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.
From Boring to Brilliant: Rethinking Education with AI and Engagement | Episode 402
Episode Summary Matt Metzgar, a clinical professor of economics at UNC Charlotte and author of The Overnight AI Educator, argues that faculty are overestimating the work required to redesign courses for the AI era and that piecemeal AI additions produce a Frankenstein result. He […]
Failed Game Becomes a Hit — 8 Years Later with Dain Saint | Episode 401
🚀 Want your community buzzing and bringing in more revenue? Snag my free mini course with 3 killer gamification hacks: professorgame.com/freebie-3-gamification-hacks Episode Summary Dain Saint, founder of Reckless Magic and curator of Futurefull, recounts how Cypher Prime spent months trying to build Tailwind (a […]
Level Up IRL: Designing Your Purpose with Yu-kai Chou | Episode 400
Episode Summary Yu-kai Chou returns to introduce 10,000 Hours of Play, his second book, co-authored with former Octalysis Prime student Mark Diaz. He lays out a six-step framework (choose your game, identify your attributes, choose your role, enhance your skills, build alliances, achieve quests) […]
They Made $300k Per Month With Skool (Just Copy Them) | Episode 399
Episode Summary Rob Alvarez breaks down Skool as an all-in-one platform for building paid online communities, walking through its core features (community feed, classroom courses, calendar, members map, and built-in leaderboard with levels) using Ted Carr’s community as a live example. He argues Skool’s […]
When Computers Taught You to Create, Not Just Consume with Jesper Juul | Episode 398
Episode Summary Game theorist Jesper Juul returns to discuss Too Much Fun: The Five Lives of the Commodore 64 Computer, arguing that the standard Atari-crash-then-Nintendo narrative of gaming history erases the European home computer culture that actually dominated the 1980s. He traces the C64 […]