Types of quizzes

In addition to such intercollegiate quizzes as College Bowl in the United States and University Challenge in the United Kingdom, standardized quiz bowls testing students on a variety of subjects were being held in many other countries in the early decades of the 21st century. These contests took place across school levels and typically pitted two or more teams against each other in a buzzer format. Several national championships formed in this space, such as the aforementioned University Challenge as well as the Bournvita Quiz Contest in India, a televised quiz show pitting middle-school students across the country in elimination-format quiz battles.

Television quiz shows, having emerged from scandal, found continuing success in the 21st century, courtesy of such programs as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Many of these shows were being broadcast in prime-time slots around the world. In addition, with the proliferation of mobile phones, broadcasters partnered with service providers so that viewers could participate in TV quizzes remotely. Questions shown on television as chyrons or during advertisement breaks invited phone users to respond via messages or apps (users paid a charge for sending each response). This form of participation helped keep millions of quiz viewers more engaged than ever before and, arguably, generated more revenue than the television shows themselves.

Quizzes proliferated on stand-alone mobile apps as well. These apps typically used a multiple-choice format, and some allowed participants to play one-on-one matches and publish leaderboards, which were keenly contested. However, quizzers’ loyalty to an app could be fickle, as evidenced by live-trivia app HQ Trivia, which became a viral sensation in 2017. HQ Trivia was a live game show; twice a day, users would get a push notification alerting them to tune in and answer some trivia questions. Users who made it to the end of the game would win a cash prize. Once the game caught on, millions were playing it, but, as of early 2020, HQ Trivia was a spent force, with only a handful of its former followers on the platform.

Quizzes on radio persisted into the 21st century, though with lower stakes than before. They often served as ways to engage with listeners and get them to dial in to the stations. Quizzing in the home also remained popular, thanks to the continuing success of such games as Trivial Pursuit. Electronic gaming consoles took this a step further through virtual quizzing, in which players sitting in the same room could match wits while the camera-enabled console served as quizmaster. Smart speakers and virtual assistants also brought quizzes closer to people.

But to find the really engaged quizzers in the 2020s, there were two places one could go. The first was the local pub. Pub quizzes, typically weekly affairs, continued to be popular across the world. Anyone could participate, and teams typically competed for prizes ranging from a free meal or round of drinks to an entire evening on the house. The second place was the local chapter of an open quizzing group, part of a system that had gained great popularity in some Indian cities. Here too anyone could walk into a quizzing event, join a team, and participate in the quizzes of the day. Schedules were shared in advance, and city chapters of quiz groups got together to host quiz festivals, which were annual affairs drawing quizzers from all over the country to battle for glory (the prize money did not usually amount to much).