Business Insider/James Cook
Etermax CEO Maximo Cavazzani with new "Trivia Crack" merchandise.
Etermax CEO Maximo Cavazzani told Business Insider at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that his company is developing chat technology for its games and also launching a service that lets people launch their own quizzes.
"The chatting technology that we are developing took us more than two years," Cavazzani said. "Right now it's as powerful as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. And that's something that's very difficult to replicate."
It's all well and good having a series of hit games like Rovio did with "Angry Birds," or King did with "Candy Crush." But the key is getting people to stay engaged with them and returning to the apps again and again.
Cavazzani said that most "Trivia Crack" users open the app five times a day for an average of a few minutes each time. They respond to quizzes, and then close the app. That's likely due to the messaging function that's being added to the apps.
"If you look at Tinder, which is basically a chat app, their chat is very bad," Cavazzani said. "That's something that you could say 'well, maybe that's not the core business, and it's not that important,' but it is very important because if you have a user who is trying to communicate with another user and their experience is bad then they will go to another messenger."
Etermax
Trivia Crack.
It's not just messaging that Etermax is focusing on. It's also launching "Trivia Crack X," a new game that lets users uploaded their own quizzes. That's a rather different set of users than its casual quiz app, but Cavazzani is confident that people will see the benefit of using his new app to create their own content. "Our traditional userbase is almost everyone, everyone is either in school or at work or works for a non-profit."
We decided to find out just how good Cavazzani is at quizzes, so we asked him some trivia questions of our own. Here's how he got on:
Which singer joined Mel Gibson in the movie "Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome"?
Cavazzani said he hadn't seen that movie. The answer is Tina Turner.
Which American state is the nearest to the Soviet Union?
"Alaska" was Cavazzani's answer, which is correct!
On TV, who did the character Lurch work for?
Cavazzani had "no idea." Lurch worked for the Addams family.
Which children's classic book was written by Anna Sewell?
Cavazzani is not much of a reader, so he didn't know this one. The answer is "Black Beauty."
How many arms does a squid have?
Things got a little technical here. Cavazzani said that if you count tentacles as arms then it's eight. It's actually 10, but there are varying definitions of what exactly a tentacle is.
Which reggae star died on May 11, 1981?
Cavazzani said Bob Marley, which is the right answer.