Escape rooms grows into a unique immersive gaming industry.

SHENZHEN – Dressed in traditional Tang dynasty costumes, a Kung Fu master is captured by his enemies and you, one of his apprentices, decide to rescue him and take revenge. The mission starts on an ancient street. 

I am talking about one of the escape room games – the trendiest socializing and entertainment activity among the youth in China now, who think karaoke and partying are things of the past. 

Escape rooms have been around for quite some time, but I recently found they are mushrooming at a surprisingly high speed now, penetrating many traditional industries, such as tourism, retail and catering.  

During my recent trip to Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, the first recommended activity that popped up on my Meituan-Dianping app, a Chinese customer review app similar to Yelp, was such a game in one of the city’s most famous tourist site. 

A variant of escape rooms, the game has almost one hundred players each time, some of whom are non-player characters (NPCs), or planted actors. They dress in traditional Chinese costumes and play along in an intriguing story full of various tasks between well-preserved ancient alleys and streets. 

In a typical escape room game, a group of people would generally solve puzzles in a decorated room. But the one in Nanjing also involves tourism and substantially extends the scale of the game. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to enjoy the game there. So, when I returned to Shenzhen, I couldn’t help searching for similar games in my city. Luckily, there is indeed one, launched very recently in Shenzhen’s well-known theme park Splendid China Folk Village. 

Many large “escape rooms” are mushrooming in the tech hub, as well as many first-tier and even second- and third-tier cities such as Beijing, Chengdu and Changsha. 

Some venues sprawl over three to four floors, and the games could run as long as 12 hours. The entry fees range from about 200 yuan to as high as 700 yuan. Reservations for popular games on weekends need to be made about half a month to one month in advance. 

Escape rooms are attracting local youth and tourists as well. With some games running as long as two days, hotels can also have their share of business from it. 

Stage plays are also absorbing the new fashion. Mahua FunAge, one of China's most popular comedy troupes, has already put on shows where traditional rows of seats are changed to dining tables, turning the whole studio into a stage, and giving every audience a role to play. 

The theme of the new escape room variants is not limited to suspenseful stories, but also comedy and emotional drama. Some players have even adopted this to design their marriage proposals. These are not “escape rooms” anymore, rather a “real-life immersive game.”  

The thriving new industry also creates huge employment opportunities. Statistics from Meituan-Dianping show the estimated value of the escape room sector in China reached over 10 billion yuan ($1.49 billion) in 2019, double that of 2018. Meanwhile, the number of such game rooms surged about five times by 2019 compared with the number a year ago. 

The number must have boomed again in the past two years. According to my own research on the platform, there are at least hundreds of, if not more, various escape rooms in Shenzhen. 

A friend who is planning his own immersive game venue on about 600 square meters in the city said many acting major graduates are interested to apply for a job as NPCs, lighting engineers, background music specialists and directors, but play writers are in urgent demand. 

He told me that graduates with professional training can earn up to 17,000 yuan per month – almost equaling to or higher than those paid by some technology firms. As part of a chain brand, they have formed a matured career training and promotion path. He said their brand has opened 18 venues nationwide and hired more than 400 full-time staff. It also reflects the maturity of the industry and how ready it is to integrate with other traditional industries. 

One of the venues located at a shopping mall in Shenzhen inspires other mall operators to take the new business more seriously because it will become essential for each marketplace to attract consumers. 

Besides tourism, performing and retail industries, some pioneers of team-building service, catering and exhibition sectors are also exploring ways to jump on the bandwagon. It might well become an essential IP derivative for TV series, movies or video games in future. In the movie city of Hong Kong, maybe the emerging business could become a new drive for local tourism, retail and catering industries, based on the rich culture IPs from its movies and histories. 

Technologies, like 5G, augmented reality and virtual reality, could also have a role to play in order to provide more “immersive” experiences for players.  

Chai Hua joined China Daily as a reporter in 2013 and covers business news in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay area. Based in Shenzhen, she focuses on tech trends, innovative startups and Shenzhen-Hong Kong cooperation. She can be reached at grace@chinadailyhk.com .