Rob Alvarez Bucholska
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From Grand Theft Auto to Fighting Dementia | Episode 442

 

Identify the exact strategies Sharon and Rob discussed so you can start increasing engagement in your own projects today. Grab our Core Drives in the Wild guide for free professorgame.com/WildCD

What if the secret to solving real-world isolation or preventing misconduct wasn’t more rules, but better play? Sharon Wood, a veteran gaming executive who helped launch the original Grand Theft Auto, joins us to discuss her shift from commercial hits to “Serious Games” with a scientific edge. We explore the neurological reality that the brain cannot distinguish between real and virtual experiences, making games a potent tool for building empathy and confidence. From memory care apps that reunite families to clinical trials in schools, this episode moves past the “points and badges” surface of gamification to show how progressive mastery actually changes lives.

Sharon Wood is a seasoned gaming executive with over four decades of experience spanning sports marketing, entertainment, media, and video game development. Her career began in the fast-paced world of sports and entertainment marketing before she entered the gaming industry in 1996 during PlayStation’s early days, where she orchestrated groundbreaking partnerships between major brands like Pepsi and Frito-Lay and video games.

Most notably, Sharon launched the original Grand Theft Auto on a modest marketing budget. While defending the controversial title in the media, she consulted with psychologists and discovered something surprising: games could actually provide safe environments for exploring moral concepts rather than encouraging negative behaviors. This revelation changed everything.
Inspired by gaming’s positive potential, Sharon collaborated with a psychologist around 2012-2013 to create “Luminous,” a game designed to help women and girls build self-confidence. Within months of launch, it became a top-five app in 34 countries.

This success led Sharon to found Happy People Games (HPG), a company dedicated to creating “serious games”: interactive experiences that merge scientific evidence with engaging gameplay to deliver real-world benefits beyond entertainment. Unlike simple gamification with badges and points, HPG builds games that create progressive mastery experiences, harnessing the natural reward response from achievement and channeling it toward positive outcomes.

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.

 

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Looking forward to reading or hearing from you,

Rob

 

Full episode transcription (AI Generated)

Sharon Wood (00:00)
What we know about video games is that when you’re playing a video game, the brain can’t tell the difference between real and virtual. It is so immersed in that game experience that you are pick anybody. And so when you’re creating games like this, we have that in mind.

Rob (00:19)
Hey, Engagers, and welcome to Professor Game, the number one gamification podcast where we explore how games, gamification, game thinking,

help us improve engagement, multiply retention and build stronger and better products. And I’m Rob, I’m the founder. I’m a coach at Professor Game. I’m the head of engagement strategy at BF Tellsys Group, the leading gamification consultancy, and I’m professor of gamification and game-based solutions at top business institutions like IU Business School, EFMD, EBS University and others around the world. And before we dive into today’s super interesting conversation with Sharon, I just wanted to remind you that if you want to see the core drives in the wild, all you have to do is click on the link in the

description. So Sharon, we always start off by understanding a little bit very quick question about our guests and if that question is, are you prepared to engage?

Sharon Wood (01:12)
Of

Rob (01:13)
Let’s do this. have Sharon Wood today with who is a seasoned gaming executive with over four decades of experience spanning from sports marketing, entertainment, media, and video game development. And her career began in the fast paced world of sports and entertainment marketing before entering the gaming industry in 1996 during PlayStation’s early days, where she orchestrated groundbreaking partnerships between major brands like Pepsi and Frito-Lay and video games. And she launched the original

Here this Grand Theft Auto on a modest marketing budget, know, defending the controversial title in the media. She consulted with psychologists and discovered something very, very surprising for some, maybe, maybe not for some of you, Engagers, but it’s the fact that games could actually provide a safe environment for exploring these moral concepts rather than encouraging any negative behavior. And this changed everything. got inspired and did…

all kinds of things that are all the way to creating Luminous in 2012, 2013, a game designed to help women and girls build self-confidence. And within months of launch, it became a top five app in 34 countries. This also led her to build Happy People Games, which is a company dedicated to creating serious games, interactive experiences that merge scientific evidence with engaging gameplay to deliver those real world benefits beyond entertainment. So unlike gamification with badges and points,

Happy People Games builds games that create progressive mastery experiences, harnessing natural reward response from achievements and channeling it toward positive outcomes. So Sharon, a lot to discuss, a lot to get into, but I just want to know if there’s anything that we are missing from that intro, anything we should know.

