Jaxton Cheah with Game Thinking in Southeast Asia | Episode 164

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Jaxton is a Gamification Advocate in Malaysia. He works with many reputable gamification experts in the United States and Europe such as Amy Jo Kim, Yu-Kai Chou, Pete Jenkins, and An Coppens to promote Game Thinking & Gamification in the South East Asia (SEA) region. He was recruited by Amy Jo Kim, the founder of Game Thinking Academy (GTA) to be the first Game Thinking coach in Asia.

Jaxton specializes in early-stage product innovation that applies the Game Thinking framework that helps clients to 10x product-market fit. He coaches reputable companies like Tesla, Malaysia Airline, TravelTriangle and etc. He also produces two annual national conferences – Game Thinking Asia & Talent Ecosystem Conference to further promote innovation in HR & customer experience with Game Thinking / Gamification in the SEA region. In addition, he is familiar with and have used the Stanford d.school design thinking method in gamification projects.

 

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Full episode transcription

Rob (5s):
Welcome to Professor Game Podcast, where we interview successful practitioners of games, gamification and game thinking, who bring us the best of their experiences to get ideas, insights, and inspiration that help us in the process of getting the students to learn what we teach. And I’m Rob Alvarez. I teach and work at IE Business School in Madrid, where we create interactive and engaging learning materials. Want to know more? Go to professorgame.com/subscribe, start on our email list and ask me anything! Engagers. Welcome back to another episode of the professor game podcast. As you know, we have awesome guests every single week, and today we are with Jaxton, but Jaxton, before we get started, are you prepared to engage?

Jaxton (53s):
Yeah, man. Hey Rob, thanks for having me always a pleasure to be here and, you know, to share my journey with your audience. Yep.

Rob (1m 5s):
Absolutely Jaxton, We, this has been kind of a long time coming. I know we’ve both been very busy. We met through a game thinking, through Amy Jo Kim, basically. And you know, we’d been interacting a bit through, through those interactions, but I also wanted to get you into the podcast and, and take a look at all that experience you have because you are an advocate of gamification in Malaysia, you work with many reputable gamification experts in the US and Europe like angel Kim that I just mentioned with Yu-kai Chou, Pete Jenkins, which we also know as a past guest, as well as An Coppens. And you’re promoting game thinking and gamification in the Southeast Asia region, he was recruited as the founder of Game Thinking Academy and the first gGame Thinking coach in Asia, he specializes in early-stage product innovation and applies game thinking framework to help the clients 10 X product-market fit, which is as you know, part of what the game thinking approach offers.

Rob (1m 58s):
He coaches companies like Tesla, Malaysia Airlines, Travel Triangle, etcetera, etcetera. He also produces two annual conferences, the Game Thinking Asia and the talent ecosystem conference to further promote innovation in HR and customer experience. Of course, with game thinking gamification in the Southeast Asia region and he is familiar with and has used the Stanford Design School design thinking method in gamification projects. So quite a few things that we’ll get into today. Jaxton, is there anything that we missed from that intro?

Jaxton (2m 27s):
No, I think you, you cover all of the things that I, you know about my experience. Yeah. They’re a really good intro. And this is very comprehensive, I would say.

Rob (2m 39s):
Absolutely. So, so Jaxton, we always like to know, we’d like to understand our guests a little bit before we get started. So what does typically, you know, what does being Jaxton in a day like today look like what are the things that you’re doing in the daily or weekly?

Jaxton (2m 54s):
Oh yeah. So are currently, I’m actually taking the role of business development in my organization, but that is not the only role that I’m playing. So it will besides actually business developments that I do a lot of pitching, you know, or, you know, through the meetings. And I also our support, our consulting teams as a subject matter expert that is related to gamification projects. And at the same time, I was getting myself in Wharf and some product development on the game-based solution. So basically my day to day is really a lot of meeting. And especially right now, when we are doing a lot through virtual, you also are really a bit like, you know, tie up all the meetings in the day.

Jaxton (3m 35s):
Yeah. So I will say like, you know, my day to day is really a lot of meeting and the fall of the Calendar at this time,

Rob (3m 41s):
Lots of stuff going on. Very diverse. So I would say also, it sounds like it’s also very exciting as well because you have many things you can vary from one to another. It also poses I’m sure. Some challenges to your, to your focus, concentration, having so many things pulling at you, but it does sound very exciting. And in talking about different things and challenges, we always like to start strong with these kinds of questions, because we would like to know the time Jaxton when you were, you know, going for something big, something interesting. And you know, you set your course, you went in that direction and you had what we’d like to call your first attempt in learning or fail moment or failure. We’d like to know maybe what you would call your favorite failure, one where you learned lot, you had, you know, an interesting experience and something we can of course learn together with you.

