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Comment by gubby | Hacker News Reader

This article seems to be sponsored by Escape the Room, whatever that is, with its own ad-style paragraph.

"A less philanthropic but still debauchery-free experience can be had at Escape the Room, an interactive game site where as many as 10 people are shut in a room and have one hour to solve a puzzle..."

Could be an example of the pay-per-mention market (there was an article about this last week on HN)

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Escape rooms have become quite common and they're provided by many different actors. Given how many there are on Manhattan alone it's difficult to pinpoint exactly which one they mean. If this is advertisement, it's not money well spent.

What is the business structure, though? Are all "escape rooms" independent operations, or are they more of a franchise?

I was curious about the "Escape Room" phrase itself - it sounds like a brand, but I did an USPTO search for a trademark, and surprisingly, there's like a metric ton of ones matching ".* ESCAPE ROOM .*".

Completely independent rooms AFAIK. Have seen them in Brazil and here in Sweden, it's just a type of game, not a franchise... Much like a "haunted house" is a type of attraction and not a trademarked franchise-based business.

"Escape Room" is a type of business, like "Bowling Alley". There are franchises and there are independent operations, but the name itself is completely generic.

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

You should really come up with something credible before accusing the New York Times of corruption.

In addition to the flaws pointed out in sibling comments, I'd add that there is a difference between a NYT staff journalist, and a free contributor writing something for the likes of Mashable.

And even if NYT coverage could be bought, I doubt that "Escape the Room" could afford it.

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