Trappings of success
>Three of the founders of escape room operator Breakout talk about how their little empire started
times. Johnny needs to visualise the idea, and sometimes I might come up with something he did not imagine. So we need to draw it out so it is easier to see and get a better idea. There have been times when I thought he meant something, but actually he did not. Leo: Sometimes Ken will conceptualise something. Ong: I am really bad at drawing (laughs). Sometimes Ken draws or comes up with a good idea. So why not? Ee: We develop the storylines together.
What inspires the concepts? Ong: One thing about us is that we like to watch movies a lot, especially those made by Christopher Nolan. Ee: We like sci-fi films. Ong: I like stories that make you think after you watch them. A lot of times we would discuss a storyline, and change it to make it unique.
How different is the Breakout here compared to the ones abroad? Leo: It is the same, but we do some localisation in terms of languages. In Saudi Arabia we have to do some cultural adaptations. Ong: In Saudi Arabia they are quite sensitive to certain things like female portraits. So we have to remove those and do some [minor] changes.
How many Breakout rooms do your outlets have? Ong: We have 12. In Nu Sentral we have seven, in Avenue K we have five. In the outlets outside of Malaysia, we generally have four to five rooms. Ee: We have rooms of various sizes. When we first started in Avenue K we started out small and so the rooms are smaller.
We have bigger space in Nu Sentral and so the rooms are bigger. The rooms are roughly 200 to 250 sq ft.
When you came out with the idea for Breakout, did you ever imagine that it would sell? Ong: No. Our first intention , was to make some extra cash. But when we started on it, we put all our heart into it. Maybe that’s the reason why it worked. Leo: Most of our franchisees tried out our game rooms and liked them, and then approached us to open one in their country.
What is the demographic of people who regularly come to Breakout? Ong: We attract a lot of tourists. Our main demographic are people aged between 18 to 35.