If there’s something nearly everyone on the planet can agree on, it’s that nobody likes doing laundry. Plain and simple. Understanding this to be one of humanity’s pillars of existence, Samsung decided it would attempt to make this dreadful chore a bit more appealing by openingthe world’s very first gaming laundromat. Dubbed LANdry, this innovative new laundromat boasts high-speed internet access and top-of-the-line gaming PCs that visitors can enjoy only after they’ve begun washing a load of dirty laundry. If this doesn’t get people to clean their clothes, we don’t know what will.
With a pilot location set up in Sweden, Samsung’s flagship LANdry laundromat features the company’s new AddWash washing machine release just this week. Immediately upon entering the laundromat, customers are handed a Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone, which they then use a timer. As the customers load their dirty laundry, select the appropriate cycle, and subsequently wait (however impatiently) for the wash to finish, the timer begins keeping track of the duration of the wash. While waiting the roughly one hour for the clothes to be clean, they can then make use of the nearby gaming PCs.
“Teens spend less time on housework now than ever. We set up a unique laundromat, featuring the Galaxy S7 and AddWash washing machine, to see if we could make teenagers look at chores in a new way,” said Samsung.
As soon as the timer ends — i.e., the wash is done — the game turns off, regardless of where the player is in their particular mission, game, quest, etc. Samsung says it’s installed the machines to act in this way to make sure users don’t hog the machines and to urge them to unload and fold their laundry. While the company says this is merely a ploy to get teenagers interested in participating in everyday chores, it’s also a fairly solid marketing campaign for itself and its products — namely the Galaxy S7 and the new AddWash machines.
At the time of this writing, it is unknown whether or not Samsung plans on expanding the LANdry gaming laundromat outside of Sweden, though you can’t deny the potential popularity of such a business considering gaming’s global reach.
