Highly educated players enter the industry to start a business, "Room Escape" is booming

  Call three or five friends, put on costumes, get props, and instantly travel through history or country in a well-designed "secret room". Use your ingenuity and teamwork to solve mysteries and escape from birth... in Beijing and Shanghai , Chengdu and other cities, the "room escape" game has gradually developed from a niche hobby to become the new favorite of young people in the offline leisure and entertainment industry.

  The "2019 Secret Room Industry Consumption Insight Report" released by Meituan-Dianping shows that since 2012, the domestic secret room industry has quietly risen, and has experienced an initial development stage focusing on puzzle solving and reasoning; technology and model optimization and upgrading, with immersive interaction The characteristic industrialization development stage; since 2018, it has entered a period of vigorous development. The broadcast of variety shows such as "Star Detective" and "Escape Room" has brought the secret room to the public view.

Seize the opportunity of industry development

  Chen Xiaoming, a young man born in Shanghai, graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University with a bachelor's degree in machinery and automation. After graduating in 2008, he was engaged in marketing for a Fortune 500 medical company. In a company team building activity, he found that everyone was very interested in the "Escape Room" gameplay, and thought it would be an industry worth investing in. "About 2012 and 2013, the secret room industry was still in the early stages of development, and the secret room was built. It's relatively simple, and the gameplay is limited to unlocking, guessing passwords, etc., but because the theme of the game is attractive, everyone has a strong curiosity and desire to explore."

  In 2014, Chen Xiaoming took the management of the secret room as a sideline, picked up his "old business", and was responsible for all his own site selection, construction, decoration, and theme design. Because of the high cost, long preparation time, and difficulty in starting a business, his secret room has not reached a breakeven after 10 months of opening. But out of interest, he persisted and quit the company's job to concentrate on secret room management.

  Today, "Qiwen" as a secret room brand is about to open its sixth store in Shanghai, and Beijing and Hangzhou stores are also opening one after another. The theme and agency design of the secret room are constantly being renovated. In Shanghai, themes such as "Hundred Years Magician", "Eternal Sinner", and "Measuring Jade" created by "Qi Wen" have attracted more and more players, including famous artists such as Yang Ying, Huang Jingyu, and Wang Jiaer. At the end of the recently hit variety show "The Escape Room Season 2", "The Unexpected Room" also appeared as a consultant.

  Chen Xiaoming told reporters that he has observed continuous changes in the offline leisure and entertainment mode of Shanghainese over the years, and businesses including secret rooms are now becoming popular. "Ten years ago, people went shopping mainly for shopping; about 5 to 10 years ago, the catering industry entered an'explosive period', various creative and exquisite dishes emerged, and the first choice for consumers to travel changed from shopping malls to restaurants. ; And now the purpose of consumption has changed again. Everyone wants to find interesting places first, and then look at what restaurants nearby."

  Chen Xiaoming analyzed that in the leisure and entertainment business, there are secret rooms, theaters, amusement parks, etc. offline, and e-sports, short videos, etc. online. The target of business competition is consumers' leisure time. "In large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the search for secret rooms on offline leisure and entertainment platforms is very high. Last year, the turnover of the national secret room industry increased by more than 60%, and there will be an upward trend in the future." He said that the secret room has gradually recovered from April this year. Since its opening, the turnover in July has reached about 90% of last year's, with very good results.

Technology and cultural creation are core competitiveness

  The secret room is characterized by "immersive experience". It has designed unique scenes and storylines. Some themes include actors playing NPCs (ie non-player characters), hoping to let players experience "Second Life".

  On the review software, the player "Grace Grace" wrote: "The story is based on the novel "Eugenie Grande", allowing the experiencer to interpret the 18th century feudal aristocracy and emerging from the perspective of a third party. The struggle of the bourgeoisie; the most famous mechanical device and the door that cannot be found in the "Anecdote" are indeed well-known. Here, the sound of the mechanical operation is more exciting than the sound of the "click" when the door of the secret room is opened. The door will appear in unexpected places."

