Facebook Brings New Game Show Features To Videos To Take On HQ Trivia

Facebook has launched a new way to make videos more interactive on its platform. The company has announced new tools that will allow creators and publishers to add quizzes, polls, challenges and gamification to enable viewers to compete in an HQ Trivia-like game show.

“Today, we're announcing new ways for creators and publishers to create interactive videos. We're starting with polling for both Live and on demand videos, as well as gamification for Live,” Facebook said in its blog post. “With these tools, our partners can add a range of new interactive features to videos such as: polls, quiz questions, challenges, and more. These can all be used within an individual video or to create a standalone game show. We're giving creators a blank canvas to allow them to do what they do best — create! — and we can't wait to see how they innovate.”

Polling will let creators add questions with a set of answers and let them have quick access to their fans’ answers. Gamification adds gameplay to videos allowing creators to make a set of questions with corresponding correct answers. People who participate will be eliminated when they pick the wrong answer, while people who choose the right answer will advance to answer the next question. Gamification on Facebook will be applicable for Live video and will let fans compete with each other. Another feature here is that the creator can also challenge their fans on a topic of choice.

Facebook says that in the coming weeks, a range of creators will begin using the polling and gamification features on their shows and videos, like Brent Rivera and That Chick Angel. Interactive game shows will also be added to Facebook Watch from Facebook’s partners.

The first is Confetti by INSIDER which is a live interactive game show that will air daily. The show will challenge players on pop culture trivia questions alongside their friends. Another show is Outside Your Bubble from BuzzFeed News, which challenges contestants to step outside of their “bubble” and guess what their opponents are really thinking. The last show is What’s in The Box by Fresno, where participants can win prizes for correctly guessing the contents of a closed box.

“Video is evolving away from just passive consumption to more interactive two-way formats,” Facebook’s vice president of video product Fidji Simo told TechCrunch. “We think creators will want to reward people. If this is something that works with Insider and Confetti, we may consider rolling out payments tools.”

HQ Trivia has been a huge hit with an average number of participants of 400,000 to 600,000 for each broadcast. Instead of directly competing with HQ Trivia, Facebook found an alternate way of bringing the same type of game show on its platform through its partners and creators.