Sure, and what I am trying to explain is that any marketing effort has to focus on the cards, and result in an uptick in sales to both pay for and justify an event. It dosen't matter how you brand it, at the end of the day, the success or failure of an event will be judged in packs sold. By making the focus on the casual community's actions, rather than the cards, you're moving away from why we're investing the circa 500k or whatever it costs to put on an event. These aren't being hosted for community entertainment, thats an ancillery goal to the primary purpose of adverising new product.
WOTC is not a fiduciary for communities expectations, and thats important to remember, as the community seems to continually think it is. Wotc's job first and foremost is to kick earnings up to hasbro, and if they can't do it by expanding product sales (probably due to competition from hearthstone) they need to do it by cutting overhead (slashing pro player payouts). And if they are losing market share (which I am guessing is the case) those problems are not going away, and should be accessed strategically before pulling the plug: because thats where the big money is for these card games.
I could see using an escape room as a tool to try to boost event attendance for more casual players, but it does nothing in terms of televised coverage that puts eyes on the product. The escape room, haunted houses, cosplay, all of these anime expo type side attractions, go towards issues of marketing the event, not the cards.
Meanwhile, the pro scene's entire existance is contingent on sufficient prize money in the pool to justify investing so much time and resources in the game. The payouts have historically been terrible, and they are loudly proclaiming that this recent cut is too much. We can't reasonably say its possible to go cheaper than we are at now and still have a pro scene. If anything we want-ideally-to expand payouts to attract a broader demographic, and make televised coverage more entertaining.
