Professor Game Podcast

Rob Alvarez
  • 5.0 (91)
  • Management
  • Updated Weekly

#1 Gamification Podcast | Insights and Real-World Strategies to Boost Engagement, Loyalty & Retention. Professor Game helps innovators, product leaders, and educators use gamification and game thinking to create engagement that lasts. 🎙️ Hosted by Rob Alvarez — TEDx Speaker, consultant, and host of the #1 Gamification Podcast — each week brings you practical insights, case studies, and frameworks from 400+ global experts and proven real-world examples. Expect interviews with top practitioners in gamification, game design, and behavioral strategy, plus solo episodes where Rob breaks down practical frameworks you can apply in your team, classroom, or product. Join the movement to make engagement, motivation, and loyalty truly meaningful — with stories and strategies that transform the way people learn, work, and play. 💡 Listen. Learn. Apply Play to Your Strategy.

  1. 1d ago

    The Same Bonus Can Motivate Your Team, or Wreck It

    Real cases pulled apart through the Octalysis Core Drives, sent to your inbox over a few days. Get the free guide: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Rob breaks down why the same reward can pull a team forward or quietly wreck it, using three cases where the design decided the outcome. He walks through a school in Caracas where escalating fines for late pickups made lateness worse, the sales bonus patterns that produce burnout and sandbagging, and The Octalysis Group's project with Procter & Gamble's distributor Navo Orbico, where a gamified ship upgrade tightened the feedback loop instead of paying for the sale. Along the way he separates two mechanisms that often get treated as one: a fine turning a moral obligation into a price, and the over-justification effect crowding out intrinsic motivation on the reward side. Listeners learn how to match the reward to the job it actually has to do, and when to hand off to something more durable. About the Host Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Key Takeaways A school in Caracas replaced the moral weight of collecting your child on time with an escalating fine, and lateness went up instead of down. Core Drive 5 (Social Influence and Relatedness) stopped doing its job the moment the delay carried a price. Gneezy and Rustichini's study "A Fine is a Price" documents the same reversal in day-care centers: a monetary fine for late pickups increased late pickups, and removing the fine did not bring them back down. A standing sales commission with nothing behind it pays for the behavior forever. Reps chase the next check to make ends meet, and with no other motivation in the system, the commission burns them out rather than building anything durable. Capped bonuses fail in two directions. Targets set too high get read as unreachable, so reps stop trying, and reachable targets get sandbagged, with closed-ready deals held into the next cycle so the company waits on revenue it wanted today. In The Octalysis Group's project with Procter & Gamble's distributor Navo Orbico, ship upgrades inside Masters of the Endless Seas cut the roughly week-long CRM lag on seeing whether a sale landed, tightening the Core Drive 2 (Development and Accomplishment) loop instead of paying for the sale. Rob was not on the project team and saw it presented at Brighton. Nearly every reward failure is one of two mistakes: treating the get-them-through-the-door reward as the whole engine, or bolting an extrinsic reward onto behavior that already had an intrinsic reason, which is where the over-justification effect crowds that reason out. Topics Covered 0:00 — The reward is a tool, not a motivator 1:56 — The Caracas school that fined late parents 2:45 — How a fine replaced a moral obligation 4:07 — A Fine is a Price, Gneezy and Rustichini 4:44 — When rewards do an honest job 6:07 — Standing commissions and sales rep burnout 7:07 — Bonus targets set too high to chase 8:06 — Hitting the number, then sandbagging deals 8:52 — The over-justification effect in action 9:27 — P&G's Masters of the Endless Seas 11:15 — Why the ship worked when the bonus failed 12:20 — Choosing the reward that fits the job Mentioned in This Episode Core Drives in the Wild, the free guide with real cases analyzed through the Octalysis Core Drives Episode 453: Why Users Agree But Never Start, where Rob covers the Procter & Gamble project in full "A Fine is a Price" by Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini, Journal of Legal Studies, 2000 The Octalysis Group, and its project with Procter & Gamble's distributor Navo Orbico Masters of the Endless Seas, the gamified world built for the Procter & Gamble sales rep network The over-justification effect, and Core Drives 1, 2, 3, and 5 of the Octalysis Framework Free Resources and Get in Touch Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Free Guide Get Daily Value on Your Email Let's chat about your gamification project YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Start Your Community on Skool for Free Ask a question