Rob (4m 27s):
We want to be there in that story and we want to learn it and see how you get out of it.

Jaxton (4m 30s):
Yeah. This is interesting. We talk about failure or I, so of course, you know, when you, you know, we both are game thinking coaches and we know actually failure. It means actually we learn something actually through the process. Right? So I think my favorite failure, I’m not sure about this, but I should be started when I stopped at this gamification our journey like six, seven years ago. I think I was really obsessed with some of these game mechanics, those obvious game mechanics, like leaderboards, badges, points, you know, at the very beginning stage, you know, and, and, and further to that, actually I learned that actually those game mechanics are actually a double edge swords.

Jaxton (5m 11s):
Right? So examples of some of this like, you know, using leaderboard motivate a small group of users but demotivate a larger group of the users at a bottom of the leaderboard, you know? So those things that actually, I think that we went into actually be really careful and actually we want to use some of this game mechanics and other things like, you know, use giving points, you know, to the people that actually were doing a certain action, you know, a lot of time, you know, especially when we’re doing those, those projects that are related to employees, workplace-related, you know, and we need to know like really are we giving this points and are we encouraging the right behavior? You know, so I think that’s actually a filter that actually I will discover and learn so much at the very beginning stage.

Jaxton (5m 55s):
You know, where I think it really helped a lot when actually we were doing our larger all the longer, longer engagement, design, longer engagement kind of game-based solution. Yeah. So, and again, I think it’s really about, again, looking at actually what the objective and the desired behavior that we are designing for, and also looking at the expected outcome that actually, how are we incorporating into design? So I think this is really about my failure, my favorite failure, actually, I love to share with the people that actually do always ask me, you know, what is the downside of actually when you were doing all this gamification stuff,

Rob (6m 34s):
That is a very important downside. And, and I like the way you start, especially because you were talking about how we’d like to reframe this sort of fail moments and talk about a learning experience. It’s not just about whether you failed or not. It’s not just about that sort of instant moment, so to speak in which you fail or you don’t fail and you have a success. It is also about learning from that. That is a basic fundamental thing that we have to remember. It’s very, very important for us to keep that in mind because otherwise, we lose the opportunity basically of having those learnings, having those lessons learned and moving forward a lot, lot faster in future projects.

Rob (7m 16s):
So thank you, for that perspective that you’ve provided for the listeners in this location. Is there any particular occasion where, you know, you’d like to remember like, Oh, this happened with this again, you don’t have to name any names. Of course, we know there’s, that could be a delicate thing with clients, but a time when I basically go, if you, if you have any, any story of, of some, one time that happened and, and how you, you managed to again go through this and learn from that experience.

Jaxton (7m 43s):
I think it actually all those, is really practical because we’ve been delivering a lot of projects like over the last few years. Right? So I think it’s really about looking at the data at the end of the projects. And like you, what we, what did we achieve, you know, for the project itself and how we analyze and actually, we get an insight of how the project is doing. So one example that actually really obvious is when we were doing a project that actually will want to incentivize people for giving, getting a point by actually they post a comment and things like that, you know, there was at least the shirt. So we know actually people love points in order to do, would like to see that point is actually like raising up, you know, in a leaderboard and be at the top of the leaderboard, you know?

Jaxton (8m 27s):
So, but the thing is actually that time, what we didn’t learn or what would, we didn’t know? Well, actually we were implementing the project as that design actually encouraged that behavior of actual people would just simply post just to get point at the end. We actually got a lot of like junk, you know, the comments and on things like that, you know? So that from that project where we actually analyzed we’re looking at, Oh, so this is actually how people are actually will do a point farming when actually they will want to just get points. And at the end, I think we, we, we, we didn’t really get the right behavior or the behavior that the desired behavior that actually we want, which is actually people are openly actually sharing the comments are really constructive and really actually bringing up the conversation.

