
The escape-room games industry is booming - pseudolus
https://www.economist.com/gulliver/2019/01/11/the-escape-room-games-industry-is-booming
======
gkoberger
I was really fascinated by the industry, so I got into it and eventually built
my own as a side project
([http://StartupEscape.com](http://StartupEscape.com))

It can be a good business if you have a few rooms. There's two types of people
who get into it: passionate people, and people who buy designs online for a
decent revenue. The latter makes more money, but there's some amazing escape
rooms that are Disney-parks-level.

Unfortunately, escape rooms work way better in non-cities. Rent is too
expensive in big cities, so the rooms suffer. Many of the best rooms are in
really random places, since financially it works out better. It's a really
interesting space, and I'm starting to see a few big companies form around it.
I am curious to see if big companies (with decent but generic games) overtake
the smaller passion project ones.

(Money aside, designing and building an escape room is one of the most fun
things I've ever done. There was a solid mix of cool tech, puzzle design, prop
design, showmanship and more. If you're interested, I can help get started! My
email is in my profile)

~~~
devgutt
Just as a side note, I wonder if this could be a better alternative to job
interviews. An opportunity to have fun and interact with possible candidates.

~~~
influx
Please don’t. I get that every time a programmer solves a puzzle they then
want to turn that into an interview question, but those usually have no
correlation to work performance, and having to solve problems in a physical
space sure isn’t fair to folks who have disabilities that make that difficult
but could still work fine behind a desk.

~~~
thatoneuser
At first I thought it was a good idea. Not to verify problem solving skills
but to maybe get a more dynamic interview of the person working in teams. But
yeah, you’re right. This would quickly turn into a dick measuring contest and
soon there’s be “cracking the escape room” books dedicated to optimal escape
room strategies.

Hey at least escape rooms would be better than coding white boards. Probably
more of an actual test of a programmers abilities ;)

~~~
marrone12
It's also just nice to do an activity and not worry about work.

------
ehsankia
> are explicitly about not having an easy way out

Really? I've done a dozen and in every single one, you could simply exit back
from the door you entered from. The rooms were never truly about "escaping",
at least past the lore and story. They are about searching for clues and
solving puzzles. I've never been in one where we were explicitly locked
inside. Generally you just make your way through and exit out a different door
at the end.

~~~
throwdaddy425
Curious -- what were the puzzles like? Do you remember any specific puzzles?
I'm thinking of doing one but I don't know what to expect.

Edit: Not sure why downvoted, I'm genuinely curious of this person's
experience. Is asking not allowed?

~~~
nicky0
Generally you have to find the code to the lock, to open the cabinet, to get
the key, to open another door ....

A sequence of puzzles which unlock the next step.

Puzzles like the code lock may be numeric, you may find a clue to the code as
a sequence of colors, which you have to find the color key for (maybe it is
split into parts and hidden around the room).

Sometimes it's as simple as finding a key. e.g. in the pocket of a coat
hanging on the wall, or a note inserted into a book on a shelf. (Tearing the
room apart to find objects is usually the best strategy!)

Some puzzles get a bit more clever than this but these are usually the
foundation elements.

------
forgingahead
Whenever I see anything about modern escape rooms, I always remember Crystal
Maze, a fantastic game show from the 90s in the UK.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Maze](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Maze)

~~~
CJKinni
I loved the Crystal Maze as a kid. It started back up again a couple years
ago. It's now hosted by Richard Ayoade.

~~~
stevekemp
There have been a few presenters, as you'll know, but Richard O'Brian is still
the only person I can see doing the job.

~~~
0db532a0
I have a fond memory of coming across him in the street in Muswell Hill at the
age of four or five. It was my favourite show at the time.

------
DyslexicAtheist
I went with my gf and her friends for her birthday last year for the first
time. We had a great time and we'll certainly be going again. What made me
wonder though is how they are able to attract repeat customers, e.g. if they
only have 4 rooms/puzzles then soon people will be quickly moving to a
different company. Repeat business must be difficult to retain unless you keep
changing your rooms frequently (or rely mostly on tourists (or people who only
do this for their birthday or other special events - but not as a serious
hobby).

One thing that annoyed me was that we were obviously unable to solve the
puzzle and the guy kept giving us hints over the comms.

I told him to stop several times (since it wouldn't matter - if we can't solve
we'd return another day). Though he must have had instructions to push all
customers into a " _successful outcome_ " no matter how poor they do. For that
I was furious - though will certainly go and check other companies next time
and make it clear that if they do give hints (no matter how bad we do) they
won't get paid.

lastly there was news just last week that one of these rooms burned down in
Poland. Sounds like a backstory to one of the _" The Saw"_ films:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-
escap...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-escape-room-
fire-man-charged-suspect-arrest-police-victims-koszalin-a8715411.html)

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-
escap...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-escape-rooms-
five-teenage-girls-killed-mateusz-morawiecki-a8714231.html)

~~~
talltimtom
> and make it clear that if they do give hints (no matter how bad we do) they
> won't get paid.

