Celebrating 20 years in business, AdVenture Games is expanding its immersive team-building experiences to help modern workplaces connect. Its new in-room SpyGame brings actors, clues and collaborative challenges into meeting spaces, while Whodunit Mystery turns networking into a shared problem-solving experience. With app-based games in development for 2027, founder Chad Michael remains focused on using play to help coworkers discover unexpected strengths, build relationships and create memorable experiences together.
PHOENIX, Oct. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Hybrid work is not going anywhere.Gallup's latest research found that 51% of remote-capable U.S. employees now work in hybrid roles, leaving companies to solve a familiar problem: how do you build a real team when coworkers mostly know one another from a tiny square on Zoom?
As AdVenture Games Inc. marks 20 years in business, the nationwide experiential company is reintroducing itself to the corporate world with a more interesting answer than another awkward icebreaker. Its immersive games turn coworkers into spies, detectives, competitors and collaborators, creating the kind of connection people cannot get from a calendar invite alone.
"It's wild to say 20 years, because when I started AdVenture Games, I really had no idea what it would become," says Chad Michael, CEO and founder of AdVenture Games. "I just knew I wanted to create experiences that got people out of their normal roles, interacting with each other, laughing, competing and actually connecting."
The company has grown from a relatively small operation into a nationwide producer of team-building experiences for companies including Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple and Johnson & Johnson. Its programs have evolved with the workplace, becoming more technologically sophisticated and more adaptable to the ways companies now gather, whether at resorts and conventions, in offices and ballrooms, or across a remote team.
For Michael, however, the premise remains remarkably simple: People understand one another differently when they have something unexpected to solve together.
"You can sit through a hundred presentations about teamwork, but put people into an unexpected challenge together and suddenly you see personalities emerge, walls come down and relationships form," Michael says. "Twenty years later, we're still creating those moments."
AdVenture Games is not in the business of standing at the front of a room and telling people how to become better teammates. It builds the conditions for that to happen in real time. A quiet employee may become the person who spots the essential clue. A colleague who rarely speaks in meetings may take charge when the clock starts running. The strongest moments often come from seeing familiar people in an entirely unfamiliar setting.
AdVenture Games experiences are designed around:
- Immersive stories. Teams become active participants in a spy mission, Whodunit mystery, race or creative challenge rather than spectators in a traditional corporate activity.
- Real collaboration. Puzzles, strategy and competition give people an immediate reason to communicate and make decisions together.
- Unexpected strengths. Participants often discover leadership, problem-solving and communication skills in coworkers they may not see during the workday.
- Flexible formats. Programs can be tailored for corporate meetings, conferences, resorts, offices, downtown settings and remote or hybrid teams.
- A shared memory. The aim is an experience people talk about after they return to the office, not one they politely forget by the next morning.
That flexibility is at the center of the next evolution of the company's signature SpyGame. Traditionally, the experience sent teams through a downtown district or resort property to complete missions, gather intelligence and interact with a cast of actors. Now, the company is bringing the world of SpyGame inside. In the new in-room format, a ballroom, conference room or meeting space becomes the mission. Teams interact with actors, clues and challenges without needing to leave the room, creating a fast-moving, live-action energy that can fit more easily into a meeting schedule and budget.
"Instead of seeing that as a limitation, we saw it as a creative challenge: How do we bring the entire world of SpyGame into the room?" Michael says. "It feels almost like stepping into a live-action game."
The company is also taking aim at another familiar corporate pain point: networking. Its Whodunit Mystery experience gives large groups a reason to approach one another beyond the usual exchange of introductions. Guests gather clues, question fellow participants and work together to solve a mystery, allowing conversation to develop around a shared objective rather than an awkward opening line.
"We think there's a better way," Michael says. "Suddenly, you're not walking up to a stranger asking, 'So, what do you do?' You're gathering clues, questioning people and trying to solve something together. The game becomes the social lubricant."
Looking ahead to 2027, AdVenture Games is developing app-based experiences that blend a physical setting with its original puzzle technology. A hotel, conference center, downtown district or office can become part of the game. But Michael is clear that technology is there to support the experience, not replace it.
"The phone is simply a tool," he says. "The real experience is still the people standing next to you."
For a company built on connection, the milestone is less about looking back than recognizing what has changed around it. The workplace may be more fragmented than it was 20 years ago, but the need to belong, play and feel part of something remains.
"Nobody needs another forgettable corporate activity," Michael says. "People want to feel connected. They want to laugh. They want stories they'll still be talking about when they get back to the office. That's the space AdVenture Games has lived in for 20 years, and we're just getting started."
For more information or to request a quote, visitadventuregamesinc.com or call 866-587-2125.
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SOURCE AdVenture Games
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