Every episode of the Professor Game podcast, hosted by Rob Alvarez of The Octalysis Group. Honest breakdowns of gamification, behavioral design, and the Octalysis Framework, applied to real products, retention, and engagement. New episodes weekly, plus interviews with leading experts.
People Decide Better When They Stop Playing Themselves | Episode 469
Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Stephen Balzac, PhD, organizational development consultant and president of 7 Steps Ahead, shows why LARP in business settings exposes the dynamics that meetings hide. He explains […]
Why People Quit Your AI After One Mistake | Episode 468
Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Rob breaks down algorithm aversion, showing why people abandon an AI tool after its first visible mistake, even when it outperforms them. He covers the 2015 […]
Earned, Not Given: Rewards Beyond Points and Badges | Episode 467
Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe, co-founder and CEO of Trophy, a gamification layer that powers features for around two million consumer-app users, makes the case for rewards beyond points […]
Nobody Decided to Keep It | Episode 466
Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Rob explains subtraction neglect, the tendency of teams to fix problems by adding features, programs and pilots while rarely considering what to remove, using his own […]
Your Login Numbers Can’t Tell If the Bar Is Right | Episode 465
Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD Episode Summary Rob breaks down adoption target difficulty, showing why login counts cannot tell you whether a goal is set right. He covers a 2026 Journal of […]