That sounds a bit harsh. The escape rooms I have been at all made it clear
that the objective is to finish as fast as possible but if you get stuck on
things and it seems unlikely you’ll make it on the hour they will give you
clues. It’s just part of the deal, you will almost always finish, and
“winning” vs losing is a question of how fast you finish.

This doesn’t apply to competitive rooms of cause. Where I actually don’t know
how they handle clues as that has never been an issue for my groups in those
room.

~~~
nothrabannosir
_> > and make it clear that if they do give hints (no matter how bad we do)
they won't get paid._

 _> That sounds a bit harsh._

He’s negotiating in advance, not punishing them. It’s about making it clear
what you want for your money, and allowing the other party to make a choice.
This is how negotiations work.

“Hi I’d like a room here but I have a special request: don’t call me ‘sir’.
It’s non negotiable; if you do I won’t pay you.”

Either: “ok that’s fine.”

or: “sorry, I’m afraid we can’t do that, sir.”

are ok. But once you’ve accepted, that’s it.

Negotiating. It’s the foundation of trade. I wish it didn’t have such a bad
rap.

~~~
talltimtom
Hi, I’d like a ticket for the new transformers movie, but id there are any
explosions I want my money back.

Sure that’s just negotiation, but in that case I’d argue just as well that the
costumer is being unresonable because he has expectations of the experience
that simply don’t align with what is being offered. And if the establishment
decides not to take your business because of the unusual request, which is
wierdly dependent on how things play out I would not hold it against them.

As for not wanting clues, you can just tell them not to provide them and they
wont. No need for the weird conditional payment option. You’re taking away a
timeslot no matter what and costing them money, if you want to do that you
need to pay, wanting special conditions on that payment is “rather harsh”.

~~~
FakeComments
The person said they asked, and the service provided clues anyway. That’s what
caused the comment to tying payment with actually providing the right service.

So “you can just” clearly isn’t true, at least in that case.

Also, the premise that a customer not wanting clues to a puzzle is
unreasonable, or anything like conditioning on a pre-recorded movie, is a
pretty questionable — to the point I think it’s just wrong.

Having a puzzle proactively spoiled by staff is nothing like that, at all.
Refusing to pay if staff ruin the experience by taking actions you ask them
not to is actually standard in service industries.

------
b_tterc_p
I can't read the full article but it the preview seems oddly mixed in whether
its talking about how there are fire hazards vs. how they're a successful
business model.

Either way, I enjoy them. I do, however, think the business model could be a
lot more scalable. Content providers should seek to either use the same space
for multiple games, or use the same game across multiple scenarios.

This would be a great use case for current-tech level VR I think. Plop people
into a correctly scaled virtual escape room in and bam, you can provide and
deploy new content at the rate you can design it (perhaps physical locations
not even needed).

Alternatively, build a spaceship, or a dungeon, or something else that can be
generalized to different levels in the same basic space.

To anyone in the boston area, or, I suppose, Sweden, check out Boda Borg for
what I think is a more entertaining take on them involving physical
challenges, really abstract puzzles, and rapid feedback of try-fail-repeat.

~~~
jammygit
VR interferes with the social aspect of it. Wireless AR could be neat though.

~~~
talltimtom
You should look up “Just keep talking and nobody explodes” which works out
quite fantastic social VR Game. One person has a headset and can see a bomb
with different contraptions that needs to be solved to defuse it, the other
team members have instructions on how to defuse the contraptions but can’t see
the bomb. It’s also a great exercise in effective communication.

------
almost
DISCLAIMER: My own startup, Buzzshot
([https://buzzshot.co](https://buzzshot.co)), makes an Escape Room software
SaaS product. I've been running it for 2 years and its been my full time gig
for about 6 months

The article doesn't talk about it much but there's also a booming support
industry that's built up around Escape Rooms. From prop makers, puzzle
desingers, suppliers of full turn key rooms.

It's a fascinating industry to work in. Having spoken to every customer on the
phone (highly recommended) there's such a range of people starting Escape
Rooms from people starting their first ever business to people with lots of
experience in related (or less related) areas. The amount of different skills
that go into making these things is amazing. Having multiple rooms seems
important to growing revenue, since it's the only practical way to get return
customers. A lot of people of expanding to multiple locations as well as a way
of reusing work.

A cool thing happening right now in the UK is two rooms are openning using
licensed IP. There's a Dr Who one which sounds really exciting and one based
on the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock show (disclaimer no 2, they're a customer
of mine which I'm very excited about)

They're a whole lot of fun to play as well :)

~~~
the_unknown
In Toronto there's a Murdoch Mysteries escape room which has been running for
over a year. They've now moved to Casa Loma - an actual Castle in just-out-of-
downtown Toronto.

