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Comment by Noos | Hacker News Reader

There are these weird fad-based franchises that pop up often and slowly die over time. Edible Arrangements (fruit arranged like flowers), Froyo frozen yogurt shops, Curves for women fitness centers, and more. You can go to a medium to large size strip mall and see them.

My guess is that it's mostly advertising in franchise lifestyle places (like magazines) combined with the fact that it's selling a relatively low-cost service and works more by appointment than an open storefront. Sort of a cheap version of a business retreat or clown showing up at your birthday party.

Interestingly, a company as big as Square Enix has one, their "Trials of Bahamut" escape room in various cities.

Oh, and they aren't really new per se, it's just dinner mystery theatre without the dinner. Places have been doing that for decades.

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Not sure if "weird, fad-based franchise" is the correct term here. It's more of just a basic trend cycle in effect.

Froyo places are far from dead, it's just that after the initial uptrend with a place on every corner, it has solidified as a market of a few chain stores. I'm expecting the same to happen with escape rooms.

Also, not sure if low-cost is right either, escape rooms are usually around 30e per hour per person at least here where I am from.

and finally, your last sentence feels like a weird sort of "oh its just x but with y" handwaving that you could use on any sort of new activity.

If you've been to a mystery dinner theater, it's the same general principle, a group of people get together to solve a mystery. One is escaping a room, the other is questioning actors to solve a crime. It's just the escape rooms get rid of the actors and dinner parts and focus more on props.

As for low cost, I meant to start one. Service-based, low amount of employees, not much need for location if you focus on appointments, etc.

Just to clarify, “Trials of Bahamut” is produced by the Japan-based company SCRAP. Although they do a lot of original games, they also do a lot of collaborations with major franchises, including the Bahamut game (Final Fantasy) and the Zelda game from last year. (They’re also currently running a Pacific Rim game.)

They’re much smaller than Square Enix, but they’re the most popular escape game producer in Japan. And escape games are currently booming here, so they’ve managed to work with a lot of big franchises.

>My guess is that it's mostly advertising in franchise lifestyle places (like magazines) combined with the fact that it's selling a relatively low-cost service and works more by appointment than an open storefront. Sort of a cheap version of a business retreat or clown showing up at your birthday party.

well, you've gotta rent the building, so if you don't have it full all the time, that's a pretty hefty cost, at least around here. The days of $1/sqft industrial space are long gone

Sure, but _comparably_ less cost to the business of the building plus full time staff (like you would need in retail or dining).

The other more recent innovation is "roomless" escape rooms. Basically, they'll show up at your office or house with a trunk full of stuff, set it up let you work your way through it, collect a check and leave.

Edible Arrangements; ugh! I call them Botulism Bouquet. Let’s see how much surface area we can create with melons.

Is edible arrangements really a botulism risk? I would think E. coli if anything.

My understanding is that botulism needs an air-free environment to grow. Also, low acidity. Some fruit is quite acidic, and some fruit-fresh stuff is also acid. Probably quite low botulism risk.

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