    The Same Bonus Can Motivate Your Team, or Wreck It

  2. 1d ago ·  Bonus

    You Might Also Like: Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness

    Introducing The Internet Doesn't Have to Make You Miserable w/ Eric Sedeño from Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness. Follow the show: Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness Better Babes, we’re bringing the levity back! JVN sits down with comedic genius Eric Sedeño (host of Wild Wild Web, star of Tan’s Honorable Gays) to talk all things internet. From the TikTok trends that live rent-free in our brains to the cringiest posts we wish we could delete. Eric opens up about leaving his career as an art director to become a full-time content creator, the friendship that helped him take the leap, and why he leans into joy instead of doom-scrolling despair. Plus: Housewives rankings, cruise ship horror stories, Margaret Cho nostalgia, and a real conversation about self-compassion, fear, and putting yourself out there online. This week, JVN and Eric are getting better at output over input.  Wanna see JVN on stage? Get tix to the Hot & Healed Comedy Tour here.  Full Video Episodes now available on YouTube.  Follow Eric Sedeño on Instagram @ricotaquito Follow us on Instagram @gettingbetterwithjvn Follow Jonathan on Instagram @jvn Executive  Producer, Chris McClure Producer, Editor & Engineer is Nathanael McClure Production support from: Chad Hall Our theme music is also composed by Nathanael McClure. Curious about bringing your brand to life on the show? Email podcastadsales@sonymusic.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices DISCLAIMER: Please note, this is an independent podcast episode not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in conjunction with the host podcast feed or any of its media entities. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the creators and guests. For any concerns, please reach out to team@podroll.fm.

    You Might Also Like: Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness

  3. Jul 20

    Driving Ranges Are Replacing Bowling Alleys (Here's Why)

    Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Frédéric Guitton, who leads sales and marketing at iTargetGolf after a career across banking, startups, financial services, and investment firms, explains how driving ranges are turning dead space into an interactive, gamified experience. He walks through the company's product line, including the iTarget Night Saber target that connects to Toptracer, Inrange, and Trackman through an API, the in-bay lights that fire when a player hits their target, and the new Cash Cup Golf hole-in-one contest played with RFID balls. Guitton lays out the three levers a driving range has for revenue, why post-COVID golf growth came from entertainment rather than traditional rounds, and how instant feedback keeps a player buying one more bucket. Listeners come away with a working model of physical gamification and a reminder that designing around real human behavior beats asking people to behave better. About the Host Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Key Takeaways A driving range has only three levers for revenue, according to Frédéric Guitton: sell more balls, sell more food and beverage, or sell the balls for more money. Every engagement decision at iTargetGolf traces back to one of those three. iTargetGolf's first targets were powder-coated metal and looked great, but ball picker staff bumped them and metal does not give, so it bent or broke permanently. The replacement is cut from utility sewer pipe and survives 400 to 500 pounds driving over it. Post-COVID golf growth came from entertainment, not from more rounds on traditional courses. Guitton describes the driving range starting to replace the bowling alley as the family night out, which brings in an audience that never came to practice. The iTarget Night Saber target connects through an API to Toptracer, Inrange, and Trackman ball tracking, so a landed ball triggers an animation within seconds. That instant feedback is Core Drive 2 (Development and Accomplishment) delivered in the physical world. Choosing low voltage over high voltage took permitting out of the install path. A California range that signed in mid-June started its install roughly four weeks later, which turned an infrastructure decision into a sales advantage. Guitton frames the B2B2C tension plainly: the range's success drives iTargetGolf's success, so the company treats itself as a consequence of its customers' results rather than a driver of them. Topics Covered 0:00 — Opening and introduction 2:17 — Inside a week at iTargetGolf 3:25 — Favorite fail: metal targets that bend 6:34 — Sewer pipes and the strike point redesign 9:01 — The four products iTargetGolf builds 11:31 — How a general contractor started the company 14:58 — Golf as entertainment after COVID 15:57 — Three ways a driving range makes money 17:46 — Making it fun and creating new golfers 19:35 — Best practices: listen and stay locked in 22:45 — Football intelligence and instant feedback 27:47 — Outliers, favorite games, and goodbyes Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD About Frédéric Guitton Frédéric Guitton leads the sales and marketing strategy at iTargetGolf, where he is helping redefine the driving range experience through interactive down-range technology. He relocated from France to Central Florida in 1996 and built a career in banking before expanding into startups, financial services, and investment firms, developing experience across business strategy, operations, sales, marketing, and executive leadership. At iTargetGolf he works on a product line that combines interactive illuminated targets, skill-based cash prize games, and integrated ball-tracking technology to increase player engagement and open new revenue for golf facilities. His current focus is building scalable systems, strengthening customer relationships, expanding strategic partnerships, and positioning the company in the evolution of golf entertainment technology. Find the Guest Online Website: itargetgolf.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/fguitton Instagram: @itarget_golf TikTok: @itarget_golf Facebook: iTargetGolf on Facebook Mentioned in This Episode Some links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Recommended book: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Proposed guest: Scott Armstrong, involved with TGL, the indoor golf competition on ESPN Ball tracking platforms iTargetGolf integrates with: Toptracer, Inrange, Trackman Topgolf, referenced as the far end of the golf entertainment spectrum iTargetGolf products discussed: iTarget Night Saber, iTarget Strike Point, in-bay lights, and Cash Cup Golf Favorite game to watch: volleyball. Favorite sport to play: cycling. Free Resources and Get in Touch Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Free Guide Get Daily Value on Your Email Let's chat about your gamification project YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Start Your Community on Skool for Free Ask a question