Sharon Wood (02:58)
That was a really concise and sweeping view of my background. mean, there’s lots of other stuff that I did, but that’s part of it. And the other thing that I’m just going to point out is we, ⁓ game snobs don’t necessarily call the kind of products when it’s evidence-based, ⁓ gamification. Cause gamification started way back in the day and it was badges and rewards. And then this sort of industry popped up because the government started putting out RFPs to the universities about

taking research and combining it with video game strategies. And so that’s really what we do. We look at these products for wellness strategically and really map out in detail what the research is telling us, what video game tactics can work to form a strategy to help people understand what they’re learning. Because so often people are asking us to learn things we don’t understand, right?

So just going to point that out.

Rob (03:59)
Cool, cool. Gamification, as you pointed out, has already over a decade. It’s been around. Some people have started sort of doing it as, as Yucay, for example, from the Airtelis framework claims he started doing some things around gamification in 2003. There’s, you know, some stuff that has been done that you could claim is gamification, but at least nowadays gamification tends to go well beyond points, badges and leaderboards. In fact, Yucay, who I mentioned, I did it intentionally not only because we’re working together now, but because his book is literally called Beyond Points, Badges and Leaderboards.

Sharon Wood (04:27)
Exactly.

Rob (04:28)
Action-novel

gameification. So yeah, there’s a lot going on in that field. And I’m happy that there’s every time more people getting involved with science-based and science-backed stuff to actually get the results for people that they’re looking for. Both the business owners who are looking to use these evidence-based strategies, and as well the users who are wanting to get all these benefits that we’ve seen coming from video games, games, board games, sports, and many others.

By the way, many of them you’ve also been involved in. So Sharon, nowadays, after all that massive experience you’ve had in all these industries, what does a regular day with you look like? What are you doing these days?

Sharon Wood (05:11)
Well, I mean, we’re still a startup, even though we’re 10 years old, we’re constantly expanding our repertoire. And that’s one of the exciting parts about being in this field is that ⁓ new opportunity approaches crop up. So as a startup, you know, we’re doing everything soup to nuts. But the other part of it is sometimes it could be design. Sometimes it could be looking at the research evidence and lining it up with.

The strategies that we’re going to use, sometimes it could just be brass tacks, software review, looking at the user experience. When I was in commercial video games, an important component of what publishers do is look at the in-game marketing. People often forget that, developers in particular. In other words, how are you keeping engagement and excitement so that people will continue to play your product?

very, very important. we spend a lot of time with that too. And sometimes it’s the other end of the product cycle, which is sales and marketing.

Rob (06:16)
Amazing, amazing. love, I love how you mentioned that it’s, sometimes teams tend to forget what it, within the experience, what happens. ⁓ there’s, there’s again, in my lingo and there’s, there’s many others doing interesting stuff in our lingo. It’s about, you know, function focused design and don’t get me wrong. I’ve, did a UX UI bootcamp. So I’m technically part of partially a UX UI designer. I am a software engineer. I’m, you know, that’s part of my profession and something that I’ve done as well, but we tend to be very function focused.

We don’t think so much in terms of engagement. And this is not a fault or a flaw, personal flaw. This is normal. It’s part of the industry and it’s part of the way that we behave. think of, we have a feature here. So if the feature works and people will do it. And you know, that doesn’t really tap into motivations as, as you were perhaps starting to describe. So Sharon, you’ve been, you’re, you’ve said you’re, you guys have a startup for the past 10 years. So I’m guessing that there’s been lots of ups and downs. And the first question we dive into usually, you know, sort of strong question is.

of any, any one of those downs or first attempts in learning or fail moments, however you want to call them, where things you are going in certain directions, things that just didn’t work out and how did you either recover, pivot, take it as a lesson. We want to be there with you. We want to live that experience as much as you can share and take away as well, for sure, some of those lessons.