  Another player "Flying Magic" commented: "I heard that the mechanical mechanism of "Hundred Years Magician" is very powerful. After experiencing it for myself, I feel that although the plot is relatively simple, there is no NPC god assist, but the mechanism is really Very powerful! The first time I encountered it, the whole room could sink in a split level."

  The "2019 China Secret Room Industry Consumer Insights Report" believes that in the industry, this kind of secret room that requires story plots, electromechanical technology, spatial structure technical support, and performance means has developed to the "head" position and has a certain degree of expertise. Barriers, late entrants are difficult to surpass in the short term.

  According to Chen Xiaoming, there are currently about 200 secret room brands in Shanghai, and the turnover of the secret room ranks first. The Xuhui store with 8 themes is the largest secret room in Shanghai, and new themes and plans are constantly being developed. Open new stores.

  Chen Xiaoming said that the core competitiveness of "Wonder" can be summarized as technology and cultural creation. Players are willing to spend more than 300 yuan to buy the experience, behind it is the high cost and a lot of effort invested by the merchants. In addition to his own design of the secret room, his team also includes engineers and set designers from Disney; performance training teachers from the Shanghai Theatre Academy; and a professional screenwriter team. "In order to allow consumers to better bring into the secret room theme, we constantly upgrade and iterate on atmosphere creation and make our own characteristics."

  With the continuous development of the secret room industry, many intermediate suppliers have appeared in the market, such as electronic instrument factories that make props, suppliers that provide decoration quality inspection services, and suppliers that produce content design, showing a complete industry chain. "For some small and medium-sized newly opened secret rooms, the industry threshold is not high; but the unique technology and cultural and creative content are also the pain points of the industry, and it is not easy to make it impossible to copy."

The market needs further exploration

  In Chen Xiaoming's view, there are three "expectable" points for the future development of the secret room industry. First, assuming the future development of artificial intelligence, people will have more and more time at their disposal after some labor positions are replaced; in contrast, the per capita working hours in developed countries, It can also prove that players may have more leisure time in the future. Second, the secret room industry is still embracing new technologies. Voice recognition, artificial intelligence, and 5G Internet of Things can all be applied to secret rooms. Third, there are still markets to be tapped in second- and third-tier cities, which can lead to consumption sinking.

  According to reports, there are currently two types of secret rooms. One is an immersive room with a unique theme with a unit price of more than 300 yuan. The market is relatively narrow, but it is very popular in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai; the other is the unit price is 100 yuan. Diversified, reproducible mechanical stores, suitable for chain replication. In the future, Qi Wen Secret Chamber plans to continue to open chain stores in cities such as Chengdu and Shenzhen.

  The concept of the secret room is constantly updated. For example, Chen Xiaoming cooperated with the Shanghai Children’s Health Foundation last year on the theme "21 Grams Photo Studio" and "Machine Mother" for children with congenital heart disease and children with autism, corresponding to the two fund pools of the foundation. Each player Donate 5 yuan from the ticket to support charity activities, which is very popular. The team is currently collaborating with the producers of "Flower Thousand Bones" to produce a secret room theme combined with film and television. It is planned to be launched in the second half of the year. In the future, it also plans to create an ancient costume fantasy series. Recently, the secret room of anecdote is cooperating with the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League to create a themed secret room that young people like.

  The "2019 Secret Room Industry Consumption Insight Report" shows that most of the secret room industry operators have higher education and high professional level. They themselves are the first batch of secret room players with careful thinking and adventurous. After resigning and starting a business, they brought new technologies, applications, and design concepts into the secret room industry and promoted the development of the industry. In the future, enhancing content output capabilities and cooperating with independent IP and local tourism projects are the subject of offline immersion that can be explored in the secret room industry.

  China Youth Daily · China Youth Daily reporter Wei Qimeng Source: China Youth Daily