Jaxton (9m 14s):
But instead there’s a lot of flight, you know, simply post at and, you know, just to actually get points, you know, so that it was actually one very obvious incidence that actually what we did wrong, you know, and further to that, actually we were very careful and actually putting the designing actually, what, what are the actions that actually would want or need to actually give people points, but not for every action that actually people do. Yeah. So I think that’s one of the things that actually I learned and I, I really, I think I really appreciate all the opportunity to actually I learned this really at a very early stage during that time, you know, so that, you know, we avoid a lot of this kind of situation happens again.

Jaxton (9m 54s):
Right?

Rob (9m 55s):
Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s very important to learn from these as you were, as you were mentioning, because it’s all about what is really the desired behavior, because sometimes, and, and, and, and I’d like to think about it as the, I mentioned it as the five why’s, you’ve probably heard about this technique before, Oh, you want people to comment more, but why do you want them to comment more? What is it that you want them to comment on? If it’s literally just common people can type a period and type send, and that is a comment. Are you interested in that? So sort of going deeper is, is one of the things that I, that I think I would take from that story as well. Fantastic story, very clear, very obvious. And I think it’s, it’s one of those examples of times where we learn from these things. And again, failure, as we mentioned at the start is not fatal.

Rob (10m 37s):
It’s not final, usually at least, and we can recover from it and we can learn from it and we can do a lot better on future occasions. So thank you very much for that. You know, since your story, Jaxton, I think it was very, very practical and very useful for, for the Engagers for the listeners. And of course, we don’t like to go just for failure. We don’t have an obsession with failure only. We also like to know about success. So is there a story that you can tell something, one of those proud moments, one of those things you said, well, I’m going to get into this project and after the first or the second, or the nth attempt, you actually got to the objective you wanted. And we would like to sort of be there with you and learn from maybe some things that you might call the key lessons you got from that experience. One of the key success factors.

Jaxton (11m 17s):
Yeah. So I think they have some very complex projects actually we would deliver, we were delivering to, to the clients such as light projects that cross countries, we’ve thousands of users and a different culture, you know, designing that account project. And, and also looking into the project duration, you know, a lot of time, I think actually the challenge or the effort, actually, we need to put a lot more when it comes to a game-based solution or human motivations is really depends on the duration of the user journey. What is the journey like a story? So when I think some of the projects that actually I’m, I’m really happy with this, we have the result is actually some of the projects that is really infinite journey, which actually does no addition to the journey that actually example employee engagement projects that we deliver to the client.

Jaxton (12m 7s):
You know, what employee engagement projects they were doing set at end of the time that, Oh yeah, that’s enough of my employee. They don’t need to be engaged anymore. Or, and also we want to add a project is ongoing and no, when we are designing this project is kind of challenged because the simple motivation would not actually last very long, you know, when it comes to like, Oh yeah, you’re just giving some new contents. You know, you are just putting some, some, some new ideas, you know, to actually motivate people with, especially those simple game mechanics, like doing badges leaderboards and things like that. So we went in really deep, like, you know, what we would normally do using the game thinking framework, understand the users, you know, so we’ve figured it out like the client wants to do employee engagement with defined employee engagement means to them.

Jaxton (12m 57s):
So we talk about collaboration. We get into an actual design, like actually asking the people, get them to actually share with us how this collaboration means to them. You know, so we did a really good job and like just the research and for the actual design of the project. And we actually wrote out design something, which is actually not so obvious those game mechanics, but instead, actually really focusing on doing the job for the people that actually people are using the system that actually how they can do better at the job, you know? So I think that things that actually, we figure it out like over a three to four months design journey. And then we launched those projects.

Jaxton (13m 39s):
That is a very rewarding experience. I will say that we were able to actually nail down and really understand the users and really design something for the users, you know? And then the project is actually ongoing that actually they’re still used, they’re still using, they’re still doing that. They’re using the things that should be designed for them. And in fact, actually, they continue like, you know, the second year renew. So this hour, this is one of, actually one of the success story law, but it’s really about understanding the users and actually design what they want. We also were using the framework that you were very familiar with the framework, as well as the game thinking process.

Rob (14m 16s):
Absolutely. And again, for, for a, a, maybe a key lesson, a success from, from this, because it sounds like you went very, very deep. Would you say that it was, you know, using game thinking, thinking further the mechanics is there, is there maybe, again in two or three phrases, what would you say would be some of those elements that you would say, Oh, this was definitely something that helped us reach this level of success.

