SOME of China’s biggest tech companies, looking to hook new consumers, are using cash prizes to draw millions of contenders to mobile-based online quiz shows, according to a Reuters report.

Up to six million people at a time log into the free, live games on their smartphones to answer a series of rapid-fire questions in an elimination battle, with those remaining sharing the prize money.

Search engine giant Baidu and video game maker NetEase launched their own online shows last weekend, joining news feed platform Toutiao and Alibaba Group Holding-owned UCWeb.

The trivia games have drawn some controversy, heightened by a broader crackdown on online content last year from livestreams and blogs to a campaign against Internet addiction.

How firms will monetize the craze is also not yet clear, though some companies, such as online retailer JD.com, have already jumped on the trend, sponsoring shows to help raise their profiles. Many of the games show ads to players during the shows.

“If you ask me why I do this, to be honest, I don’t really know if I can make money. But from a user’s perspective, I think this is really fun,” said Zhou Hongyi, chairman of Internet company Qihoo, at an event where he presented a contestant with a one-million-yuan (US$156,115) prize cheque two weeks ago.

The quiz mania underlines the fierce appetite of China’s consumers for Internet entertainment, a trend helping drive billions of dollars of investment into digital news portals, online gaming, Internet advertising and television content.

“I heard about this game from a friend who won 1,700 yuan in one day. I immediately decided to join up myself,” said Wang Ting, a 26-year-old graduate student in Qingdao, Shandong Province. She now spends three hours each day on her phone playing the games.

Toutiao’s parent company Bytedance said that millions of its users have taken part in its live quiz “Million Dollar Hero” since the show launched at the start of January. It also has a tougher “Hero Game” with harder questions and bigger prizes.

“We’ve been running for just two weeks, so it’s still in the very early stages, but it’s encouraging to see how the game has taken off across the country, and with all age groups,” the company said in a statement. (SD-Agencies)