Rob Alvarez
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Stop Dumping Textbooks Into Your Games, with Alan Yeats | Episode 449

  Listen on SpotifyListen on Apple PodcastsAvailable on YouTube Struggling with retention, churn, or adoption in your product, service, or program? Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide and see how to apply real behavioral design to your engagement: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Alan Yeats, CEO of Pocket Sized Hands, a co-development game studio in Dundee, Scotland, explains why the best learning games start with play and add the curriculum second. He walks through real projects, a knife-crime prevention game stopped cold by school firewalls and a stem cell science game built with Cambridge University, to show how co-design keeps everyone pointed at the same goal. Alan argues that the job is to find the underlying play and the real “why” behind a request, not to cram years of lessons into one product. Listeners come away with a practical filter for any educational or engagement project: build a genuinely good game first, then weave the learning in so people actually engage.

About the Host

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.

Key Takeaways

  • Pocket Sized Hands built a polished Jackbox-style game to steer young people away from knife crime, then hit a wall when school IT firewalls blocked the phone-to-screen connection the experience ran on. The end user is never the only stakeholder a product has to satisfy.
  • For Cambridge University, the studio corrected public misconceptions about stem cell science by running back-to-basics workshops to isolate the one message that mattered, rather than cramming an entire syllabus into a single game.
  • Alan Yeats’s rule for education clients who want to throw the whole textbook at a game: make it genuinely fun first, then layer the lessons in, because curriculum with no play earns no engagement to teach against.
  • Co-design converts a client from someone who merely commissioned a product into an owner who evangelizes it, which is why Pocket Sized Hands opens projects with a workshop for facilitators and real users instead of a written spec.
  • Pitching the visual register openly, from a corporate LinkedIn-style progress bar to a fully magical world, lets a team test how far it can push a client before the client pushes back with “that is too much fun.”

Topics Covered

Struggling with retention, churn, or adoption in your product, service, or program? Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide and see how to apply real behavioral design to your engagement: professorgame.com/WildCD

About Alan Yeats

Alan Yeats is the CEO of Pocket Sized Hands, a co-development game studio based in Dundee, Scotland. He left school at 16 to work on games, dropped out of university, and founded the studio nine years ago. Since then, Pocket Sized Hands has helped ship titles including Pocket Mortys for Adult Swim, Oddworld: Soulstorm, and Bendy and the Ink Machine, working with clients ranging from indie developers to major publishers. The studio specialises in co-development, porting, networking, and live ops.

Find the Guest Online

Mentioned in This Episode

Some links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
  • Proposed future guest: someone who wants to use gamification but hasn’t yet
  • Recommended book: Deep Work by Cal Newport
  • Favorite game: Ratchet & Clank 3

Free Resources and Get in Touch

  Looking forward to reading or hearing from you, Rob Full episode transcription (AI Generated)

Stop cramming textbooks into games

Alan Yeats (0:00): you work with education institutions, they want to throw the whole textbook at it. They want to say, I want to do a few years worth of lessons into this one game. And I don’t care about how plays, but… you