Sharon Wood (07:36)
actually worked on a game, a commercial video game, it was PC and PlayStation and Xbox. And I worked on a poker game and it was using an artificial intelligence that would learn your tells. so using that engine and building a game experience around it was important. I got a major network to promote it on air.

with interstitials, but it had a fatal flaw in that if you lost your internet connection, you took the whole poker table down and lost all your chips. It’s pretty darn fatal flaw, right? And I think that that was an acute reminder of the importance of integrity in development, making sure. So we talked about the importance of the user experience, which is the in-game marketing. Am I keeping you engaged? Do you feel?

satisfied as you continue to progress through the product. But the other part of it is just brass tacks programming, right? You’ve got to have a solid team who understands programming. And we all throw that word around like, you know, like it’s easy and it’s not. And every good game creator will try to push the technology a little further. And so you’ve got to balance how far out on the limb do you want to go? And at what point is it going to break off?

Right.

Rob (09:00)
What would you do differently? Of course, you know, technically there’s the whole thing of the internet not going up, but in terms of approach, is there something that you would, you know, facing a similar challenge or situation or many of the challenges you’ve faced in the future, how would you approach it differently? What could be a lesson there taking home?

Sharon Wood (09:19)
Well, the joy and the anxiety of being in video games is that you’re creating something that didn’t exist and you’re combining things that probably didn’t exist too, otherwise it wouldn’t be unique. And you’ve got to, you’re going to have to go out on the limb a little bit, continuing the metaphor to try to get to where you’re going. And there are times where you have to just cut and say, that’s not going to work. I give up. There are times where.

You’re going to say, this is worth it. I’m going to keep persevering. And I think part of ⁓ any kind of video game experience is being able to assess which of those two things you’re at. Right. So with the poker game, it was eventually abandoned. It just couldn’t be fixed. And there are other times where I’ve seen products that have made an effort to make it and then teams came in and helped turn it around and they became big hits.

Rob (10:16)
Amazing, amazing. And flipping that entirely around, is there a time where some results that you got from your experience in these, this video series games or however we, we want to call them where we’re actually things eventually, of course we iterate and we, we try things. Actually, they eventually went well. Sort of a proud moment. We want to be there with you as well and see any of the key success factors. Maybe if you, if you have any of those.

Sharon Wood (10:43)
So when we started with sexual and misconduct prevention, evidence-based, video game mechanics, we did a clinical trial and randomized control trial with high school and college students. And what I love about using those clinical structures is that there’s no cheating. When I was in marketing early on, I had a lot of colleagues who would use focus groups as validation rather than getting at what people really thought of their product and where they could improve it. So when you do any kind of trial,

There’s really no leading the witness because there’s a third party that has to look at what you’re saying and how you’re saying it, how you’re asking it. And they’re going to not let you sway through the questions and the phrasing that you’re using. early clinical trials and randomized trials showed that 95 % of students wanted a sexual misconduct prevention training in their school. So I’m just going to say that again. They wanted a sexual misconduct prevention training, right?

And they were in high school and college. And that is an extraordinary achievement as far as I’m concerned. There’s also more than a 90 % improvement in confidence to know what to do. So in the serious games business, it’s not just about, people engage with the product? Can they get through the product and could they complete it? In serious games, you’re also looking for, did they learn something? Did they appreciate and like, if you will, the experience of learning?

a topic that you’re offering. And then just as importantly, what was the net effect? And in this case, it was a drastic improvement in confidence. And if you think about it, if you’re doing sexual misconduct, confidence is everything. You’re not going to do anything unless you’re confident and sure that what you’re doing is the right thing. So in serious games, there are different combinations of outcome goals that you’re looking for. In addition to the things that we look for,

in traditional commercial video games, which is, did you use the product? Did you like the product? Did you finish the product? Right?

