The prayers of innumerable recent college grads, desperate to rid themselves of their mountains of student loan debt, are about to be answered - sort of. Givling is a new pay-to-play trivia game that both helps students pay off their loan debt from college and awards prizes to high scorers.
"Givling is a trivia game that crowd funds the payoff of student loan debt," the sites FAQ section reads. "Three players will become millionaires when each $5 million dollar bundle of student debt, the Queue, is fully funded."
The way the site works is people with student loan debt sign up for Givling and are placed in a queue, also known as the Queue, to have their debts paid off - the students don't actually have to play any games on Givling in order to have their debts paid off - and others sign in to play the game and work together in teams of three to answer questions and, eventually, through their time and money, pay off one lucky person's student loans.
Actually winning at Givling is, of course, difficult, and requires quite a bit of luck, but the site also offers daily cash rewards beyond the big final cash prize.
"Every time you play a game, you are randomly teamed with two other players, creating a new and unique three-person Funding Team. You individually provide the correct answers to true or false statements and you get successively higher points for each correct answer. Your points are added with your team members' previous scores."
If you're one of the lucky ones who happen to be a member of the highest scoring Funding Team when the $5 million loan bundle, the Queue, is fully funded, you are awarded a $4 million cash prize. Each round of Givling costs 50 cents, with another 30 cents added as a transaction fee.
College affordability has, of course, become a hot button topic in the U.S. as student debt figures reach truly astounding levels. Drastic spending cuts on higher education have caused student loan debt to skyrocket nationwide, pushing it to a $1.16 trillion total as of the fourth quarter of 2014, meaning it far exceeds car loan and credit card debts, which were $955 billion and $700 billion, respectively, according to BusinessInsider.com.
Because of this, something like Givling has not only become possible, it very well may represent a shift in how student loan debt is approached in the U.S.
"Givling is a game that is creatively addressing a major social issue, which needs solutions, fast," the site argues. "Through Givling, players will help as many students as possible. By bundling the loans into large amounts, we will more quickly pay off more student loans."
While some of the ideals at play here seem a bit naïve and hopeful, the site makes clear that is "very real" and that while Givling may represent the first instance of "gamified crowdfunding," it may very well not be the last.
