How Viewers Play Along on Their Phones or in Chat
Viewers join your quiz or poll by scanning a QR code, with no app or account, or by typing in chat on YouTube, Twitch and Facebook. Here is what they see.
Two ways to play
When you run a quiz or a poll in the Live Studio, viewers can play along in two ways, and you do not have to choose between them:
On a phone. They scan the QR code on the board and play on a web page.
In chat. They type their answer in the stream's chat on YouTube, Twitch or Facebook.
Both kinds of players go into the same game, the same leaderboard and the same vote count.
Playing on a phone
This is what a viewer does:
Point the phone's camera at the QR code on the board and open the link.
Type a display name, up to 24 characters. That is the name that shows on the leaderboard.
Wait for the game to start. When a question opens, the phone shows it (or the poll's options) with a countdown.
Tap an answer. After the question closes, the phone shows the result.
There is no app to install, no account and no sign-up. The game runs in the phone's browser, and the phone page is in English.
For a poll, a viewer can tap a different option until voting closes. When it closes, the phone shows the result bars and "Winner:" followed by the winning option.
Sharing the link without the QR code
Not everyone watches on a TV or a laptop. Someone watching on their phone cannot scan a code on the same screen. For them, the Control panel in the studio shows the phone page link and its QR code. Paste the link into the chat, pin it if your platform lets you, or put it in the stream description.
Each game has its own link, and it expires after 48 hours. Share the link for the game you are running, not one from an earlier stream.
Playing in chat
On YouTube, Twitch and Facebook, answers typed in the stream's chat count.
Multiple choice questions and polls: type the letter (A, B, C) or the text of the option.
Free text questions: type the answer.
Chat on Kick, TikTok and LinkedIn is not read. If you multistream to those platforms, tell viewers there to scan the code or open the link instead. Multistreaming to Multiple Platforms at Once explains how to add each destination.
Why phones are fairer with stream delay
Every live stream runs a little behind real time. Some viewers are a few seconds behind; others, on a slow connection or a high latency setting, can be much further back.
Answers are judged by when they were given (the moment of the tap, or the time of the chat message), not by when they arrived. On top of that, the phone shows each question the moment it opens, whatever the viewer's video is doing. So a viewer whose video is 20 seconds behind still gets the whole answer window on their phone.
Chat players see the question only when their video shows it. If their video is 20 seconds behind, they have 20 seconds less to answer. That is fine for a poll with a long voting time, but in a fast quiz it puts chat players at a disadvantage. If the result matters to your players, phone play is the fairer option. Phone Answers vs Chat Answers goes through the trade-offs.
When a game is full
Your plan sets how many players can join one game, and phone and chat players count together. When a game is full, new phones see "This game is full". See Interactive Streams and Player Limits by Plan for the numbers on each plan.
What happens to answers
Players do not create an account. The phone page asks for a display name and nothing else about them. Answers are kept for up to 7 days, and the phone page tells players so.
If something is not working
The QR code will not scan. Share the link in chat or in the stream description instead.
An old link no longer works. Links expire after 48 hours. Share the link from the Control panel for the game that is running now.
Chat answers are not counting. Check that the viewer is in YouTube, Twitch or Facebook chat, and that they typed a letter, an option's text or, for a free text question, the answer.
A viewer sees "This game is full". The game has reached your plan's players per game.