Rob (12:50)
That sounds amazing and you know, talking about clinical trials and that sort of scientific mentality, I think it’s fundamental when approaching, especially when you build something that’s very, very new, very different. You have the natural, the very human tendency to try to see how you make it successful rather than to see whether, you know, it’s actually what it should be. And it’s really hard, you know, that final push.

of having that third party involved and being a clinical trial, like doesn’t let you try to take any of those shortcuts. I loved especially that part. Sharon, when you’re, when you’re building, you know, in, in, in happy people games, happy, did I, did I get that right? Happy people games. I said it out of memory and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. When you’re building something new in happy people games, you say, look, we’re going to build this game, this app for this and that.

Sharon Wood (13:32)
Yes. Yep.

Rob (13:43)
I’m guessing that after this experience that you’ve had, you have some form of a process, like how do you approach things? How do you approach the solving of these problems, the creation of these games? We’re curious, of course, know, high level overview. We would really like to know how does that look like? Get into the minds of these fantastic creators that you have.

Sharon Wood (14:04)
So when you’re in serious games, need researchers who know the topic. They’re subject matter experts. ⁓ I brought in people who are commercial media writers because when we’re talking about all these types of ⁓ products, you need people who are skilled at, ⁓ know, in marketing we used to say it’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it. And that’s just as true when you’re in serious games. And… ⁓

If you start with the research and you say, if this is our goal, then what are we going to do to help people learn? There are levers of learning and behavior that we have to hit. We’ve got two products in MemoryCare right now that are in the app stores, Timeless Tunes and Still Frames. Those products were designed.

to break the isolation of people who are beginning to have memory loss or had advanced memory loss. We’re not going to cure Alzheimer’s dementia through a game, at least not that I can see. But what we can do is relieve some of the loneliness and sadness, not only with the people who have dementia and Alzheimer’s, but the people who are around them watching them lose their memories. And so we set out to design products

that would break the isolation, use the joy of video games to connect them with each other, to stimulate their memories by using their memories, not somebody else’s memories, which I think is very key when you’re talking about this kind of work. And again, it’s that combination of game design, science, you know, what are the issues that we think that we can address? How do they work? How is they proven that they work in real life?

And then what can games sort of pick up? Because what we know about video games is that when you’re playing a video game, the brain can’t tell the difference between real and virtual. It is so immersed in that game experience that you are ⁓ pick anybody, right? And so when you’re creating games like this, we have that in mind. have, you know, everybody stands on the shoulders of somebody else. We look across other video games and say, okay,

What kind of mechanic could we use to achieve goal one, two, three, and four? And then you meet as a team with the researchers and the development team. And then we bring in people who understand marketing so that we get the verbiage right so that we’re empowering and not creating more problems by making you feel bad, all that kind of stuff. so it’s a more, ⁓ video games are complex and takes a giant team.

right, who are skilled at each of the things that they have to contribute. Just like an orchestra, it’s not just the violin, it’s the whole thing. And I think with serious games, it’s the whole thing too, but the piece parts are different. Did I answer your question?

Rob (17:08)
Yeah, I think overall the sort of the way in which you look at the whole process and understand who are the people that need to be involved, what kind of specialists you require when creating these products, think pretty much answers the question ⁓ quite thoroughly because it’s not only about doing a series of steps, you take it also into another step and who are the people that are involved and that you require to make sure that this is also successful. So love it. Thank you very much for your answer.

Sharon Wood (17:34)
Not just

that, but when you’re bringing these scientists in, you have to bring the right scientist in, right? Because it’s got to be someone who understands not only human behavior and interaction with receiving the information you’re trying to give them, but they also have to be able to, alongside of you, envision it inside of a product versus being in a clinical setting, right?

Rob (17:58)
Yeah, it takes a different, it takes a different mindset. And, know, I’ve talked to many people in the past and some of them it’s like, yeah, I did, I have a PhD and I work in this, example, in this behavioral stuff, but my PhD isn’t like history or, you know, language. So it doesn’t mean that it’s contextually right. Of course they have the skills of researching and I’m not, not the meaning that in any way, but it’s not the same, right. Somebody who’s specifically being diving into that. And then also applying that all the way back to, to a product, teach at a university and have many.

fellow colleagues who are researchers and they dedicate solely to that. And that’s a different profile as well, that the kind of person who’s dedicated to, to, you know, academic research. It’s a different thing. It’s just a different, different, different sort of animal entirely, so to speak. And it, you know, from all this experience and everything that you’ve, you’ve been discussing, I’m guessing that you have one or many best practice, something that you say, well, when you’re looking into serious games, motivation and all these things from video games, you would

probably benefit from doing things like, there were any best practices. No, no silver bullets, but something that actually tends to help projects in your experience.

