As with any business there are the concerns that go outside of the daily operation or precede the foundation of opening on your first day. This first section of thinking about the business behind running an escape room company explores some of these external concerns that may (or may not) impact on how you go about making and running your business. At the very least you will want to quickly review these to make sure you have addressed them to your satisfaction.
Why are you opening an escape room?
This question is more important than you may think. Your motivation behind running your game will impact all the other decisions you make. There are many reasons to open an escape room - what is yours? Are you opening because you think you can improve the art form of escape games, or get a really good return on investment? Both are perfectly valid reasons, it is a good idea to be clear in what your motivation is so you can work towards it.
Some escape rooms are pop-ups that run for a few months then shutdown, other games are permanent. Depending on what is motivating you, you may want to go all-in or start with a pop-up. If you are trying to make a fun experience for people then you may want to start by testing an experimental game; if you are trying to make money in itself then you will want to be first to market in your area or really stand out.
How you ensure your success depends on what your definition of success is. Know your motivation so you will be a happy escape room owner.
Time and space pressure
In terms of timing, I know people who build games very quickly in a week or two and others who have taken months. The ones that take longer are because of concerns within their life or as a result of the physical space not being ready. How quickly you get up and running depends on a lot of variables, with some you cannot control. Cracked STL opened in 90 days from conception to first players whereas it took nearly a year for Fox in a Box Chicago .xvi
A large impact on these variables is the size of group you are serving and the theme you have chosen. Conversely, space pressure can exist if your space is too small for your proposed plans. You will have to adjust to your built environment and be prepared to do so.
One thing that many people overlook is how much the physical space of the room impacts the design. Budgeting more time than you think is needed for your space to be decorated is a good idea, but might not always be possible. It is possible to test your game before the room is completed. Keep in mind testing without completed artifacts will negatively impact your feedback from play testing.
A space pressure that can be easily overlooked is the setup/rest time. Some games will require more reset time than others and this can be due to the sheer size of the room itself. Reset time can take even longer if your game has multiple spaces. How long this takes will impact how many teams you can host in an evening.
When thinking about how quickly you can get players through a booked session plan for the longest group. You cannot guarantee when players will win, but you can plan around the longest-possible scenario. When it comes to budgeting, hiring, and overall planning of your company take into consideration how long it takes to reset the room. Resting the room for new staff will take longer than experienced staff. Play testing will help you figure the details out.
A great place to talk to other escape room owners about any of these concerns is the Escape Game Enthusiast group on Facebook.xvii
Buying existing puzzles
Based on time and space pressure (or for entirely other reasons) you may want to consider buying existing puzzles for your room. This can drastically speedup the design process but does come with trade-offs.
Most places design their own rooms but the components within the rooms are becoming to get standardized. Experienced players are starting to notice that the same puzzles are being reused in multiple locations. This is because of the growing number of companies that sell readymade puzzles.
The puzzles range in complexity from paper-and-pencil based to more complex electronics. Those retailers may operate their own escape rooms and have refined their puzzles whereas others might just be manufacturers with no regard how you use the electronics. These companies are very useful because instead of learning how to wire up a bank vault or a RFID system they will just ship it to you. It is still up to you (or your designers) to make the electronics look good and connect it to your theme. If you are buying puzzles be sure the room designer knows how they all work so the designer can create an effective puzzle path.
Some companies even sell entire "rooms in a box" if you are looking for a relatively quick way to create and launch a game. These include all you need to get up and running with a simple escape room. They will send you the puzzles, instructions, and even a 3D visualization on how to set up the room. If this interests you, be sure to look at how they supply replacement parts and the build quality of the individual components.
To become a destination you want a unique theme which will draw people into your game. This means you want to make your place stand out by creating custom props and puzzles. For this reason alone, it is not a good idea to purchase a complete game in a box unless you are the only company offering escape rooms in your area. Another problem that arises from games in a box is that on travel websites you will not get a good rating because of the increased likelihood that players have experience the same (or very similar) room elsewhere.
They are useful for decreasing the setup time for a company and can provide the ability to bring in revenue quickly while building custom rooms. Another reason is that you can take the readymade game and use a it as a template for your own game. Find an existing game that is similar to what you want and just modify it, this is similar to what can be done in the video game world. With that in mind, look at how many Flappy Bird clones existed a week after it got popular.
Ultimately it is up to you if want to use the readymade puzzles or not.
Startup costs
At first glance making an escape room seems like an inexpensive project. The reality is different.
Speaking with owners of escape rooms I have discovered that nearly all of them underestimated how much capital expenditure was needed. The costs I have heard have ranged from the radically low $7,000 (according to Nate Martin of Puzzle Break)xviii for a few games to an upper level of $25,000 per room. The range is massive because of how and where people start their rooms. Some companies have a location that pretty much is a theme ready to go whereas others need to build the entire space and theme it.
When it comes to puzzle design, owners usually start their first room on their own and then fail to realize they need to hire puzzle design help. Once you complete your first room you should budget to hire a puzzle designer to take on subsequent rooms. You will be too busy doing everything else.
There are other labour costs, which can add up during the startup phase. One that seems to be overlooked with some frequency is an interior designer (or set designer) to make the room look and feel the way you want it to. By hiring a professional set designer you can be confident that your pieces in the room will survive and that players will feel more immersed. What you think a spaceship looks like may not be the same as what the general population thinks and a set designer can bridge that gap.
Be sure to have contingency funding and set aside even more money to cover unforeseen labour costs.
Be culturally sensitive
Video games, escape games, and every cultural artifact needs to be conscious of the time and place it is made and consumed. When making both your space and your games take into consideration your cultural context. You do not want to make it into the local media because of an ignorant faux pas or because you offended a particular group.
Review what you are making in its entirety. Check to make sure that you are being conscious of what the message of the theme is and the message of the puzzles themselves.
When you expand your games into new markets you will want to think about this again. Franchising partners need to also think about the material in the games that they are setting up.
A neat aspect of the escape room movement in these early years is that you can bring a new cultural element from one place to another. If you see a neat puzzle or challenge in one room you can improve on it in your area, just remember that cultural norms change. What works in some areas may fall flat in others.