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.
Stop Shaming Your Users: Ethical Alternatives to Dark Patterns | Episode 421
Curious if Octalysis fits your engagement challenge? Quick intro chat: professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Rob Alvarez breaks down “confirm shaming,” the dark pattern where opt-out buttons are worded to make users feel stupid, guilty, or irresponsible for declining a desired action. The hook: a […]
Building Beats Playing: Matt Dalio’s Path | Episode 420
Curious if Octalysis fits your engagement challenge? Quick intro chat: professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Matt Dalio recounts how Endless Studios spent years and millions of dollars building The Endless Mission (a hackable game designed to teach coding the way Musk and Zuckerberg learned it) […]
8 Years Building the Global Leading Gamification Podcast | Episode 419
Aiming for sustainable retention? Intro chat (no sales pitch): professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Rob Alvarez marks the eighth anniversary of Professor Game with a retrospective on 420 episodes, roughly 400 guests, and the consistency that took the show from a launch his mother doubted could […]
Design With Audiences: Mister & Mischief’s Playful Guide to Engagement | Episode 418
Episode Summary Andy and Jeff Crocker of Mister & Mischief discuss their self-published zine Infinite Right Answers, a deliberately analog, imperfect document of their design philosophy for immersive and participatory experiences. They argue against the false binary of “no wrong answers” improv culture, introduce […]
The Secret Framework That Keeps Users Coming Back | Episode 417
Exploring gamification for your product or org? Let’s chat → professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Exploring where Marty Cagan’s Silicon Valley Product Group methodology and the Octalysis framework reinforce each other and where they leave gaps. He argues that product discovery answers what users need but […]