    Driving Ranges Are Replacing Bowling Alleys (Here's Why)

  4. Jul 13

    The Reason Your Users Agree But Never Start

    Want a sharper read on motivation design? Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, real cases decoded through this exact framework, one short email a day: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Rob argues that Black Hat motivation, the urgency and scarcity most designers treat as the villain, is the on-ramp that gets people to act at all. He breaks down the Octalysis Group's award-winning project with Procter & Gamble's distributor Navo Orbico, which reached 99.5% voluntary participation on a non-compulsory rollout and a 28.6% revenue increase by starting with pressure and handing off to meaning. Drawing on Ocean Hero as the rare frictionless exception, he shows why White Hat drives like Epic Meaning seldom start action on their own. Listeners learn the Black-Hat-to-White-Hat handoff and two diagnostic questions to test whether their own system can make the switch. About the Host Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Key Takeaways The Octalysis Group's project with Procter & Gamble reached 99.5% voluntary participation on a non-compulsory rollout and a 28.6% revenue increase, evidence that Black Hat urgency and White Hat meaning work in sequence, not opposition. In the Octalysis framework, Black Hat and White Hat motivation are not good and evil. Black Hat (urgency, scarcity, pressure) gets people to act now; White Hat (meaning, empowerment) makes them glad they stayed. Relying only on grand meaning and Core Drive 3 (Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback) tends to produce a "someday," which in practice means never, because wanting to act is rarely a strong enough forcing function to overcome friction. The P&G rollout launched using Core Drive 5 (Social Influence and Relatedness) as pressure: getting into the system meant tracking down colleagues for an access code, which sparked FOMO (Core Drive 8) and curiosity (Core Drive 7) rather than belief in a grand vision. After the on-ramp, the system handed off to White Hat: reps became captains of trading ships, territories became open seas, and clients became colonies, activating Core Drive 1 (Epic Meaning) and Core Drive 2 (Development and Accomplishment). Ocean Hero is the rare case where White Hat alone starts action, because switching a search engine is one click of near-zero friction, so Core Drive 1 can carry the behavior with no urgency at all. Topics Covered 0:00 — Opening hook: why products stall 1:14 — The P&G result: 99.5% voluntary 3:05 — Black Hat and White Hat serve different moments 4:53 — The frictionless exception: Ocean Hero 6:07 — Inside the P&G rollout 7:30 — The handoff: reps become ship captains 9:16 — When Black Hat never matures into more 10:09 — Two diagnostic questions for your system 11:27 — What a mistimed handoff looks like 12:06 — Black Hat starts, White Hat sustains Mentioned in This Episode The Octalysis Group case study with Procter & Gamble's distributor Navo Orbico (Gamification Project of the Year, first presented in Brighton): 99.5% voluntary participation, 28.6% revenue increase Ocean Hero, the search engine whose revenue funds clearing plastic from the oceans (a project supported by The Octalysis Group) The Octalysis framework: Black Hat and White Hat motivation, and Core Drives 1 through 8 Episode 446, the airline miles loyalty teardown Episode 450, Amazon's internal AI leaderboard Free Resources and Get in Touch Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Free Guide Get Daily Value on Your Email Let's chat about your gamification project YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Start Your Community on Skool for Free Ask a question

    The Reason Your Users Agree But Never Start

  5. Jul 6

    Why "More Effort" is Ruining Your Team (And How to Fix It)

    Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Michael Lukich, a marketing analytics leader with more than 20 years across consulting, data, and strategy, explains why the fix for a struggling team is almost never more effort. He walks through the closed-loop trap he built early in his management career, the systems thinking tools he now uses to find leverage points, and why over-measuring single marketing channels quietly starves the top of the funnel. Drawing on the Cabreras' DSRP model, Donella Meadows, and nearly 25 years at the poker table, he shows how to see a whole system instead of optimizing one piece to the detriment of the goal. Listeners come away with a practical way to map any system, pick a single North Star metric, and design loops that let a team improve on its own. About the Host Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Key Takeaways Michael Lukich's early management trap was a closed loop with no exit: he could not step away until the team improved, and the team could not improve until he stepped away, which pushed him to 75-hour weeks before he redesigned the loop instead of adding effort. Accepting work at roughly 70 percent of his own output, paired with a tighter review cadence, let his team feel the consequences of their own decisions and turned him from a micromanager into a player coach. The "if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist" credo pushes budget toward easily measured lower-funnel channels and leaves the top of the funnel leaky, because no one can defend upper-funnel spend in a boardroom. The fix is whole-system measurement through multi-channel attribution and mixed models, not more measurement. Zynga over-relied on data and stacked Black Hat Core Drives that drive urgency and scarcity, a reminder that an A/B test measures one week, not how a feature performs as a system over two years. Derek and Laura Cabrera's DSRP model (Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, Perspectives) gives a four-part way to map almost any system, then find the bottleneck where one move has the biggest outsized effect. Poker trains decision-making under uncertainty and incomplete information, including the faulty learning loop where playing well can still lose and playing poorly can still win, which is why Michael says half the frameworks in his book started at the poker table. Topics Covered 0:00 — The loop you cannot escape 0:20 — Meet Michael Lukich: data, teaching, poker 2:41 — Designing your own life as a system 5:46 — Promoted into a trap with no exit 11:14 — The marketing measurement trap 13:53 — Frankenstein products, Zynga, and Black Hat 17:34 — A practical system: pick one metric 18:56 — Mapping systems with DSRP 22:23 — The strategy dashboard and the North Star 24:07 — James Clear, Ryan Holiday, and one book 26:54 — Translation and poker as the perfect game 30:25 — Where to find Michael and closing advice Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD About Michael Lukich Michael Lukich is a marketing analytics leader with more than 20 years across consulting, data, and business strategy, currently running marketing analytics for a major US marketing agency. He spent five years as an adjunct professor and has played poker for nearly 25 years, two habits that shaped how he thinks about teaching and making decisions under uncertainty. He writes the Stoic Systems Thinker newsletter, where ancient Stoic philosophy meets modern systems thinking, and is the author of the book of the same name. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife and two daughters. Find Michael Lukich Online The Stoic Systems Thinker (website and newsletter) LinkedIn The Stoic Systems Thinker on Substack Mentioned in This Episode Some links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows James Clear and Atomic Habits Ryan Holiday Poker The Stoic Systems Thinker by Michael Lukich Derek and Laura Cabrera's DSRP model (Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, Perspectives) Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Zynga The Octalysis Framework and Black Hat Core Drives Kaizen and Kaikaku (continuous improvement versus radical change) Free Resources and Get in Touch Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Free Guide Get Daily Value on Your Email Let's chat about your gamification project YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Start Your Community on Skool for Free Ask a question

    Why "More Effort" is Ruining Your Team (And How to Fix It)

