The very first escape rooms were tiny - the whole thing was mostly about solving puzzles for the sake of solving puzzles, so the decoration and amount of space available were not the deciding factors both for escape room companies and players. As time passed by, the industry evolved and the emphasis started to shift from puzzling to plot-centered games (or at least to a certain kind of balance). The latter forced the escape room owners to dedicate more space, use various secret passages, hidden rooms and other similar things to help unfold the story behind the gameplay experience, richening it with an additional layer of excitement.

This became especially true for horror escape rooms - the opportunity to save on decorations (at least to a certain degree) led to horror rooms starting the sizing arms race - quickly going all the way from 4 chambers to 7-10 on certain occasions (especially where the rent is cheaper than quality decoration service)

On the other hand, the desire to go big started to somehow limit the growth of the industry - small venues are obviously easier to find than the bigger ones. It was totally fine to locate escape rooms in some sort of "tricky-to-find" venues (with lower rent and no public flow of bypassers) while the industry was making it's first toddler's steps.

But once the growth continued - the majority of customers switched from devoted enthusiasts to casual players, who are not fixed on escape rooms and see them as one of the potential entertainment choices instead (alongside movies, bowling etc).

And while competing types of entertainment are often located on display; you don't expect the cinema to be located in some shady back alley (while it's still perfectly normal for escape room); the escape rooms stood behind until they started to invade the same environments as the competitors occupy in order to attract more casual customers.

Moving to the much more competitive (and more expensive for sure) environment came with its pros and cons - gigantic escape rooms are cost-prohibitive while maximizing the income per square feet ratio becomes crucial to escape room blossoming and successful operation.

And here come the escape cubes. And they really are the homerun for the industry at this point.

Escape cubes are extremely small-spaced escape rooms, which can be assembled/disassembled in a few hours. They provide full escape room experience (while having obvious limits of players in one group - usually up to 4), while occupying merely 100 sqr feet (9m2). They can be easily placed in shopping malls, saving tons of cash on space rental, while having much more profitable environment around them

Another significant advantage (when compared to common escape rooms) - they can be easily moved and do not put you on the hook if anything goes wrong with the space you rent. Common escape rooms (especially created by escape room owners, not professional suppliers) usually are not relocatable at all - most of the investment goes into walls (including decor, wiring, installed props etc), which you can't really take with you while leaving.

Escape cubes, on the opposite, have the whole thing easy to relocate, making sure your investment stays with you no matter what and is not tied to someone else's property. 2 hours for disassembly and you are on your way to another venue, which can be even in a different city - which can be especially beneficial for small markets, where some may be afraid to "run out of players".

Opportunity awaits. Pick yours and make sure you go hand to hand with the latest trends of escape room industry.