Jaxton (14m 38s):
So I think the, that the things that actually what we would do, right. What we did right in those, that project is I think we good. We, we got the right people actually, when we were doing the interview, so it’s, this is a selection process that like you, how we identify the early adopters, you know, that actually what we’ve looked very closely when it comes through to when, during the design phase, I’ve been the attitude, things that actually, we also nailed down, which is actually the mastery path that how actually designed the progression system for the people to actually help them to progress in the journey, at least at the very beginning stage and actually they, they see it actually making progress.

Jaxton (15m 19s):
And other than that would be the learning loop that actually will help the people actually built the habits of actually keep going back to the solutions that actually we build. Yeah. So I think these are the three key things that I think we did right. On the project. Yeah. In some way,

Rob (15m 35s):
That sounds absolutely fantastic Jaxton. So thank you for that story. And talking about success, talking about failure, the obvious question would be, how do you do it? What’s your, can you, of course, you know, we’re both game thinking, coaches, you’ve also gone through Yu-kai Chou, etcetera. But in a nutshell, what would you say your process for designing these solutions look like, what are maybe the steps? What are the kinds of things? How is your, your thought process, when you go through these, these solutions, how do you mix together? All of this knowledge that you’ve acquired through the years?

Jaxton (16m 9s):
Okay. So I think we have two different sets of design approaches, which is actually, it’s a different process that we do. So we do a lot of these short learning projects, those projects, like five days, you know, one month or not more than three months. So those projects actually, we have a simple process that we have for this approach and how we actually do like designing communication plan, how we actually get people on board, you know? So that is actually a simple process that actually for a shorter journey of projects, but when it comes to a longer-term project, which is actually, we need to motivate the user that uses it or the players or the employees for the longer periods, such as like, Oh yeah, we’re doing on one year project.

Jaxton (16m 54s):
Or more than that, as I shared just now some of this, like the, in financial, during that reading to design on employee engagement, we will have to use a framework like game thinking, you know, putting in the user research bit, you know, so it’s kind of like a three-month process minimum, you know, identify the right people that we talk to talk to the right people. And then after that, we will need to focus, look at actually the jobs to be done, you know, the job story. And then after that, we would design look at actually what we could design at a very beginning stage and looking at the areas like, you know, like I shared just now, which is actually how we create a progression system, let it mustard path and what experience that actually people are going through in each milestone example, you know, w we’ll look at are that the people are on the, during the discovery phase, how do they actually discover that this solution and how the solution is right for them?

Jaxton (17m 52s):
And also of course, one bought them how to actually get them to see the values of the solution at the really beginning stage when they actually start using it, what needs to happen. And of course, the really important part is really about habit building, but we’re just looking at the loop that actually we will design for the users. You know, that the reason that actually they should always come back, you know, like this every day or the other, the day, you know, this day, like, you know, connecting the people they actually find values during the habit. And of course, you know, that the last is actually the mastery it being actually the promoter to promote our solution to the people that actually are not on board yet.

Jaxton (18m 31s):
Because when we actually do this kind of, of like employee onboarding employee-related projects, like workplace related projects, it’s not as easy as because you know, a lot of, a lot of time you have actually users that actually they’re just not interested or probably you, if your essay, we use that, like the definition of innovation, Tori and other people maybe actually falls under the early majority, late majority, or probably their lagger, or they will actually wait and see what is this solution? They need social proof, you know, to actually get to then only they will think that I want to onboard okay. To this solution. So when we are designing this and we are seeing actually people are actually influencing artists to actually join the solutions or to start using the solutions that we built for them.

Jaxton (19m 20s):
Yeah. So I think this is actually the process that actually we’re doing. Do you know, the game thinking a framework that we are using and pretty effective on, especially those very sizable projects that we are doing

Rob (19m 33s):
Sounds very, very exciting. It sounds like there are many things to consider. I think it brings up some interesting depth as well, too, to all the projects and all the stuff that you’re doing in general. So again, thank you very much for sharing, you know, your, your thought process, your process, and all those things that you’re doing. Just a quick break before we continue, are you enjoying this podcast? If you’re listening through a podcasting app, please subscribe and rate us on the app. This will be of great help to reach more Engagers so we can change the world together through gamification. And Jaxton, with all this experience, with that, that you have all the, you know, so many projects you were mentioning that you have all these years already into this, into this world, doing all these things.

Rob (20m 16s):
Is there some sort of best practice, something that you would say, well, when you’re, when you’re creating one of these gamified or these game thinking solutions, is there something that you would say, well, you know, consider this, or do these kinds of things that, you know, mostly help your, your project, your, your build up your solution.

