows can be worth 10$ a day easily (at least 3$ per game). HQ also is made AROUND ads and not ads break. They do have ads before the shows, but I'm pretty sure their real money maker is the bigger ads made into the quiz themselves. They can be easily profitable based on all that.

Lots of drama here, but the real problem was obvious from the start: no path to making money. They literally gave it away daily. Anyone with half a brain could see where this was headed.

whatshisface 7y ago

Gameshows have given away money with ad support for decades.

nihonde 7y ago
Made sense on syndicated television for a generation that grew up on that medium.

cooperadymas 7y ago

The app typically shows 350k - 500k participants in their nightly shows. They're giving away usually $5000. Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune have around 10 million viewers each with over 30 years of history. Jeopardy gives away around $23k each day, I believe WoF rings in a little higher. They air 5 days a week and clock in around 200-230 episodes per season. Back of the napkin math puts that at $0.53 per viewer per year. HQ is still at $4.29 per viewer per year. At their current rate they still need about 10x growth to match J! or WoF. But HQ is also only 2 years old on a somewhat new media format (live interactive entertainment). Those numbers are just for the prize money. Pat Sajak and Alex Trebek each earn north of $10 million per year (and Vanna White somewhat less, but still in the millions), and the shows almost certainly have larger staffs. The actual value difference is probably closer to a 3-4x multiplier rather than 10x. That said, since HQ is phone based there's a good chance the viewers are more valuable to advertisers since they can collect more information than on broadcast television. I don't think HQ would/could have a path to profitability (setting aside internal business politics), but it's a matter of 1) convincing businesses that a new media format is worth their advertising dollars, 2) keeping players long-term, 3) finding effective ways to advertise in the more limited format that the game affords.

ineedasername 7y ago
And as it relates to cost per viewer, HQ doesn't scale well. Doubling or tripling their viewership would result in winners getting paid significantly less, thus decreasing the appeal and losing viewers. While scaling prizes with viewership will keep the same approximate cost per viewer. They'd need to scale advertising rates/sponsorships faster than both in order to beat this curve, but I don't think a doubling of the audience will result in more than a doubling of the ad prices. The could do more ad spots per show, but again that risks alienating viewers. They could make the trivia questions harder, thus keeping prizes larger and mitigating the problems with low prize amounts, but the difficulty increase also risks alienating viewers. It's much less fun to play when you get only 3 or 4 rights and feel you have no chance of actually winning.
dwild 7y ago
> They're giving away usually $5000. They are now closer to 1000$ per show. > That said, since HQ is phone based there's a good chance the viewers are more valuable to advertisers since they can collect more information than on broadcast television. The viewers are also the players. Cash cows are what makes mobile games so profitable and theses cash cows only care about being the best, not about how much they spent to be. You can buy 3 lives on HQ for 10$, so essentially, some cash cows can be worth 10$ a day easily (at least 3$ per game). HQ also is made AROUND ads and not ads break. They do have ads before the shows, but I'm pretty sure their real money maker is the bigger ads made into the quiz themselves. They can be easily profitable based on all that.