Room Escape Artist

I just played my 1,200th escape room. It’s taken me nearly 11 years.

Within the community of what I’ll call, “seriously committed escape room players,” I’m probably fifth from the top of the list amongst North American escape room players. I am not even close to the top the list globally; I have friends who have played north of 3,000 escape games.

To someone outside of the escape room community, or even casual players, these numbers can sound insane. So to celebrate my 1,200th game, I’m not going to reflect on the games, but the number itself.

“I’ve played a few games”

Anyone who has played with me in the past 9 years or so quickly learns that when owners or gamemasters ask me how many games I’ve played, my answer is usually, “I’ve played a few games.” If they press for the number I’ll give it to them. It’s not a state secret.

I started doing this because at every point in my escape room playing career, the number of games that I have played has always been what I can best describe as “far above what anyone expects.” When escape rooms were brand new, telling owners that I had played 50 sounded unreasonable. Back then, most people didn’t realize that there were even enough games to enable this.

So, “I’ve played a few games.”

“That’s a lot of games”

I hear this a lot (and have heard it at every number of games that I’ve played over the years). Usually people phrase it a lot less politely than, “that’s a lot of games,” if I’m being honest.

What’s interesting about this is that I tend to get this kind of response from people who spend an incredible amount of time (and money) doing things that I have no interest in.

So let’s look at that.

1,200 in Perspective

1,200 games over 11 years is an average of109 games per year. Most escape rooms take an hour (or in my case, often less) to play.

How does this stack up to other, more “normal” activities that people don’t bat an eye at?

Baseball

If you’re an avid baseball fan and watch every game in a season, that is 162 games annually. Those games run an average of 2 hours, 30 minutes (and with recent rules changes, these game times are down from an over 3 hour average).

Basketball

Are you a basketball fan? Your favorite NBA team is playing 82 games per season, with an average game length of 2 hours, 12 minutes.

Football (American)

Big football fan? RIP at least 16 Sundays (probably 20… you’ll watch the playoffs whether you’re team is in it or not). It doesn’t matter how long the games are; you’re not scheduling a damn thing on Sunday and you know it.

Screen Time

Watching TV, streaming video, and playing video games… I looked at a lot of sources for the average consumption of these things by Americans and the numbers are all over the place, but no matter what set of data I found those numbers are substantial.

And they don’t matter.

My Point

Look, I’m not telling you to shame people for how they spend their time. No one benefits from this behavior.

I’m suggesting that if a person gives you 💩 for your hobbies, ask about theirs. Learn about what excites them in the things that fill their time.

They may not extend the same courtesy to you, but the solution here is about understanding, not judgment. Sometimes that’s easier said than done.

Everyone who isn’t deeply embroiled in a battle to subsist fills their time with something. Life is hard. Hobbies and communities make it better. Escape rooms and the escape room community makes my life better.

It’s why everyone at Room Escape Artist is so thankful to the folks who financially support our work… even when a lot of people don’t get why we work so hard to play and promote this medium.

Special shout out to those who joined this month: Rachel Nowlin-Sohl, Rob Schultz, Deejed, David Behar, Glendon Vollmer, David Ryan, Blinton, Holly Berri, Vy Tran, and Brent Busboom

To those of you reading who have the means, we hope you’ll consider joining this wonderful group of supporters.

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