Between fan and player

ABSTRACT

Branded escape rooms reveal points of tension between fan engagement and authorized content creation. Escape rooms are live-action puzzle games in which groups of participants are locked in a room and surrounded by puzzles and clues. Since at least 2017, a number of escape rooms function as franchise-branded experiences. In this paper, I highlight two such experiences, Doctor Who: Worlds Collide and Sherlock: The Game Is Now. Branded escape rooms function as sites of multiple overlapping connections between media tourism and ludic fandom, where the brand harnesses fan engagement. Playing the game allows the fan to feel closer to the text, but precludes fan transformational work, linking escape rooms to authorized tourist experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Cult media
• fandom
• game
• escape room
• doctor who
• sherlock
• media tourism
• branding
• licensing

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Dusty Goltz for the discussion of theater and to the anonymous reviewers for the helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As I point out below, such fannish behaviors include: a focused attention on semantic details, invoking a history of the media text, role-play as characters within a story, and/or identification with characters. All these fannish behaviors affirm a more affirmational reading of the media text (obsession_inc, 2009).

2. However, as I point out in the conclusion, more work needs to be done to demonstrate how fans might engage escape rooms in more transformative ways.

3. For example, to enter the World’s Collide room, participants are literally hailed by the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), as the employee guiding visitors into the room is called on their mobile phone by a recording of the Doctor instructing the group to defeat the Cybermen.

4. www.trappedpuzzlerooms.com/very-potter/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Booth

Paul Booth is a Professor in Communication and DePaul University.