Quiz Khalifa aka Host Malone aka Trap Trebek aka HQ Trivia’s Scott Rogowsky has been pushed out of the reside cell gaming startup. The two cut up on account of disagreements about Rogowsky trying to take a second full-time job internet hosting sports activities streaming service DAZN’s baseball present ChangeUp whereas transferring to solely internet hosting HQ on weekends, TMZ first reported. HQ wished somebody dedicated to their present.
Now HQ co-founder and CEO Rus Yusupov confirms to TechCrunch that Rogowsky will not host HQ Trivia. He tells me that the corporate ran a SurveyMonkey survey of its high gamers and so they voted that former visitor host Matt Richards rated greater than Rogowsky. Yusupov says HQ is worked up to have Richards as its new prime time host. It’s additionally placing out presents to extra movie star company to host for just a few reveals, just a few weeks, or perhaps a complete season of one in all its time slots.
HQ Trivia’s new host Matt Richards
The departure might nonetheless shake HQ’s model since Rogowsky had turn into the defacto face of the corporate. But he was additionally liable to speaking loads on the air and selling himself, typically in ways in which felt distracting from the sport. Rogowsky has additionally been utilizing HQ’s model to additional his standup comedy profession, splashing its emblem on promoting for his reveals like this one under at a on line casino the place “The centerpiece is a live trivia competition”, he advised WPTV5.
TechCrunch had predicted that Rogowsky would possibly depart if he wasn’t correctly compensated with fairness in HQ Trivia that might solely vest and earn him cash if he caught round. The injury to HQ might worsen if he’s scooped up by Facebook, Snapchat, or one other tech firm to construct out their very own reside video gaming reveals.
HQ Trivia supplied this assertion on Rogowsky’s exit:
“We continue to build an incredible company at HQ Trivia, from drawing hundreds of thousands of players to the platform daily, to increasing the size of the prize, to attracting strong talent. We’ve come a long way since Scott Rogowsky’s first trivia game and we’re grateful for everything he’s done for the platform. This is a team that creates products for talent to really shine—we’re just getting started at HQ Trivia, and as he makes his next move, wanted to take a minute to thank him for being part of our journey.”
Yusupov tells me he’s enthusiastic about exploring new hosts, noting that Richards in an individual of shade who brings extra range to HQ’s lineup. Richards is a standup comedian who has appeared on CBS’ 2 Broke Girls, Nickelodeon’s School of Rock and was a voice-over host for recreation present Trivial Takedown on FUSE. Yusupov says the crew feels jazzed in regards to the new artistic alternatives past Rogowsky, although the CEO says he appreciates all that its former host contributed.
Richards can have the tall activity of attempting to revive HQ’s reputation. It climbed the app retailer charts to turn into the #three high recreation and #6 general app in January 2018, and peaked at 2.38 million concurrent gamers in March 2018. But it’s been on a gentle decline since, falling to the #585 general app in August, and it dropped out of the highest #1500 final month in response to App Annie.
Exhaustion with the sport format, so many winners splitting jackpots to just some {dollars} per victor, and laggy streams have all pushed away gamers. The introduction of a brand new Wheel Of Fortune-style HQ Words recreation in August hasn’t stopped the decline. And the tragic dying of HQ co-founder and former CEO Colin Kroll might have impeded efforts to show issues round. There’s a ton of strain on the corporate after it raised $23 million, together with a $15 million spherical at a $100 million valuation.
Even if HQ Trivia fades from the zeitgeist, it and Rogowsky can have impressed a brand new wave of innovation in what it means to play with our telephones.