  6. Jun 29

    Why Driven People Can't Take a Real Vacation

    Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products, with one real-world example in your inbox each day: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Rob breaks down why disconnecting on vacation is so hard for driven people, and why it is a motivation problem rather than a willpower one. He maps the specific Octalysis Core Drives that keep high achievers tied to work during a break, including Core Drive 2 (progress addiction), Core Drive 8 (FOMO and Black Hat urgency), and Core Drive 1 (the mission needs me trap). Drawing on his own routine of leaving the phone at the apartment near the beach, he shows how to name each drive and switch off its trigger before the break starts. Listeners learn a pre-break diagnostic and how to design time off the same way they would design a user's exit from an engagement loop. About the Host Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Key Takeaways Driven people stay tied to work on vacation because their Core Drives keep firing in the background. This is a motivation issue, which is why pure willpower so often fails to deliver real rest. Core Drive 2 (Development and Accomplishment) shows up as progress addiction. With no momentum at work, a break can feel like your progress is being trumped, which pulls you back to the phone to make something move. Core Drive 8 (Loss and Avoidance) is Black Hat motivation built on FOMO. The fear that something breaks, or that everyone else is still shipping, creates urgency and pushes you to check in even when nothing is wrong. Core Drive 1 (Epic Meaning and Calling), the sense that the mission needs you, is the noble sounding trap. It can justify sacrificing rest you have earned, so naming it is what lets you stop it from firing back. The fix is to design your break the way you would design a user's exit from an engagement loop: kill the notifications, remove the triggers (Rob leaves his phone at the apartment), and push yourself out instead of staying half in. A real emergency that truly needs you is rare, roughly 0.1 percent of the time. Plan ahead, brief your team on what actually counts as an emergency, and trust them to handle the other 99.9 percent without you. Topics Covered [0:00] Why driven brains can't switch off [0:49] Disconnecting is a motivation problem [1:21] Core Drive 2: progress addiction [1:54] Core Drive 8: FOMO and urgency [2:30] Core Drive 1: the mission trap [3:08] Name the drive, deactivate the trigger [3:54] Leaving the phone at the beach [4:50] Why productive resting backfires [6:00] Design your break like an engagement loop [6:36] Diagnose your pull-back drive first [8:05] Rest is switching off the drives Mentioned in This Episode Core Drives in the Wild, Rob's free guide (one Core Drive example per day) The Octalysis Group The Octalysis Framework and its Eight Core Drives (Yu-kai Chou), the basis for Core Drives 1, 2, 5, and 8 discussed here Free Resources and Get in Touch Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Free Guide Get Daily Value on Your Email Let's chat about your gamification project YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Start Your Community on Skool for Free Ask a question

    Why Driven People Can't Take a Real Vacation

  7. Jun 22

    Spent $200 Billion, Then Said: Use AI Less

    These engagement failures, and how to fix them, map directly onto the Octalysis Core Drives. Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Rob breaks down why Amazon shut down KiroRank, the internal leaderboard that scored staff on raw AI usage on its Kiro developer platform. He shows how stacking Core Drive 2 (Development & Accomplishment) and Core Drive 5 (Social Influence & Relatedness) produced flawless compliance toward the wrong target, a textbook case of Goodhart's law: once a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. Drawing on the Octalysis Strategy Dashboard and Toyota's Five Whys, he lays out the one question to ask before you measure anything. Listeners learn to measure outcomes instead of activity, and how to keep a proxy metric from quietly getting gamed. About the Host Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Key Takeaways Amazon shut down KiroRank, its internal leaderboard scoring staff on AI usage on the Kiro developer platform, after employees set autonomous AI agents on needless tasks just to climb the ranks and inflated the company's compute costs. Goodhart's law explains the failure: when a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. You get what you measure, not what you want, so raw AI usage climbed while productivity went unmeasured. KiroRank stacked Core Drive 2 (Development & Accomplishment) through a progress bar and ranking, and Core Drive 5 (Social Influence & Relatedness) through public status, producing flawless compliance toward the wrong outcome. The more powerful and expensive the tool being measured, the more a gamed metric costs you, which is why Amazon paid in real compute money rather than a rounding error. The Octalysis Strategy Dashboard starts with business metrics by asking what outcome you actually want, using Toyota's Five Whys to move from "increase AI usage" to a result worth hitting, like productivity per employee. Engagement is the value created for users and the business, not click counts or usage volume, which is why most dashboards measure activity when they should measure the outcome. Topics Covered 0:00 - The $200 billion AI paradox 0:27 - Goodhart's law and gamed metrics 1:49 - The two Core Drives Amazon stacked 2:39 - Flawless compliance, the wrong target 3:38 - Amazon's KiroRank AI leaderboard 5:11 - Measure the right thing, not usage 5:38 - The Octalysis Strategy Dashboard 6:12 - Toyota's Five Whys for metrics 7:21 - When proxy metrics are unavoidable 7:58 - Measure the outcome, not the activity 8:33 - Get the Core Drives in the Wild guide Mentioned in This Episode Goodhart's law The Financial Times report on Amazon's KiroRank leaderboard Amazon's Kiro developer platform The Five Whys (Toyota / lean operations) A previous Professor Game episode on AI use and academic testing Free Resources and Get in Touch Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Free Guide Get Daily Value on Your Email Let's chat about your gamification project YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Start Your Community on Skool for Free Ask a question

