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Google Built an Escape Room, Making People Use Its Apps To Get Out (adweek.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google France has built an escape room created by We Are Social, called "Premiere Piece," that will open in the heart of Paris. Adweek writes: "The campaign builds on the escape room trend, in which you and a bunch of friends pay to get locked in a room for an hour or two, left to solve puzzles and work in collaboration to find a way out. In 40 minutes, you must solve puzzles with help from apps like Search, Maps, Translate, Photos, Art and Culture and Cardboard, all of which are integrated into the gameplay. In Premiere Piece, visitors must help save a crew of digital artists locked in a workshop, so they can present their painstaking work at an art center in Paris. By working together, participants must unlock an object that completes their masterpiece." Google France was in the news recently for being raided by investigators for unpaid taxes.
Escape room games are opening all over Europe. Stay in a hotel or backpacker's that attracts foreigners, and among the brochures of local attractions you're like to find a leaflet advertising "[City X]'s best escape game!". But I can't help but suspect this is a fad that's not going to remain popular more than another year or two. Converting a space to an elaborate escape room must require significant investment. Are these places even going to stay open long enough to pay it back?