HQ Trivia diversion has not-so-trivial Canadian connections

Scott Rogowsky, one of a hosts of a online diversion uncover HQ Trivia, has turn an internet prodigy for his nickname dropping and quick-thinking puns. But did we know he has a special affinity for Canada? 

You competence have seen hints of it if you’re one of a hundreds of thousands who glow adult a app any day during 3 p.m. or 9 p.m.  There are a occasional references to places like Moose Jaw, to the “Canadian Tuxedo,” and the shout-outs to SCTV.

“I adore this country, your country — I wish it was my country,” Rogowsky told CBC News during a new debate of a HQ bureau in New York.

So where does his adore of Canada come from? Take a theory in true HQ Trivia fashion: 

A) He was innate in Moose Jaw
B) His mother is Canadian
C) A summer pursuit in 2005

The New York-born Rogowsky isn’t married, so that cancels A and B. The answer is C. In a summer of 2005, Rogowsky worked for a trucking association and gathering from Montreal to Calgary, attack everywhere in between.

“We’re articulate Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Sault St. Marie, Nipigon, Regina, Winnipeg. we don’t consider we got to Saskatoon, though Medicine Hat for sure,” says a agreeable host, whose minute believe of Canadian embankment is sum with a childhood spent idolizing Canadian comedians like Rick Moranis and Martin Short.

HQ Trivia’s Canadian connection0:53

The HQ Phenomenon

Launched in August, HQ Trivia customarily draws some-more than a million players for a afternoon and dusk games. The app reached 2 million players during a special Super Bowl book on Feb. 5, where a sum esteem income was $20,000 US.

There are a series of hosts, though Rogowsky fast emerged as a transparent fan favourite.

Not given Regis Philbin and Who Wants to be a Millionaire has a trivia uncover overtaken renouned enlightenment like this. With stories of bureau work and classes put on reason while a diversion is on, Rogowsky recognizes he’s substantially obliged for thousands of hours of mislaid productivity. 

HQ Trivia horde Scott Rogowsky says he’s still removing used to his newfound celebrity and removing famous on a street. ‘Sometimes they don’t know my name, they only scream ‘Hey HQ Trivia guy!” (Steven D’Souza/CBC News)

“When we was operative bureau jobs, we was going on Facebook all a time. If I’d had HQ behind then, I’d be on HQ now. It’s healthier than a fume break,” he says. 

Rogowsky customarily arrives during a HQ offices a few hours before a show. He’ll go over a book with a show’s group of writers, producers and fact checkers. They’ll plead all from his opening to a palliate of a questions. 

“We wish to make them bulletproof, so there can’t be any shake room for people complaining,” Rogowsky says. “People like to complain.”

App co-founder Rus Yusupov, who also helped emanate a video app Vine, says stumping a masses is generally severe when a really device players are regulating is also a apparatus to find a answers.

“If we can Google a answer, if we can come adult with a right keywords and find a answer [in 10 seconds], I consider we merit a reward.”

Canada’s HQ Master

One actor who doesn’t need a hunt engine to find a answer is Canadian Paul Paquet. He is one of Canada’s inaugural trivia experts, carrying hosted trivia nights in Ottawa for 20 years.

Paquet estimates he’s combined some-more than 100,000 mixed choice questions in his career, so it’s no warn that he’s one of HQ’s tip players.

Ottawa trivia master Paul Paquet has cowed HQ Trivia during slightest 10 times. (Jean-Francois Bisson/CBC News)

“The ability we need is to be a good guesser,” he says. “So you’re perplexing to outthink a approach a question’s author is thinking.” 

Even with an comprehensive believe of trivia, Paquet says he doesn’t always know a answer right away, though he does have a strategy. 

• QA: We had questions for Ottawa’s trivia king, he had answers

“What we mostly find, especially in a after questions, is that a answer competence good be a thing that seems slightest expected to you,” he says.

Paquet is so good, in fact, they’ve offering him a pursuit during HQ Trivia.

With some-more than $700 in winnings, Paquet says a good trivia doubt is like a riddle where we yield a punchline. (Screenshot/Paul Paquet)

He says over a years he’s schooled a pivotal to essay a good trivia question.

“People like finding that they know some-more than they know. They like being means to consider by things like puzzles, and those make good questions.”

He says he’s fervent to get started, “because I’ve been meditative of ideas we can write, maybe put a small Canadian spin on some things.”

The Future of HQ 

Industry watchers contend a biggest doubt for HQ Trivia itself is whether it can keep adult a momentum and reason a seductiveness of players like Paul, or finish adult another flitting breakthrough like Pokemon Go.

Screenshots of a HQ Trivia app. The diversion has been a plant of a possess success, infrequently loading solemnly or frozen underneath a bucket of players. (CBC)

There’s already a slew of copycats, and in some ways HQ Trivia is a plant of a possess success — a diversion can be delayed to load, and sometimes freezes underneath a highlight of so many players.

Whether it’s successful over the long-term or not, co-founder Yusupov says HQ Trivia has damaged a cover of required mobile games that try to siphon players in for as prolonged as possible. 

“We’ve combined a new difficulty here,” Yusupov says. “The games occur by appointment, so it’s not on all day any day and we can’t entrance it whenever you’d like. And we consider that’s a new approach of meditative about practice on smartphones that we consider many companies can adopt.”

With tighten to a million eyeballs on any game, a app is an advertiser’s dream. The creators have managed to keep it ad-free, though Yusupov says a day is entrance when they’ll incorporate ads — though he won’t contend how.

Rus Yusupov, seen here during a Shorty Awards in 2014, says his HQ Trivia group is operative on how to brew promotion into a diversion but ruining it for players. (GNeilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Yusupov does contend he wants to equivocate a mistakes of required TV, and not ruin a knowledge with too many commercials.

He also promises that bigger prizes are on a way. With promotion comes revenue, and that could meant bigger paydays.

“We’d adore to give divided a million dollars one day. we consider we’re we’re removing close.”

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hq-triva-scott-rogowsky-paul-paquet-canada-connections-1.4512189?cmp=rss