It’s time to book another escape game, but how to decide which adventure to choose with so many options these days? Certainly, the theme is always worth a look. Is it unique and original, or is it something that’s been done many times before?
Sometimes, though, a game’s story alone isn’t enough to make the decision. But a little preview peek? Well that will always do the trick!
They say “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but it’s perhaps much more accurate that “a picture is worth a thousand referrals.”
So then, why is it that not every escape game venue shares pictures of their experiences? The most common answer is probably also the most surprising. Some venues think you don’t want to see it.
When the escape game industry burst onto the scene more than a decade ago, it was shrouded in secrecy by design. Every little piece of a game was thought of as (we’ll pause here for gasps) a spoiler. “We can’t give that away! It will ruin the guest experience,” many venues believed. Overtime, it became a bit more apparent that there was a certain degree of industry-wide over-reacting afoot.
Certainly no guest wants to see a spoiler before paying to play a game; that goes without saying. It’s also not what this article is about. The best advice is to not think of it in that context, but rather as a preview.
What cinematic release isn’t precluded by months of different coming attraction trailers? Do those trailers not show (we’ll pause again for gasps) actual footage from the yet-to-be-released movie itself? Has that ever stopped would-be theater-goers from purchasing a ticket once the film premiers? Of course not.
Simply put, those previews sell the movie tickets. (Well, as long as each trailer presents a compelling, visually appealing production.) Nobody wants to know the ending of a film before watching it, but just the same they’re exponentially less likely to buy that theater ticket without at least getting a taste to make sure it’s something they’ll enjoy.
Hollywood has trusted movie trailers to tease what’s to come for more than a century – and when comparing the budgets for a major motion picture to that of an escape game, they have a heck of a lot more to lose. Why, then, is it so difficult for many escape game venues to do the same?
Perhaps they’re stubborn. Perhaps they’re trapped in an older way of doing things. Perhaps they fear that if they show the build quality of their room, people would be even less likely to want to pay for it. But here’s the thing: while the latter is a whole other topic brought about by a lack of craftsmanship, there’s plenty of venues out there with great looking scenic who still hide it from the eyes of their prospective customers.
If a venue has something to be proud of, they should show it to the world. It’s going drive profits long-term.
To be clear, no one is suggesting that a venue show anything that could be even remotely considered a puzzle spoiler in a game’s photos. Don’t show any solved puzzles. Never show anything that displays a correct code. But everything else? All the time, effort and money spent on building great game scenic, the intricate world-building to make an experience authentically immersive – pictures of that literally become the movie trailer of coming attractions that gets an entire theater buzzing.
Share wide view images framed to showcase the game’s spaces in its best light. Avoid ultra close-up, zoomed in photos of props; they tend to give the impression a venue might be purposefully hiding something for the wrong reasons. Spotlight everything that makes a game unique, and let the space do the real work of selling tickets on its own.
Escape Authority often takes our own in-room photos when visiting to review a game. It goes without saying that this is always done with prior arranged approval from the venue’s owner or management. What might come as a surprise, though, is that behind the scenes, we as a team have very stringent rules we follow for how to take those pictures.
In an official capacity, we take photos the moment a door within the game is first opened – be it to enter at the beginning or for any subsequent room unlocked throughout the course of the experience. What results is a guarantee that any picture we take is always spoiler-free. Nothing in any room has been touched, and remains in its fully reset state. No keys, codes or solved puzzles are anywhere to be found. To a reader, there is no way to infer what is about to happen. It’s the movie trailer equivalent of an escape game preview.
Of course, some games have jaw-dropping surprise reveals or unexpected finales. In those instances, we discuss with the venue in advance how they’d be most comfortable to proceed. If it verges too far over the line of being perceived as a potential spoiler, we won’t show it – but make no mistake, that should in no way to become the justification to show almost nothing at all.
Since we’ve ventured a bit further behind the proverbial curtain of our internal site policies than would typically be shared, we’ll offer another topical statistic that, for some, might be eye-opening. Since our site’s launch more than a decade ago, Escape Authority has had a standing policy to never reach out to venues to arrange review visits for any game that does not have photos publicly posted.
Allow us to repeat that one more time for emphasis: we will not visit a venue that does not show pictures of their games. It should come as no surprise that many paying guests rightfully take an identical stance.
What, to a venue, might be viewed as ‘keeping the secret‘ can quickly be perceived by a guest as ‘having something to hide.’ Especially today, when many venues across the industry do share press pics of all of their games, it’s a very short distance to connect the dots to the assumption of “this game must look really bad if they’re afraid to show it.” Are they assumptions? Yes, although in many instances they’re ones drawn fairly. But just the same, the unfortunate truth of life is that perception is reality.
The industry has changed a great deal over the past decade, and a lot of it has indeed been for the better. Official game photos are much more common, but we as players still need to do our part to make their value known. Some venues have embraced this point of view even further. For example, The Escape Game – a national chain with more than sixty different locations – not only shares official game images, but encourages their guests to take all the photos they’d like while playing. No one thinks twice about taking pictures during a theme park visit; why not at their local escape venue too?
Those guest photos go on to become a much more impactful form of marketing than any paid ad a venue could place. Those guest photos get shared organically, impartially, and gain viral attention among friend groups. Those guest photos sell tickets for the venue that allowed them.
So, as the kids say,
“pics or it didn’t happen.”
(Does anyone know if the kids still say that?)
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