A huge hit for fans of the show (and book) series.

------
hemmert
I launched a print-at-home escape room with an iOS/Android 'game master' app
last year:

[https://www.escape-team.com](https://www.escape-team.com)

We're at 25K downloads, 4.5 star ratings and it's growing nicely. Groupon sold
over 1K mission packs in one week.

Last month, we added user-generated missions, and people use them for
education, birthday parties and everything else that needs to be spiced up by
a ticking bomb. ;)

------
notus
If someone ever makes an IRL escape room game based off of this
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOTAS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOTAS)) I
will go in a heartbeat.

------
soufron
Calling it an industry might be a bit of exageration, don't you think so?

------
Terretta
_“In 1975, the pet rock sold 1.5 million units at $3.95 a pop. And even though
it was a fad that lasted only 6 months, it made the inventor, Gary Dahl, a
millionaire overnight.”_

[https://growthlab.com/the-pet-rock-how-to-make-big-money-
fro...](https://growthlab.com/the-pet-rock-how-to-make-big-money-from-simple-
ideas/)

------
neonate
[https://outline.com/Z5audX](https://outline.com/Z5audX)

------
throwdaddy425
Can anyone comment on what puzzles they've had to solve in an escape room? I
haven't been to one but people I know want to do it, not sure how fun it would
be.

~~~
bskap
Most of the time, you're trying to solve different types of locks: key locks,
3 and 4 digit combination locks, combination locks with letters, directional
locks (not going to say always try the Konami code, but there's a good chance
that's going to be the answer), stuff like that. You may have to solve riddles
to figure out where the keys and combinations are.

Some puzzles are purely observation. The Jurassic Park "hide stuff in the
bottom of a Barbasol can" trick is pretty popular, there are safes where they
tell you the code is the "boss's wife's birthday", so you have to find the
calendar or rolodex or dated happy birthday note in the room.

There was one room I did that swapped the keycaps on a typewriter to make a
substitution cipher- type the coded message into the typewriter and the
decoded message would come out.

The rooms with higher production quality tend to incorporate more technology
into the puzzles. One room I did gave you instructions on a radio (which you
got from a previous locked box), if you were tuned to the right station-
hinted at from a different clue, with the radio instructions changing as you
finished each step. Another room had rigged together a large box with a Kinect
or Leap Motion or something similar setup where you had to stick your hand
into the box and move it around in the right place to open a magnetic lock,
but the screen showing you the correct sequence was in another room that you
couldn't see so your teammates had to be in the other room shouting directions
at you.

------
nanoseltzer
Honestly I fail to see their appeal. I did one and it was so boring. I think
the main “appeal” is that it locks you in a room where everyone is forced to
actually interact and not just stare at their phones. It seems to be mostly
used for corporate outings or clubs, where people aren’t quite comfortable
with each other yet. I’m thinking it would also be good for group dates. But
for with your real friends with whom you can do other activities or even just
have a good convo? It just seems a “forced creative experience”. The only
reason the industry is “booming” is because it was non existent before and
filled these specific niches. It will oversaturate very quickly.

~~~
cc439
Personally, I see the "Escape Room" boom as something akin to the "Fondue
Party" craze in the 70's. It's a fun social outing... once. Eventually there
won't be enough new customers to sustain the business model and they will
disappear almost as quickly as they arrived.

I'm sure there are better example, particularly ones from the entertainment
industry booms of the 1920's and 1950's but I just can't think of any off the
top of my head.

~~~
brownbat
It might be like karaoke.

I could hear the same concerns against that as OP delivered here. And to be
fair that's something that is more successful in some places and much less so
in others.

Other places, like casinos or top golf or laser tag or Dave and Buster's... I
know some people who love them and others it's kind of a one time experience.

Fad to enduring cultural pastime is a wide spectrum, and we tend to maintain
lots of options with niche followings.

------
angel_j
Tech companies should use these to screen applicants instead of code
challenges.

~~~
BoiledCabbage
Or they could judge applicants by how good they are at playing chess - I hear
that also uses a person's brain and thinking. /s

------
dawhizkid
What are the economics? How much can you can a month?