Sharon Wood (19:06)
Well, it’s so iterative and it’s as iterative as any big commercial video game because you’re talking about people’s lives in serious games, you’re talking about health outcomes. And so the best practice is ⁓ to make sure everyone knows their lane, that they’re all listening to each other and collaborating and then do focus groups because you can’t know everything. I don’t know how people are going to react to

a music game that uses music from their use. Until I get out there, I can hypothesize about it. I can use data to predict that music is a great stimulant, that it lifts mood, all that kind of stuff. But until you get the product into a prototype state or a vertical slice, you don’t know how they’re going to react. And when they do, you have to listen intently and take their feedback into consideration as you continue to develop the product.

That’s a best practice because I think there’s a shortage on listening these days, don’t you? Yep.

Rob (20:09)
There definitely is where it’s difficult. It’s a difficult skill. It’s not something, you know, they always say we have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we talk.

Sharon Wood (20:19)
I’m going to say that to my grandkids.

Rob (20:24)
I, you know, I acknowledge that as well. Sometimes we’re tempted to say something else and to respond to something that we’re somebody’s saying. And it’s easy to disconnect from the conversation and just start making up, you know, what you’re going to respond rather than trying to input more of that, you know, really, truly deeply understand it. That’s, that’s difficult. Again, that I’m sure I fall victim to that all the time.

Sharon Wood (20:46)
Well, we all do, we’re all human. But I love that you’re pulling that thread out because when you’re working in this kind of field, I could have one thing in mind and I could be completely convinced, meaning I’ve convinced myself that this is the way to do it. And it doesn’t, when you’re doing a product like this and you want it to work as good as it can to help as many people as you can, you’re doing it.

a disservice, you’re doing your goal a disservice if you’re just not intently listening.

Rob (21:17)
It’s not about you, usually never is, or at least 90 % of the times it isn’t about you. So you have to keep that in mind when you’re making those choices. Sharon, you know, I think we’ve had an interesting conversation. I don’t know if there’s somebody that you would say, well, you know, this conversation sparks me to thinking somebody else would also have an interesting conversation. Maybe I’d like to hear it. And when I say I, I mean, you. So would you have somebody that you would like as a featured guest on the podcast? You know, we definitely had you. So I don’t know.

Anybody come to mind?

Sharon Wood (21:47)
There’s

a guy named Christian Svensson who is head of third party for Sony. Christian is a fascinating guy because when I started in video games, I didn’t know anything about the commercial business of video games. He was editor in chief of NextGen magazine. So in the U.S. that was a big magazine in the enthusiast press. And his gut instinct on products was he had to have like a 95 % nailed it kind of.

accuracy and he’s still a friend and I trust his opinion tremendously. And I feel like that perspective that he could bring about qualifying, how he qualifies products, which might be a lot of gut instinct, but also has to do a lot with how well he knows the industry, how much he loves the industry. So he might be an interesting guest for you.

Rob (22:38)
Christian Svensson,

Sharon Wood (22:40)
Yeah. Interesting.

His third party, it’s Sony.

Rob (22:44)
third party at Sony. Interesting. I never, never heard of him. it definitely sounds like somebody very interesting. when you say gut, gut, you know, sort of gut reaction, gut instinct, it’s, it’s funny how we, some people either, you know, deify gut instinct and some people have it and some people don’t. And other people under, you know, sort of under, under use it as well. It’s like, yeah, that’s just as gut feeling. Let’s look at the data.

But it’s funny how that gut feeling is literally not coming from your stomach. It comes from experience. know, your body is receiving a bunch of experience, right? And then it reacts a certain way from what it’s learned. So again, maybe you had very, very bad experiences and haven’t learned much from them, but in general, that gut instinct tends to be something, a very good signal. I’m not saying follow it every single time, but it tends to be a very good signal because it actually does consider a lot of data that we’ve gathered throughout our lives. So it’s interesting.