Meet Alan Yeats and Pocket Sized Hands

Rob Alvarez (0:16): So, hey, Engagers, welcome back to the Professor Game Podcast. We are the number one gamification podcast and we explore how games, gamification, game thinking and game-based solutions boost engagement, maximize loyalty and build stronger products. I’m Rob. I’m the founder of Professor Game. I’m also the head of engagement strategy of the Octalysis Group, which is the leading gamification consultancy. And I’m also a professor of gamification, game-based solutions at top global institutions like IE Business School, EFMD and EBS University. And before we dive into today’s conversation, if you’re struggling with anything that has to do with retention, churn, engagement, or adoption in your product or service or business, we want to turn that around. So take a look at our free guide, Core Drives in the Wild, and see how we have successfully been using motivation and non-successfully as well with all our commentary in business situations. So all you have to do is click on the link in the description. And, Alan. Welcome to the Professor Game Podcast. We definitely need to know, are you prepared to engage? Yes, I’m prepared to engage. Thank you for having us on. Absolutely. Absolutely. have Alan Yeats. Yeats, is that right? Alan Yeats (1:23): Yeats. Rob Alvarez (1:25): Who’s the CEO of Pocket Sized Hands, a co-development game studio based in Dundee, Scotland. And he left school at 16 to work on games, dropped out of the university and founded the studio nine years ago. And since then, Pocket Sized Hands has helped him ship titles, including Pocket Mortys for Adult Swim, Oddworld: Soulstorm. and Bendy and the Ink Machine working with clients ranging from indie developers to major publishers and the studio specializes in co-development in particular, porting, networking and live ops. So Alan, is there anything that we’re missing about you or pocket sized hands that we should know before we get started? Alan Yeats (2:03): Yeah, we’ve also supported a lot of universities and local societies developing games for them, bringing new ways of learning into their world. Rob Alvarez (2:15): Sounds absolutely amazing. Thank you for bringing that up. And before, before we dive into this sort of difficult questions, let’s start with an easy one. Like, what does your day look like? What are you doing in these days? Maybe a typical day, if that makes sense in your case. Alan Yeats (2:32): Yeah. So I actually recently moved over to the CEO role. So I used to be the CTO. So it’s been a of a change recently. I’m less so in projects, you developing the software. I’m more, you’re talking to prospective clients and talking to the wider ecosystem about how, how we can help and how we can, you know, so much yourself, how we can bring new ways of learning to people and new ways and new solutions for their products. So very much, yeah, going out there and talking about all things games. Rob Alvarez (3:00): Wow. So you’re basically a business developer now. Alan Yeats (3:03): Pretty much, it’s fun though. enjoy being to spend my day talking about games. I don’t think anyone could complain about that. Rob Alvarez (3:11): Okay. So from game developer to business developer in games, for sure. That makes a lot of sense.

A knife-crime game blocked by firewalls

Rob Alvarez (3:16): You know, now you’re also the CEO and I’m sure you also keep getting many of these stories, but we always kick things off in that sense with a story of what we call your favorite fail or first attempt at learning. Especially when it has to do with games, meaningful games, gamification, game fight strategies, or whatever you want to go for. Because we want to be there with you. We want to feel a little bit of that pain. And hopefully sting us enough not to do the same mistakes that took you there and take away some lessons. Alan Yeats (3:44): Yes, as I said, we’ve worked on a lot of charities and developed products for them to bring out new engagements to school kids, young people. And we’ve developed a lot of Jackbox-style experiences. The kids can play in the classroom, still daydreaming, you develop that experience and you’ll live through that gameplay. The biggest one we’ve done is a knife crime charity here in Scotland. There is a large knife problem here in the UK where young people get into that sort of world. And these charges are trying to tell youths about how to not engage that in some of the dangers around there. So we developed a really nice Jackbox-style experience where a facilitator can bring experience in the TV and then the kids can engage on their phones. And we play tested it and we really, really, really good experience and really proud of it. And then to get into schools. And the challenge with schools is they have a lot of firewalls. So when you’re a live experience for young people who are experiencing it on their phones, connecting to a network, the schools block all that. So trying to go through the process of working with local institutions and IT teams who don’t know games, don’t know games at all, don’t want to know games, and trying to, okay, we need to take through the firewalls. And this is not playing a game. This is a learning experience. taking through that experience was a… an upload challenge, this sort of thing you don’t really think about when you’re making the for the core experience for the end users. It’s all the other users and all the other documentation you need to create alongside that.

Design for the stakeholders you forget

Rob Alvarez (5:23): Yeah, big challenge and it’s something that I’m guessing that if you do any project in that same area, you’ll have new things to do. And how would you go about it differently nowadays or how have you gone about it differently? that. Alan Yeats (5:36): Yeah. So I think when we realized that that was a large issues, we just take a step back and think about who else needs to interface with the product we’re working on. Normally you think about, it’s the end user. How’s that core user experiencing the product? But you kind of also need to think about all those other people in the line who’s part of the signing of the project. But what is the IT team going to have to think about if I’m developing this product? What’s the firewall for policies I need to make sure that they unblock or are okay with and the facility can have that conversation with the school or with the IT team say, I want to use this experience, this solution. And this is what I need you to do to allow me to do that. Thinking about the larger step through decision makers and the systems in that project. And how can we make sure it’s as smooth for everyone as possible, not just the end user we’re really trying to the product for. Rob Alvarez (6:30): So just to summarize in a funny way, guess, it’s just make it more complicated, right? Alan Yeats (6:37): making things more difficult in a way. No, you know, but it’s important. You know, there’s, there’s always something else that could happen. There’s always something quote unquote worse. remember I didn’t get to live through this, but I was, I was just very recently getting into this role where, you know, we were developing stuff for, for a business school and, uh, well, we the internal department and the situation was this professor who had been developing all these things. Usually she was not a techie, is not a techie at all, but she was very keen on, you know, new things and innovating. And she had used all the products that we had developed with her. Like she was the co-author, of course, she knew the content and so on. And, you know, there was a time when things like really dropped through and, the servers and how these issues, but eventually that was solved and things were going smoothly until one day, literally electricity went out. So it’s like, you know, you can’t really plan for that. Like, yeah, you need a screen because it’s, it’s happening on a screen. And students need, maybe they can stay, their computers can stay on, if electricity goes out, guess what? Internet goes out as well. So, you know, it was funny in a way because it’s like, well, there’s nothing we can really do and we cannot even plan for it. Like, what do we do if the electricity goes out? like, well, you know, hope it comes back very soon. Nothing broke. Basically. But it was, you know, it’s one of those things that were, yes, you have to plan ahead for many things and then you realize, but there’s some others that is like, well, you know, if this happens, there’s nothing we can do. Yeah. Rob Alvarez (8:02): You got to think about where’s your level of influence. Alan Yeats (8:05): Yeah. Rob Alvarez (8:05): How can you influence the problem? Alan Yeats (8:07): Yeah, exactly, exactly.

