By Sarah E. Needleman
Sitting in church services on a Sunday morning last month, Julia
Harryman noticed that her husband was playing the quiz game "Trivia
Crack" on his phone.
"I just looked at him and smirked," says the 45-year-old mother
of two from Dallas, who admits that she's also hooked on the game
and doesn't blame her husband for sneaking in a move. "Sometimes
you just can't help yourself."
Trivia Crack is the latest red-hot mobile game. It has been
downloaded more than 130 million times. For 66-straight days, it
was the most popular free download in Apple Inc.'s U.S. app store,
ahead of the likes of Facebook Messenger, YouTube and Snapchat.
That's a streak far longer than those held by previous
chart-topping games such as "Candy Crush Saga," according to
analytics provider AppData. The free version of the original "Angry
Birds" never cracked the No. 1 spot.
Though the object of Trivia Crack is far from novel--players
compete to correctly answer questions first in categories such as
sports, art and science--a key distinction is that the game
features mostly questions written by players, along with their
names and photos.
Now, though, that standout feature is starting to backfire.
Etermax, the small Buenos Aires firm that makes the app, is
struggling to keep up. In recent months players have been
submitting an average of one million questions a day to Trivia
Crack's "Question Factory," a section within the app, says its
29-year-old founder and chief executive, Maximo Cavazzani. Since
each submission must get a positive rating from at least 100 fellow
players to make the cut, only about 1,500 new questions are being
added to the game each day.
"It's a problem we haven't dealt with," the entrepreneur says.
"It's like building a house and a million people came to help you.
We just need one house."
Also bogging down the review process is a consistent glut of
questions that are basically the same but posed in slightly
different ways. For instance, the game on a daily basis receives
multiple versions of "How old is Justin Bieber?"
Mr. Cavazzani says that allowing players to review submissions,
as well as rate already published questions as "boring" or "fun,"
is what keeps the game's content fresh and entertaining. It means
most players shouldn't see inaccurate or offensive material or have
to roll their eyes at corny castoffs such as: "Who's never gonna
give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around, or
desert you?" (Answer: Rick Astley)
The backlog of submitted questions awaiting approval is starting
to irk some Trivia Crack fans. Chuck Monsanto, of Yonkers, N.Y.,
likes to play the game while riding the train to and from work. The
47-year-old fraud investigator says he sent four questions to
Trivia Crack last month that he thinks are top notch, including:
"What was the title for Led Zeppelin's fourth album?" (Correct
answer: It didn't have a name.) He's stumped as to why the
questions haven't yet gotten enough "likes" from other players.
"You see these really goofy questions and wonder how those get
approved," he says.
Trivia Crack's 66-day stretch at the top of Apple's free
download chart is nearly double the 36 consecutive days for "Draw
Something" in 2012, says AppData. The longest streak at No. 1 for
"Candy Crush Saga" was just five days.
But among top grossing apps, Trivia Crack is currently No. 17,
while "Candy Crush Saga" ranks third, trailing only "Game of
War--Fire Age" and the leader, "Clash of Clans."
Etermax, which has six mobile games including Trivia Crack, is
"very profitable," says Mr. Cavazzani, declining to provide
specifics. Trivia Crack generates most of its revenue from in-app
purchases and advertising. Since it was first released in October
2013, fewer than 1% of its players have paid for the $2.99 version
that eliminates ads. In addition to Apple iOS devices, the game can
be played on mobile products from Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and
Amazon Inc., as well as Facebook.
Mr. Cavazzani says he intends to double his company's 80-person
staff this year and that a sequel to Trivia Crack is planned for
the spring with more ways for players to contribute questions. The
game, available in 10 languages including Catalan and Dutch, has
already been adapted into a TV quiz show in Latin America, and fans
can find T-shirts, mugs, pillows and other items with images from
it for sale online.
"It's not the first trivia game in the world, but it's the
best," says Mr. Cavazzani, whose company developed finance apps
before switching to games in 2011. He says it took years to perfect
the game's design, social-connectivity and user-input
combination.
"No one can do a great game if you started yesterday. It's a
long path of learning," he says.
A company with a hit app on its hands isn't guaranteed future
success. Zynga Inc. hasn't come close to replicating the success of
early hits like "FarmVille" and "Words With Friends." Rovio
Entertainment Ltd. has struggled to branch out beyond "Angry
Birds." Even King Digital Entertainment PLC's Candy Crush sequel,
"Candy Crush Soda Saga," spent only a few days at the top of the
free-download charts.
Mubarak "Mo" Ahmed, a 36-year-old financial analyst from Edison,
N.J., says his interest in mobile games comes and goes. For
instance, he used to play "Words With Friends" regularly, but
eventually, he says, he "got bored" with it. He's now playing a lot
of Trivia Crack, juggling about eight games at a time. "Most of
these mobile games are pretty faddy," he says. "Unless they keep
changing, they get old. You get tired of the monotony."
TV quiz shows date back to the 1940s, but trivia games didn't
become a pop-culture sensation until four decades later when
"Trivial Pursuit," one of the first board games to be marketed to
adults, arrived in the U.S. from Canada, says toy historian Tim
Walsh.
For Dave Levy, a Chicago emergency-room aide who plays Trivia
Crack multiple times a day against colleagues, the authenticity of
the questions is a major plus. "'Trivial Pursuit' seemed to be
influenced by what a major corporation wanted people to see," says
Mr. Levy, 34 years old, while Trivia Crack feels current. "If
something happens in the media or if there's a new show or book
out, I might see a question about it," he says.
Finding a way to reduce the number of new questions awaiting
review may be tough for Mr. Cavazzani's Etermax. It already
provides an incentive for players to rate submissions in the form
of free virtual coins they can use to buy "power-ups," such as an
extra 15 seconds to answer a question or the option to remove two
incorrect answers.
Ms. Harryman, the player from Dallas, who runs a technology firm
with her husband, is eager to find out if seven questions she
submitted in December will make the grade. One of her favorites:
"Which rock star turned down knighthood for political reasons?"
(Answer: John Lennon)
"You put a lot of thought into the questions, because you love
the game so much," she says. "[But] if they don't start updating
it, it's probably going to get too repetitive."
Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com
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