Sharon Wood (23:32)
I feel like it’s not different from athletes, right? I mean, their gut on where to move on the field or in court is based on all of their experience or practice. Yeah. Right?

Rob (23:44)
For sure. Sharon, keeping up with the recommendations, is there any book that you would recommend the Engagers and why would it be?

Sharon Wood (23:51)
God, I haven’t read a book in so long. So what happens when you have startups? No, I don’t think so. I’ve got a pile of books on my nightstand that I haven’t cracked open in five years. So sorry about that.

Rob (24:08)
No problem, no problem. In this world of serious games and everything that you’ve been building, what would you say is your superpower? And remember, know, Thor flies, know, Iron Man flies as well. It’s not, it doesn’t have to be exclusive to just to you, but something that you do at least better than most other people.

Sharon Wood (24:25)
think I’m pretty good at seeing the opportunity, right? So if you kind of look across the landscape of serious games, there can be things that are a little bit more obvious and then there can be things a little bit more nuanced. And ⁓ I’ve been a part of emerging business categories my whole career. And there was never sort of a blueprint of what to do. You had to keep trying things and rapidly aerate, which wasn’t a thing back then.

And, ⁓ iterate your way to success. And I think when you do that in industries that didn’t heretofore exist, it gives you that to the point that we just made that ability to, ⁓ see opportunity where others might not. And then you do go back and look for the data to back you up and to qualify and quantify whether or not there’s a real business opportunity there. And so that is that there’s that. And then the other thing is listening.

to the other point that we were talking about. In order to be a good leader, you have to listen. And I think that I’m good at it.

Rob (25:33)
Now to the difficult question, Sharon, with all the experience that you’ve had and everything you’ve worked on, is, well, I’m guessing it’s going to be a tough one. Maybe it’s super easy for you, but what would you say is your favorite game?

Sharon Wood (25:43)
Tekken.

Rob (25:44)
Wow, straight up. I love it.

Sharon Wood (25:48)
I loved that game and my daughter when she was young and I would ⁓ relieve the stress when she was a teenager because you you do want to thrash your teenager right? We do it through a video game and laugh and have fun doing it. I miss that game.

Rob (26:07)
Well, you can always get access to it. fact, I got my, you know, my oldie consoles, you know, that whole thing where video game producers from Nintendo PlayStation started launching the old consoles into a mini version, same controllers. Tekken is on my PlayStation 1 for sure. So you can definitely dive into it. It brings two controllers as well. So I’m not, not selling it. I’m not associated to PlayStation in any way as you, as you were, but it could be a place to come back to those memories.

sure. I know every time I turn on any of my old console, it’s like, can remember this. I even purchased an old, real one that I had to do all kinds of things to connect to my current TV. All the hoops. So Sharon, thank you very much for everything, all the insights that you’ve brought, all your experience, everything you’ve brought in. But before we let you go, of course, we want to give you whatever space you want to have here for any, any final piece of advice or whatever you want to say and where we can find out more about the work that you’re doing out there.

Sharon Wood (26:46)
Yep.

So I don’t really have advice because I think everybody follows their own path. And maybe the only piece of advice would be to be a good listener to the point that we’ve been making. And to find out more information about it, just go to happypeoplegames.com. You can see our training products there, the products that are out for memory care, and they’re collaborative. They’re for kids and grandkids to do with grandparents. So yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Rob (27:29)
Amazing. Thank you once again, Sharon. Thank you for being here, for sharing everything that you have so generously. However, Sharon and Engagers, as you know, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it’s game over. And thank you once again, Engagers, for hanging around after this interview. And as I mentioned at the start, if you are interested in looking at our guide of the core drives in the wild, especially for corporate and business settings, now as a consultant in the hotel as a group I have,

access to some significant and interesting data and I can talk a lot more about the way we see things through the Optalis framework, just go to the link below, click there and we will send you an email sequence with all of these cases, core drives one by one, analyzing different situations and giving our strategic advice. So, Engagers, thanks again for staying around and I’ll talk to you and see you soon.

 

End of transcription