The Cambridge stem cell game that worked

Rob Alvarez (8:08): And to flip it entirely around, what would you say is a time when things actually did go really well? It doesn’t have to be in the first try. It’s kind of a success story or a proud moment that you would like to share with with the Engagers. Alan Yeats (8:20): Yeah. So we developed a game for Cambridge university. So they approached us to create something to better educate people about what stem cell science actually is. So they were kind of, they knew people had a lot of concerns and, you know, misinformation about what, what’s involved with being a stem cell scientist. And they were like, well, how do we, how do we solve this problem? They didn’t know if it went to game. We want to solve this problem in it. And we want to do it in an interactive way. What can we do? And so we, you know, went all the back to basics, running through workshops with them, thinking about what do they actually want to get across? What’s the real message they’re trying to get across? How can we best take that experience through?

Make the game fun first

Alan Yeats (9:03): So we created a full game for them that wasn’t throwing the whole textbook at the problem. And that’s probably uh any kind of working game education is always seen as, know, after you work with an institution and especially education institutions, they want to throw the whole textbook at it. They want to say, I wanted to do a few years worth of lessons into this one game. And I don’t care about how plays, but slow down. Let’s make the game fun first and make it a good game. You’re really thinking about the play and then start to add the textbooks and learnings into it so people actually engage. And that’s kind of what we did. We created this really beautiful game experience where they can take it out to schools or more in undergrads and they can get a better understanding of what’s the real reality of working in that world and maybe just discerning some of the difficulties that maybe come up, the ethical and physical dilemmas. It’s a beautiful game that I’m really proud of what we created in the end because it’s a fun game and it has that learning they wanted to get across which is ideal for the type of things I want to make and also they wanted to create. Rob Alvarez (10:09): Absolutely, it sounds fantastic for sure. You know, this connects really well with the next question. We like to talk about process. How do you approach these challenges? So you were saying that you want to start with building a game that’s really fun and then sort of injecting the learning objectives or something along those lines. I’m not sure if I’m misquoting you, but precisely to make sure that we have an idea of what does it look like for you. What would you say is your process? Like again, somebody comes in like Cambridge University or school, whomever. We want to build this. How do you go about that?

Co-design and finding the real problem

Alan Yeats (10:40): So big proponent of co-design, I think you can build something like this independently in your own kind of funnel. We don’t like getting a project that is here’s the spec, come back to us in three months when you’ve found the solution. Cause you never, you’re always going to have a misalignment. And I think when you create a product, unless you want to have everyone pointing the same direction so they can get the best use of it. So we, you know, at the very beginning of project have a workshop with the facilitators and hopefully some of the target audience, they want to push this product to. and work out what’s the core problem they’re trying to actually solve, not what they’re asking the solution to be. What’s the problem? I kept taking a step back and asking, okay, why, why are we doing it this way? Why are we doing it this way? Why, why would we do it that way? I really can get to that core. What are they trying to solve with that problem? And then let’s go backwards. That’s this problem they’re trying to solve. How do we create experience to match that problem? Finding the fun and the play within that. It’s all about play. think that’s going to be how you really get a really nice experiences. How are the players engaging? How are they playing with it? So we run that workshop, create the why we’re doing it. And then we kind of draw out an MVP. Sometimes that’s paper. If it’s got a core experience, we can really get on out of it in the paper. Sometimes it’s in a very MVP gray box software type. We found the fun. We can go back to the facilitator and say, was this what you can amend? we in the right direction? And then it’s iterating. You keeping people who facilitating the evangelists of the product. They are until their product, not a product they’ve commissioned. We want it to be their product. They’re really evangelizing it and helping you push it to the maximum level. We’ve got a solution and then finally we can go back and test it. Make sure we’re hitting those key points that we set out at the beginning when we went through that workshop. They’ll be hit, what we wanted to hit and then it’s bringing it out to the end users. Rob Alvarez (12:32): Amazing, amazing.

