The popular quiz startup HQ Trivia is beginning to roll out the first of many new social features to its app focused on leveraging competition with friends and family during game time.
HQ Trivia has managed to bring people together in real life to play the game on their phones, but the startup has done surprisingly little when it comes to bringing social interactions to the app itself. Today, HQ is launching a new feature called “Friends on HQ,” which will roll out to U.K. users for today’s game, with a U.S. launch to follow “soon after,” the company says.
The feature lets users search for and connect with friends and family inside the app. Once users connect, they’ll be able to keep track of how everyone is doing and which friends of theirs are playing in any given quiz match. It’s a very easy move for HQ that adds some familial familiarity to the game’s battle royale quiz format.
Building these connections will be important to strengthening its core group of players, which has grown to the millions. HQ Trivia has begun chasing sponsorship deals with companies like Warner Bros. and Nike. As the startup looks to experiment more with monetization, having a user base that is devoted enough to deal with some of these changes will be essential.
This update is far from a one-off and seems to signify a shift for the app. According to a spokesperson, “this update forms the basis of a variety of new features that HQ will be rolling out soon, leveraging friends’ connections.”