Trivie Churning Out Games In Days With New Publishing Platform

It takes app developers an average of 18 weeks to build an app, according to a survey by Kinvey.  Trivie, maker of the popular Battle of Wits! trivia game, is doing it in as little as two weeks with help from its newly developed publishing platform called “Trivie Spotlight.”

Trivie Spotlight is a patent-pending publishing platform that allows the company to partner up with major brands such as Snoop Dogg and FOX and roll out officially licensed trivia apps in a matter of days.

“We’re able to deliver these private-branded ‘white-box’ solutions inside of our app without recreating the app ,” said Trivie CEO Lawrence Schwartz.  “So it’s very unique to the app store, it took a long time to figure out the technical aspects of this, but we can roll out games super fast now.”

Super fast is right.  The company just announced nine new mobile apps launching in the app store and has many more on the way.

“Right now we have a handful of games out there,” Schwartz said.  “We’re rolling out about five games every 30 days and we have a backlog of over 20 games.”

Through partnerships with major studios and sports teams, Trivie is able to take its publishing platform and “re-skin” the app’s look and feel to match the brand.  Trivie’s recent partnership with Star Trek has enabled the company to quickly roll out a Star Trek-themed trivia game that looks like it was built from the ground up, but in actuality was made in a few days using the “Trivie Spotlight” platform.

The new apps are then available in Trivie’s storefront, which, in essence, is an app store within an app.

“We’re putting our product inside an ecosystem of other branded partners, where they’re standing shoulder to shoulder, where they are getting the benefit of other marketing.” Schwartz said. “The only way I can draw an analogy is its a mini app store inside the game.”

In addition to these new apps, Trivie has partnered with many other TV networks, celebrities, recording artists, Hollywood studios, athletes, and media publications to launch new games every month.  The partnerships are not only beneficial to Trivie, but also for major brands and companies who can get a branded trivia game in the app store within a few weeks.

“Brands, especially media properties, are slimming down to cut costs, and they’re slimming down while they have to increase their digital footprint,” Schwartz said.  “So they’re trying to figure out ways to leverage a shrinking workforce and resources while enhancing a digital footprint in all different types of digital media.”

The method of building games that Trivie has developed may be the key to success in an ultra competitive app market.  With over 700,000 apps in the Apple App and Google Stores, developers are struggling to differentiate themselves and gain users.  The high cost to develop and maintain an app is also a drawback for many companies to create a branded game.  Trivie was able to make such a game for FOX TV’s hit show “Bones” in a short period of time.

“We just rolled out-of-the-box a ‘Bones’ version, but it was something that was able to roll out in a very short period of time, two or three weeks, and their investment was zero,” Schwartz said.

Trivie has big plans for its future.  Aside from signing a number of other partnerships, the company has it’s sights set on developing content on other screens and devices.

“We’ve got over 20 more partnerships already signed and that’s growing every week and we’re already planning for our next major product will be stepping out of the small screen and working on a second screen product,” Schwartz said.

We can’t wait to see what’s next!