From corporate progress bars to magical worlds

Rob Alvarez (12:33): It’s, you know, it’s the whole co-creation, co-development process, as you mentioned, is something that I’ve seen as a trend in many ways. The way we tend or the, not tend, because it always depends on the involvement of clients at the Octalysis Group is, we recommend that where we see the best results is exactly when people really get involved. Because like even the best briefing a business can give you or a school or a university. Since they don’t do this for a living, they’re not living and breathing this. They don’t really know what you need. And it’s not something you just send, like fill out this document. And that’s going to be enough very, very, very rarely. Is that going to be sufficient? And also there is a creative component of, know, is this the direction we’re going? Are you, is this something you envision? One of the things that I like to discuss and that I think is very important is we have like a. a, you can almost spin it around like, Oh, do you want it to be like very, very clean and corporate? Like, this is just a progress bar. Like the one that they have on LinkedIn, something like very, very corporate. It’s not very gaming all the way to a very magical, fantastical experience. Where do you place yourself? Right. And even with that decision being set upfront, then you’re still testing like, do you say you want to go kind of magical? Like this magical world fantasy, you know, I don’t know. middle ages kind of thing, is this too far? Are you expecting more? So that kind of co-creation, I completely agree that is definitely required to see both what is on their mind, but also how much can you push their limits? Because it’s typically, if you’re doing a good job, usually is they’re pushing back saying, no, it’s too much. It’s too much fun, or it’s too magical. And we have to cut it back and still achieve the same objectives and engagement, learning, whatnot. Alan Yeats (14:28): 100 % and it really depends on the end user as well. If your end user is your young people, you’re to have a different type of aspect compared to people who are not up to speed with technology and you can only do your mouse button press. That’s the maximum thing you can do because everything else is too complicated. Rob Alvarez (14:45): Yeah, definitely part of the Strategy Dashboard. We understand our players really, really well. We need to understand where they’re at, what they’re familiar with, what they’re comfortable with for sure.

Focus on the play, not the game

Rob Alvarez (14:54): So Alan, in, you know, in your world of game development and making these meaningful games and so on, is there any kind of best practice or something you say, well, you know, this is not going to be a silver bullet, but it’s going to make your project better. It’s going to help you achieve some things that otherwise you wouldn’t. Alan Yeats (15:11): Yeah, I think it’s focusing on the play, not necessarily the game, but the core underlying play. Because sometimes it doesn’t have to be a game. It can be something physical in person. What is the play we’re trying to get out of it? So you’re taking everything step backwards, drawing everything backwards with what the solution we’re trying to create. What’s the play that that solution can be the experience? So how is the player going to engage with it? And that’s not going to be reading a book because that’s not the best way that most people, a lot of people learn. So what’s the… the play to contain that. Rob Alvarez (15:43): Absolutely. It makes a lot of sense. I’m not sure if we’re referring to exactly the same thing, but I, and I’ve been trying to look up some more, some more stuff for my students that is not just sort of proprietary internal material from the consulting in terms of game loops. Right. If you, once you find the right game loops, so people keep coming back, everything else becomes at least easier or clearer because you know, this is the direction that you’re taking. So, so I definitely agree with that. And game loops can be digital. can be physical. They can be just pretty much anything. But it’s, it’s, it’s what is it that thing where users, players keep coming back to because they want to amongst other things that that’s a key as a key part of that, you know, games being voluntary and all, all this.