Jaxton (20m 33s):
This is a very good question, Rob, because I think best practice. And also, I think you relate to actually some of the challenges that actually when we are dealing with the workplace-related solution. So I think what I should read, trying to do all the time, but we don’t really get actually the support, actually, even from the client-side, which is, I think experimenting the game-based design to actually we want to build. So I think it’s really about the mindset of that. You know, what your mindset that I think we should actually always experiment. And then we always actually should get the users go to the ground and, you know, when really do the playtests and talk to the people, you know, and get them to share how it was their experience when they were using your solution.

Jaxton (21m 19s):
But why I say a lot of times, we don’t really get disappointed by the clients because a lot of time workplace project, you know, so a lot of times the clients I’d want to be specific like, you know, who’s client, but a lot of the time there’s the mindset. Like we cannot fail and we launch, and this is it. Right? So I think the best practice will actually, I will, I will suggest if let’s say we get a chance to do the project, you know, really reaching out to the users and get feedback from them and continuously experiment the products that actually you want to build. If again, given the luxury of at the time and the support, you know, from, from our the client-side.

Jaxton (22m 3s):
Yeah. That would be really ideal.

Rob (22m 4s):
Absolutely. And you mentioned that luxury of time. It’s interesting. I’ve, I’ve heard sort of all sorts of perspectives in that sense, but sometimes when you don’t have as a luxury to, to fail right? Or to not get it right. At least eventually. So if you don’t do the experiments and if you don’t get those experiments sort of right, well, you, I’m not sure you can afford to lose, you know, so bad sort of. Right. But it’s also important to consider that side it’s it’s can you, do you have the time to do the experiments? Well, no, I don’t have the time. Well, then what’s your alternative? You don’t do the experiments and, you have higher chances of failure. Is that really what you want?

Jaxton (22m 41s):
Hmm, exactly. So this is one of the challenges. Like we are always given a very short timeframe, as we know, if let’s say you want to deliver experience because game-based solution, basically when whatever that we are doing, the gamification and all that, we are talking about experience, but designing experience. So experience is really difficult to design. So you only get to the people, you know, understand what experience means to them, what the kind of experience that you want to design that it means to them. Then only you can design the experience. And a lot of time, I think people actually just, maybe it’s still time that I should be willing to, you know, maturing, educating, you know, that the client’s site so that, you know, they understand this and, you know, we do have good clients that really supportive.

Jaxton (23m 31s):
And actually, we have control of some of this design phase followed by three to four months. They will push the timeline and they want to get it right before they launch. We do have many good customers as well. Clients are actually really supportive. I will say those projects, real projects that actually really make a significant impact on the organization. Yeah. And we really appreciate those projects. You know, what it is.

Rob (23m 59s):
We’re all looking for, for our projects to be impactful, to reach what we want to reach. That is very, very important. So again, recapping and bringing that back, remember the importance of experimentation and having that sufficient planning out at least sufficient time for that experimentation phase. If you have a very short timeframe, while you have to do some things quicker, but don’t forget about experimenting and testing out, playtesting basically, don’t forget about that. Remember, we’re learning from games and that is a very good practice from games. So thank you, Jaxton. I think it is a very, very powerful, very powerful tool.

Jaxton (24m 34s):
Thanks Rob.

Rob (24m 35s):
We, we’re starting to get into the recommendation space. We started with a best practice. Is there any, any other person you’ve listened to these questions, You’ve probably heard a few interviews as well before when you, when you go through this, is there somebody that comes to your mind, somebody that you would recommend that you want, you would want to listen to in an interview like this one in Professor Game?

Jaxton (24m 52s):
So this is, this is a tough question, you know because Rob you been doing this like, what three years? Is it three years now you interview like more than 130 guests. So I got to check the list and no, actually it was not in the list that I ever interviewed before, but in my mind, actually, I have someone that actually, I believe that he could probably share a very interesting story when it comes to game-based solution of the design. So, you know, this person as well, maybe we want to talk to him like, you know, M.A.D. Methods the founder of M.A.D Methods Ambikesh?

Rob (25m 28s):
Ambikesh Prasad, Yes, absolutely.

