If someone walked up to you randomly on the street and asked you if you wanted to win free money, you would probably decline and get away as soon as possible. However, the newest hit craze is the app, HQ Trivia, where you get free money. The player typically has to answer 12 questions correctly in order to receive a portion of the cash prize, which is divided between all the players who got all the questions right. One may ask what’s the catch? Truthfully, as far as anyone knows there isn’t any. They plan on getting sponsors in the future but that still shouldn’t cause problems with the money being free. Around 1 million players play everyday to try and get the reward. Usually, in games rewards are in app currency however, to many people real cash is way more enticing. Will HQ Trivia lead a trail blaze of apps that begin rewarding people with real cash?
If this happens what will happen to the indie genre? The small businesses and companies will be unable to keep up. This would begin to unravel the progression technology has helped create towards a gaming society full of prosumers. Additionally, it may further shrink the gap between the virtual world and reality. If this were to happen some people wouldn’t mind, they would be playing games more often, to attempt to be one of the winners. The hours spent playing games would have a toll on their social life though and companies may use this as a way to exploit people into doing unpaid labour. It is hard to say whether or not HQ Trivia will actually cause these events to happen but there is always the possibility.
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