The future guest he would want to hear

Rob Alvarez (16:25): Alan, after hearing these questions, and I know you’ve also seen a few episodes of the podcast. Is there somebody that you would be curious to hear on the podcast in the future? A future guest, somebody, you know, at this point with AI. You know, it can even be somebody who’s not alive anymore. I’ve been considering this for a while. I’m not sure if the technology is still in place, but it could be, it could be an interesting thing to bring, you know, to just an easy, easy quote unquote one, Steve Jobs, right? He’s modern. He has a lot of videos and all that. So you can make a debate between him and Napoleon Bonaparte. Why not with us, right? And then see what they think of our strategies. But anybody comes to mind? Alan Yeats (17:05): Um, I’m not sure it’s a really good question because it is. I think thinking someone who’s not necessarily in games and working in games is thinking about the end users of who’s engaging with it. So I think it’d be really interesting to hear someone from a charity or a kind of educational institute of who wants to bring gamification in and they haven’t engaged it yet. What’s their thought process? What’s their kind of thinking around it rather than the other side of people who are actually creating it? What’s their… their thoughts on it, something that’s outsider to you, who wants to get more in. Rob Alvarez (17:38): You want to do some customer research now that you’re a CEO, you’re looking into business development. That makes sense. Smart move. like it.

Why Deep Work sharpens his focus

Rob Alvarez (17:46): Alan, keeping up with the recommendations, is there a book that you would say, look, you know, maybe this doesn’t have everything, but this is one of the best things I can put forward to help people enter this world or get better at this or wherever you want to go for Alan Yeats (17:59): Yeah, I think maybe taking a step backwards and what’s the challenges I find personally and I found throughout my career of when you make any sort of products and I always find a challenge of actually focusing on what I’m trying to do. And while you’re working in games, if you work especially, you know, more traditional games, it’s very easy to tinker around with all the things. So I really recommend Deep Work by Cal Newport, which goes into how how you separate your brain to really focus on one thing. in a game, it’s so easy to just tinker around with lots of different things because lots of things are important in the game. What’s the most important thing? What is the thing that solves everything, the next priority thing? Because you can never have really one priority. You can’t have lots of priorities. So really recommend kind of, yeah, deep work. Rob Alvarez (18:51): That is an amazing book. know, it’s Amazon bestseller or bestseller in so many places, I’m sure. And Cal is a massive, massive author. So definitely a very good book to recommend. Indeed.

His superpower, favorite game, and final advice

Rob Alvarez (19:04): And in this world of gamifying experiences, creating meaningful games, what would you say is your superpower? That thing that you do at least better than most other people or at least in your company, if that’s what you want to go for. Alan Yeats (19:19): I think it’s digging into the why. That’s what we’ve always found. It’s the best solutions we’ve always found is because we can understand the actual underlying why, not just I want to make this game. Why do you want to make the game? Why do you want to solve this problem? And that’s a really, it’s one of those skills. It’s really hard to quantify of how to get better at that, finding the why. And it’s also very hard to quantify being the best at it, but it’s also a… such a really key skill to understanding when you want to deliver something for a client or for anyone, for an end user, why do they want to engage with this thing ever? Or why do they want to do it in this solution that you’re trying to create? Rob Alvarez (19:56): Very, very important. Indeed. So now we get to the difficult question and ideally this would not be part of your own personal professional catalog. What would you say is your favorite game? Alan Yeats (20:08): Ratchet & Clank 3. I’ve played it so much as a youth and it’s such a great game. It’s one of those games that I can keep going back to even now and enjoy it. Rob Alvarez (20:18): Ratchet & Clank 3. Got it. Got it. Ratchet & Clank 3. I haven’t played it, so I can’t have any opinion on it. At least not yet, but I’ve heard good things for sure. And before we move on and go to our next appointment, I’m sure you have business development waiting for you. Are there any final words, any piece of advice that you want to leave the Engagers with? And of course, please let us know where we can find out more about you, about Pocket Size Hands and whatnot. Alan Yeats (20:49): Yeah, I think it’s always trying to think about how you resonate with your audience. What is the audience trying to achieve when they create that solution? Always ask why, why again, and why, why, why, and try and really under-delete, under-ravelled that onion. You can find me on the Alan Yeats games on all platforms and Pocket Sized Hands on pocketsizedhands.com or at @PKTSizedHands and all social medias. Rob Alvarez (21:14): Amazing, Alan. Thank you so much for your engagement, for everything you’ve brought in today to the podcast. And Engagers, remember if you’re facing any kind of problems with retention, engagement, adoption, like what we’ve been discussing today with Alan, in your service, your business, your school, there is something that can help you turn that around for absolutely free. Just go to the link in the description, get our free guide, Core Drives in the Wild. and see how to successfully or also unsuccessfully use these strategies so that you learn from that and are able to do it by yourself. Just go ahead and click on the link in the description. And at least for now and for today, Alan and Engagers, as you know, it is time to say that it’s game over. End of transcription

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