Jaxton (25m 31s):
He, we worked together on a project remotely for a company in India. The first project, we worked together using the full game thinking framework, he did a really awesome job, you know, and at the end, the client was really happy with the result. And after that, actually, he set up his own company and is doing a lot of good stuff. And probably, I think you might, you might be a person that you can go to. Yeah. Then you were able to actually, I believe you were able to share a lot of good stories as well. I’m sure.

Rob (26m 6s):
I’m sure he is a fantastic guy. I think I’m not sure if we’ve had some communication issue, but I think I reached out at some point be interesting now as well, to insist. I agree with you, Jaxton, he would be a fantastic guest I’m

Jaxton (26m 17s):
Sure. Yep. And then

Rob (26m 20s):
Continuing on this sort of recommendations spree. You’ve of course we’ve, we’ve, we’ve talked about game thinking and Amy Jo Kim’s book. I don’t know if that’s going to be your recommendation or not, but is there a book that you recommend to this audience? The Engagers?

Jaxton (26m 32s):
Yeah, exactly. I think the Game Thinking book is something that, I mean, okay, so the thing is game thinking book is a guidebook for all our consultants. So actually we have at least five to six copies in our office. Okay. So yeah. So you see how important it is for this book. And I think, I think this is a really good book because, you know, three, four, four years ago when I received the first PDF copy from Amy Jo and it was really awesome and until when she really published a book, that book is so solid. And if I sample use case, you know, and I think it’s easy to understand.

Jaxton (27m 16s):
So that’s why, you know, we, we use it as a guide and, and the new consultants that joined the company, this is the first book that they need to read. And they actually have this book as a reference when they approach those projects that are using the game, game thinking framework. Yeah. So I think I am a promoter of these books as well. You, because we really use it and reuse and we see actually is really critical.

Rob (27m 42s):
It’s a very powerful book. It’s a very powerful experience as well for, for many of the listeners, I think it could be, I mean, it could be a game-changer for many people, many, many people, I’m sure it could be an absolute game-changer for them. So I would definitely support that. Never commendation in that sense. So thank you. Thank you for bringing it up once again. I, I think it’s hard to get tired of, of great books, right?

Jaxton (28m 6s):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it’s going to talk about game-changer. This book is really a game-changer to me. Yeah. So I learned so much and really made very, I mean, it really made an impact. I mean, to me,

Rob (28m 18s):
Absolutely. Absolutely. So thank you very much for that recommendation. And then we get into a sort of more selfish, selfish, one too, so to speak and to say it in a way it’s because we would like to know what is your, your sweet spot, your, what we would like to call your superpower, that one thing, or maybe even two that you, you, you, you feel you do better at least than most other people want to have to be just the only one in the world who has it. And if somebody says, Oh, but you know, there’s, there are other people that do the same thing. And I say, yeah, well, I mean, iron man is not the only one who can fly right there. There are other superheroes who can fly, so you can be a superhero with other friends.

Jaxton (28m 55s):
Yeah. Okay. So if we talk about the superpower that I have, okay. I think maybe it is not really a skill, but I think it’s really about mindset. I think curiosity is my superpower maybe. So I think Q w w when it comes to learning, that required a lot of curiosity. So you’re curious about everything that you want to learn, especially, I’m curious about the users, you know, I curious about the experience, I’m curious about how I should they agree to use the solution design. Yeah. So I think curiosity is actually my superpower is that probably, you know, that actually I reapply a lot that is always curious and is always learning, you know, that I think it helps me to make better progress, you know, in terms of my career and terms of what I do or what I’m passionate about.

Rob (29m 48s):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m sure it absolutely does. And we get to a very difficult question. Many guests say that this is the most difficult question in the podcast and it’s okay. What would you say Jaxton is your favorite game?

Jaxton (30m 1s):
Oh, okay. Okay. So I love video games a lot. Okay. So if you ask me my favorite video game then, okay. So I can think off like Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed, it in a nutshell, you know, I’m a big fan of Ubisoft studio, so these are all their, these are all their franchise, you know, so I’ve been actually following this games, you know, from, you know, each of the research really slow, I will say that’s yeah. For the last few years.

Rob (30m 32s):
Absolutely. Those games are amazing. Those are fantastic. In fact, I was looking at the Black Friday deals and so many Assassin’s Creeds were on sale.

