By Vasily Petrenko
Creating a global franchise for an immersive technology company calls for not only having an innovative product but also standardization, data-driven processes, and scalable partnership management.
Franchising is now one of the most efficient tools for scaling immersive technologies companies internationally. However, entering multiple markets and growing beyond the borders of a single country means facing additional obstacles not related just to creating high-quality products. Drawing on the experience of building Another World VR into an international network, this article explores the systems, processes, and data-driven strategies that enable sustainable growth at scale.
Franchising is today one of the principal mechanisms for global scaling, particularly within the immersive technology segment. Franchise businesses worldwide generate trillions of dollars in revenue annually. According to WifiTalents analysts, the projected compound annual growth rate of the global franchising market through 2030 stands at 5.2%. The location-based entertainment market, encompassing theme parks, family entertainment centres, and museums, is growing even faster, at up to 15% per year.
Our own project has followed the same model. It began with escape rooms. Then came Free Roam VR technology, which enabled users to move freely across a venue without wires. Our entry into this market in 2018 was a direct response to the technical shortcomings of existing VR: insufficient innovation, poor quality, and a lack of freedom for the user. We also managed to deliver our solution at approximately one-tenth the cost of comparable offerings at the time. This immediately expanded the addressable market, making the format accessible to a far greater number of entrepreneurs. Demand exceeded our expectations. Partners began treating the VR segment not as a supplementary offering but as a standalone business, and started requesting arena launches in their own cities.
At that point, I made the decision to scale through franchising. We began systematically refining the product — increasing player capacity, expanding our scenario library — while simultaneously building out the supporting infrastructure: from design and branding to CRM and marketing. Over time, this enabled the transition from individual projects to a scalable system. Today, the Another World network comprises more than 300 arenas across multiple countries, and franchising has been the foundation of that growth.
Making a Franchise Replicable
One of the central challenges in scaling is building a model that works across different countries. Markets vary in mentality, language, and consumer behavior, as well as in regulatory environment, technological maturity, and purchasing power — all of which affect how a product is perceived.
Standardisation must begin with the elements that shape the user experience: the visual identity of each location, architectural decisions, and the scripts governing how staff interact with guests. In the early stages, we observed that partners interpreted even basic elements differently — from the design of the entrance area to the service format. As a result, some venues delivered strong results while others performed noticeably worse. This drove us to develop unified standards documenting every process in detail, from construction to marketing.
At the same time, local specificity cannot be ignored entirely. Marketing, visual language, and communication all require adaptation. We translate and rework content for each country, gather partner feedback, and analyse user behavior. This data not only informs local adjustments but also drives broader product improvement.
Flexibility in the model is equally important. In practice, it is unrealistic to expect every partner in every country to find an identical venue or operate under identical conditions. The product must therefore adapt to available space and project economics: varying arena formats, scalable floor plans, and a range of available scenarios. This is what sustains performance across diverse markets.
Managing Partner Relationships
Partners play a central role in scaling. Our approach to working with them has evolved considerably: where we once processed a high volume of inbound applications, we have since become more selective. Today, we primarily seek partners who are prepared to engage deeply with day-to-day operations and to build the business alongside us.
There is a widespread misconception that a franchise represents passive income. In practice, it is a fully-fledged business requiring genuine commitment — building processes, managing a team, and actively shaping the customer experience.
A lack of prior entrepreneurial experience, however, is not disqualifying. What matters is that the franchisor has a robust system of training and support in place. We accompany our partners through every stage, from launch to ongoing operational management. Over the years, we have built a comprehensive knowledge base covering all key processes.
Dedicated internal teams work with franchisees at each stage of the journey: an opening team supports venue launch, a development team helps improve operational performance, and a support team handles ongoing technical and organisational issues. We also cultivate horizontal connections within the network, enabling partners to share experience and arrive at solutions more quickly.
Coordinating Venue Operations
When you have dozens — let alone hundreds — of venues across different countries, manual oversight becomes impossible. The entire system must be digitised. We arrived early at the conviction that every business process needs to be expressed in data: from marketing and sales to user behavior within the games themselves.
We view the business through the lens of data. For every advertising channel, we track not only spend but the entire customer journey: how many leads were generated, how many converted into bookings, how many returned, and what reviews they left. The same applies to the product: we collect gameplay statistics, analyse which mechanics resonate with users in different countries, and use those insights to drive content decisions.
To support this, we have built a comprehensive digital infrastructure: separate CRM systems for partner management and for venue-level client relationships, booking systems, and knowledge bases consolidating all information on venue launch and management. Every process — from opening to daily operations — is documented and accessible online.
What matters, however, is not the specific set of tools but the underlying approach. Without a system of measurement and analytics, you are effectively running a business blind. You may get it right once, but scaling that result is impossible. Our operating principle is simple: if a process cannot be measured, it cannot be managed. This is precisely what allows us to coordinate a large network without sacrificing quality.
Outlook
I believe, the future of franchising in immersive technologies will be determined by product quality. But building one strong game is not enough. What matters is understanding how it functions within a real business model and how well it resonates with a specific audience. We have been through this ourselves: what seems like a strong solution internally does not always land with users. Product development, therefore, inevitably becomes a data-driven process, where decisions are grounded in customer behavior rather than internal assumptions.
In the immersive industry, the product is not only the game itself but the entire model around it: player count, interaction format, and use-case scenarios. We started with a small-group format, for instance, but quickly recognised that this was insufficient to sustain healthy venue economics. As a result, the product evolves alongside the business model becoming more scalable and more versatile.
Ongoing analysis of behavioral and operational data helps us not only improve the user experience but also fine-tune the business model for different audiences. When developing new scenarios, for example, we factor in not only the creative concept but also its impact on venue economics: capacity utilisation, return visit rates, and average transaction value. This approach minimises risk and produces solutions that scale at a global level.
We are also working to expand the social dimension of the user experience. We were among the first to introduce game scenarios accommodating groups of up to 20 players simultaneously in free-roam format — a development that materially improved venue economics and broadened the audience. In parallel, we are developing the concept of connecting venues across different cities and countries into a unified game environment. We are currently piloting tournaments in the United States in which teams from different cities compete within a shared virtual space. This lays the groundwork for global competitive and social formats, and opens new possibilities for scaling the product beyond individual venues.
The technology already exists to connect venues across cities and countries into a single gaming environment. I see significant potential in formats where users can interact regardless of geography, competing in tournaments, playing in teams, and forming a durable community around the product.
Ultimately, franchising in this sector will advance not so much through an increase in the number of locations as through a deepening of the product itself and the integration of venues into a unified ecosystem. That is what will make it possible to scale not merely a business, but a complete user experience at a genuinely global level.
Vasily Petrenko
