Today's escape rooms are played by everyone from all walks of life. They’re suitable for children and adults alike. The gameplay structure allows a unique opportunity for teams to practice problem solving as well as teamwork. This also makes them a perfect activity for businesses and organisations to utilise team building events. Of course, it's one thing to play an escape room game, and another to run an escape room gaming business. Designing and then setting up an escape room is a huge amount to work and requires an equally massive attention to the smallest detail. In today's business climate, you’ll need to have all your wits about you if you wish to survive in what has become a very competitive landscape.

The Escape Room Games Market Is Still Growing

It's impossible to deny that the Covid-19 pandemic caused a huge dent in the incomes of many escape room businesses. It's true that some were able to segue into escaping games played over the internet. These would have a single gamesmaster in the actual escape room. The online players could direct him from anywhere in the world over conferencing apps like Zoom. The companies that were able to embrace this new technology in time were able to score some serious profits from all those people forced to stay at home due to social distancing laws being imposed world-wide. 

When playing at brick and water escape rooms, then the number of players is constrained by the space. In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find a game with more than 8 or 10 people in the same room. But playing over the internet meant that any number of players could participate in the game simultaneously. 

Before the pandemic, many escape room companies claimed that they had plans to expand over the coming year. We should point out that there are over 15,000 escape rooms worldwide. And since 2007, with the inception of the very first escape room, the industry has grown from small mom and pop scenarios into almost industrial style complexes which can handle a huge number of players every hour.

Now governments are allowing the opening up of public spaces once again, escape room game businesses can breathe a collective sigh of relief. But thanks to the severe downturn in income over the last year or so, many of those plans for expansion have been put on hold. We should also note that with the advent of internet streaming escape room games, many companies are reconsidering their whole business structure. But we shouldn't forget that the industry as a whole remains very profitable. You'll still find escape room game businesses opening up wherever you are in the world. Many entrepreneurs still claim that the first venue will be in profit within a year.

Higher Competition

When the escape room games first broke onto the marketplace, its growth was almost exponential. But as more and more businesses opened in every town and city, then the escape room game became more competitive amongst its various local providers. This competitiveness means that today it's more difficult to launch a new escape room venture. We feel that many companies are now refocusing on both growing and maintaining their existing brands. On the other side of the coin, thanks to the dearth of customers for a long period due to Covid, many businesses are closing, with many owners deciding to call it quits and leave the escape room business altogether. When it comes to a business failing, there are a number of important factors that can't have a contributing effect.

Price competitiveness

In a normal business situation, the more of the same businesses come onto the market  within a fixed area, then the price is normally pushed down, as they are all using price as a means of attracting the same limited number of clients.This means that the profit margins become thinner and thinner. In many cases, businesses will try to create different sorts of products or services in order to make use of pricing elasticity. But the problem with escape room games is that you can’t really lower the quality of your room in order to decrease the price. Unless you're able to offer the customer a tangibly better experience. Then you'll simply be eaten up by the competition. We predict that the pricing of escape room games is going to go up considerably. One thing is that inflation is running very high right now, meaning the value of the money in your pocket is technically worth less. Secondly, businesses are in a hurry to play catch-up with the losses they undertook thanks to the pandemic. 

Marketing Expenses

If you run a public facing business, one of the most important figures in your accounts is going to be the customer acquisition cost. Essentially this is the money spent on marketing in order to bring a paying customer through the front door. Unfortunately, the cost of advertising and marketing seems to be constantly rising. For example, a quick look at Google Ad campaigns and you’ll see that major keywords related to the escape room genre now cost up to two or three times the amount they did from just a couple of years ago. You might have thought that with the introduction of so much competition in the form of social media, the cost of advertising would have decreased. But in fact, it's proved to have moved in the opposite direction.

Saturated Market

Once upon a time the escape room game was a novelty. People look quite happy to play in dingy basement rooms filled with second-hand furniture. Providing the gameplay was immersive enough, then no one really cared about the surroundings. Unfortunately, today's customers require increasingly complex puzzles which have to be situated in increasingly expensive high quality sets. The same goes for the technology involved, and even the props at hand. In some ways, it's understandable that the paying customer wants an immersive experience. That’s why we've compiled a short list of factors that we feel are important to differentiate yourself from the other players in an already crowded marketplace.

Be More Innovative

Those escape room game businesses that offer the same old games, you know, the ones that have become clunky over time, are not going to bring in many new customers. Right now, many players want the latest in cutting edge technology. This means options such as VR and AR games, along with mobile games and games played out of doors. Probably the main issue with the whole escape room genre is that the game is played through only once. That’s why it's important for escape room game businessesI to be constantly evolving and changing up their games in order to attract new players.

New Channel Development

Many within the escape room industry have pointed out that they have all become victims of their own success. Maybe you remember, but going back a few years, the whole concept was cool and trendy. Everyone and their mother wanted to try it. And everybody was talking about it. Becoming so popular, then it wasn't surprising that escape room owners tended to remain in their comfort zone and become complacent. To that end they focused on any one channel, business to customer (B2C). In doing so, they left a lot of money on the table. Now that the market is maturing, escape room game entrepreneurs are looking for new ways to develop commercially. You’ll find that many of the larger providers have moved to a B2B model. As such they offer such things such as corporate retreats and team building. Of course, one of the benefits of B2B business is that much can be done online with many e-commerce marketplaces dedicating themselves to lesser activities which can include escape room games.

Introduction of New Technologies

With the evidence of better and cheaper VR and ARcapabilities, escape room games are moving away from the traditional brick and mortar setup filled with objects and clues. Today, many escape rooms have opened with what are to all intents and purposes simple open spaces where players are confined to physical “pens.” These are to stop them falling over whilst they navigate the virtual escape rooms wearing a virtual reality headset. Not only does this keep setup costs down to an absolute minimum, but it means that many players can take parts simultaneously. As AR and VR technologies become more realistic and cheaper, we can safely predict this is the primary direction in which escape room games are heading.

Increasing Reliance on Online Bookings

With the huge amount of business being done via social media, with links back to your website, it's important that the actual website is set up correctly. After all, almost three quarters of all bookings will come in via the business website. To that end, it’s super important to offer a responsive and user friendly online booking experience. With so much riding on the individual business URL, then proper website promotion becomes an essential factor in gaining customers.

We believe that probably the best long time investment for any escapement business is going to be carrying out proper SEO. If your website isn't on the first page of Google search then you might as well not exist. In the past, many business owners were more concerned about providing an exciting and immersive gaming experience. The business of finding new customers was put on the back burner. Today no business can survive unless it's built up a large internet presence, be that a traditional websites and blogs, or on social media. We think it's worthwhile paying a consultant or freelancer to ensure your website remains on the first page of any search terms for escape room related keywords.

A few years ago, all escape room games simply fell under the heading of “Escape Room Games”,  without any sub categories. Very little effort being made as far as individual business branding goes. Today, the building of a recognizable and memorable brand is incredibly important. In some ways, it's not just the experience that needs to be remembered. But the brand associated with it. A quick flick through the social media pages of many escape room game businesses and you'll see how important reviews have become. If you can find these with a brand awareness, then you're creating a useful route for great word of mouth recommendation. At the end of the day, much of your business will rise or fall, not just thanks to the sophistication of the games on offer, but simply because you failed to create a memorable branding.