Jaxton (30m 44s):
I think Ubisoft actually, did really well when it comes to the game. These games are like, are they have an open world? You know, that you are exploring, you know, that’s a lot of flight predictability. And I think what actually we learned, I really learned a lot. And I think actually they did really well is the progression system, the skillsets, like, you know, it’s a skill tree, you know, that people actually make progress, you know, from the game, they get better from the beginning. And actually, when they actually skill, they’re able to acquire the new skill and then they would get better and they get better and better, you know, that actually the level up, it means a lot, you know? And I think the progression system is something that is really good, actually the design, you know, the skill tree, things like that.

Rob (31m 31s):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I, I absolutely love it. The one that I’ve played the most is Black Flag.

Jaxton (31m 38s):
Yeah.

Rob (31m 38s):
It was, it was the first one I had for sure. I played it for quite a while. It’s amazing how you can do like so many things and walk around and do this and choose to go here, choose to go there. That is absolutely fantastic. And how you progress as you were saying. Yes. So Jaxton, thank you very much for being with us today. If you want to have any sort of final piece of advice, of course, we want to make sure that our audience can connect with, you know, more about Jackson, about your company as well. So leave us any, any hints to where we can find you. And before we say, of course, that it’s game over.

Jaxton (32m 8s):
So to me, I think that I’ve always believed that actually listening to the users, that’s always very important, especially at the early stage of the development for your game based solution. And it’s important to talk to them, talk to people. But I think a lot of time that actually we, we do not know who is the right people that we should talk to, you know, because when you actually developing something new, you got a lot of mice that people actually like, you know, they, they give you ideas, they give a suggestion. You, so it is important actually to listen to the people and it’s important to listen to the right people. Yeah. So I think they’re very important is really looking at the early adopters.

Jaxton (32m 50s):
So I was still thinking that actually, if you could actually check out the book by Amy Jo the Game Thinking, learn that piece on how actually you do a selection when you really want to talk to the people and make sure you talk to the right people that actually save you a lot of time when you actually, you were designing your game based solution or whatever solution, whatever product that you want to do, that, that, that’s my last piece of advice, but then want to connect to me. I need you to connect me via LinkedIn I’m really active on LinkedIn. And I think probably share with you my email and, you know, if you really want to get a quick response, you reached out to me, via WhatsApp.

Jaxton (33m 30s):
I respond to WhatsApp very quickly. A lot of time. I think we actually communicate, you know, via WhatsApp with my clients, you know, and also internally, you know, so we set up something WhatsApp group as well. So WhatsApp is the fastest to respond or otherwise connect means via LinkedIn that’d be really ideal. We can actually have a, have a chat as well. I’m really open and really gamification or game thinking is my very passionate topic is very close to my heart. So I’m happy to support if anyone that actually wants to find out more about this framework can always reach out to me and we can have, we can have a workshop coffee session, I think right now, as you would all be all, do words, coffee session and all that.

Jaxton (34m 17s):
Yeah. So I’m happy to actually, to half of which a copy of your coffee session as well, if you have any questions, you know, attending to this framework, you know, the game based solution that you want to discuss,

Rob (34m 29s):
That sounds fantastic. Those, those virtual now coffee sessions that we could have to help and support other people and to learn more. I think that is a fantastic offer that you’re making Jaxton. I think, well, you know, those are the kinds of things that I also move people and motivate them to sort of go further as well because they have an expert. You have somebody who’s been there, done that, looking at them. And thank you for such a generous offer Jaxton, because not everybody is willing to give away their, their email and their WhatsApp. I mean, that’s something that many people are, are especially careful about because we were talking at the start as well. You know, at this point, time is probably one of our most current, most valuable assets, one of the most difficult ones, to come by.

Rob (35m 11s):
So offering that means you’re, you’re basically offering your time to, to people who might be struggling or want to learn more. So thank you very much for that generosity.

Jaxton (35m 20s):
You’re most welcome, Rob.

Rob (35m 21s):
So Jaxton, thank you again very much for being with us today for sharing all that knowledge, all that, that passion that you have for this topic, for game thinking for gamification, doing things the right way, however, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it’s game over. Hey Engagers, Thank you for listening to the Professor Game podcast. If you want more interviews with incredible guests like Jaxton, then go to professorgame.com/subscribe and get started on our email list. That way we will be in direct contact, you will be the first to know of any opportunities that Professor Game might have for you. And before you go onto your next mission, before you click continue, remember to subscribe.

Rob (36m 5s):
If you haven’t, using your favorite podcast app and listen to the next episode of Professor Game, see you there!

End of transcription

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