    Spent $200 Billion, Then Said: Use AI Less

  8. Jun 15

    Stop Dumping Textbooks Into Your Games, with Alan Yeats

    Struggling with retention, churn, or adoption in your product, service, or program? Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide and see how to apply real behavioral design to your engagement: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Alan Yeats, CEO of Pocket Sized Hands, a co-development game studio in Dundee, Scotland, explains why the best learning games start with play and add the curriculum second. He walks through real projects, a knife-crime prevention game stopped cold by school firewalls and a stem cell science game built with Cambridge University, to show how co-design keeps everyone pointed at the same goal. Alan argues that the job is to find the underlying play and the real "why" behind a request, not to cram years of lessons into one product. Listeners come away with a practical filter for any educational or engagement project: build a genuinely good game first, then weave the learning in so people actually engage. About the Host Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Key Takeaways Pocket Sized Hands built a polished Jackbox-style game to steer young people away from knife crime, then hit a wall when school IT firewalls blocked the phone-to-screen connection the experience ran on. The end user is never the only stakeholder a product has to satisfy. For Cambridge University, the studio corrected public misconceptions about stem cell science by running back-to-basics workshops to isolate the one message that mattered, rather than cramming an entire syllabus into a single game. Alan Yeats's rule for education clients who want to throw the whole textbook at a game: make it genuinely fun first, then layer the lessons in, because curriculum with no play earns no engagement to teach against. Co-design converts a client from someone who merely commissioned a product into an owner who evangelizes it, which is why Pocket Sized Hands opens projects with a workshop for facilitators and real users instead of a written spec. Pitching the visual register openly, from a corporate LinkedIn-style progress bar to a fully magical world, lets a team test how far it can push a client before the client pushes back with "that is too much fun." Topics Covered 0:00 - Stop cramming textbooks into games 0:16 - Meet Alan Yeats and Pocket Sized Hands 3:16 - A knife-crime game blocked by firewalls 5:23 - Design for the stakeholders you forget 8:08 - The Cambridge stem cell game that worked 9:03 - Make the game fun first 10:40 - Co-design and finding the real problem 12:33 - From corporate progress bars to magical worlds 14:54 - Focus on the play, not the game 16:25 - The future guest he would want to hear 17:46 - Why Deep Work sharpens his focus 19:04 - His superpower, favorite game, and final advice Struggling with retention, churn, or adoption in your product, service, or program? Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide and see how to apply real behavioral design to your engagement: professorgame.com/WildCD About Alan Yeats Alan Yeats is the CEO of Pocket Sized Hands, a co-development game studio based in Dundee, Scotland. He left school at 16 to work on games, dropped out of university, and founded the studio nine years ago. Since then, Pocket Sized Hands has helped ship titles including Pocket Mortys for Adult Swim, Oddworld: Soulstorm, and Bendy and the Ink Machine, working with clients ranging from indie developers to major publishers. The studio specialises in co-development, porting, networking, and live ops. Find the Guest Online Pocket Sized Hands: pocketsizedhands.com Personal site: alanyeats.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alanyeats X (studio): @PKTSizedHands Mentioned in This Episode Some links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Proposed future guest: someone who wants to use gamification but hasn't yet Recommended book: Deep Work by Cal Newport Favorite game: Ratchet & Clank 3 Free Resources and Get in Touch Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Free Guide Get Daily Value on Your Email Let's chat about your gamification project YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Start Your Community on Skool for Free Ask a question

    Stop Dumping Textbooks Into Your Games, with Alan Yeats
See All (457)

5
out of 5
91 Ratings

About

#1 Gamification Podcast | Insights and Real-World Strategies to Boost Engagement, Loyalty & Retention. Professor Game helps innovators, product leaders, and educators use gamification and game thinking to create engagement that lasts. 🎙️ Hosted by Rob Alvarez — TEDx Speaker, consultant, and host of the #1 Gamification Podcast — each week brings you practical insights, case studies, and frameworks from 400+ global experts and proven real-world examples. Expect interviews with top practitioners in gamification, game design, and behavioral strategy, plus solo episodes where Rob breaks down practical frameworks you can apply in your team, classroom, or product. Join the movement to make engagement, motivation, and loyalty truly meaningful — with stories and strategies that transform the way people learn, work, and play. 💡 Listen. Learn. Apply Play to Your Strategy.

Information

  • Creator
    Rob Alvarez
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    457
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    professorgame.com © 2025
  • Show Website
    Professor Game Podcast