Mobile quizzing company HQ Trivia has shut down

Mobile quiz show maker HQ Trivia has closed its doors and laid off its remaining 25 employees after a planned acquisition fell through at the last minute. 

As reported by TechCrunch, the studio terminated all of its employees and contractors upon learning the news, with CEO and co-founder Rus Yusupov letting staff know via email. 

"We received an offer from an established business to acquire HQ and continue building our vision, had definitive agreements and legal docs, and a projected closing date of tomorrow, and for reasons we are still investigating, they suddenly changed their position and despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an agreement," he wrote. 

"Unfortunately, our lead investors are no longer willing to fund the company, and so effective today, HQ will cease operations and move to dissolution. All employees and contractors will be terminated as of today."

For those unfamiliar with the name, HQ Trivia is the company behind HQ, the once popular live quizzing app that allowed players around the world to win a share of a cash prize. At its peak the game boasted over 2.3 million concurrent players and offered cash prize pots worth up to $250,000. 

Eventually, however, interest in the title waned, and last year the company laid off around 20 percent of its workforce after monthly downloads fell by 92 percent.