The application of game design elements to non-game contexts.
Exploring useful streaks for your product or org? Let’s chat → professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Examining why streak mechanics (borrowed from Duolingo and meditation apps like Happier) frequently backfire once users miss a day, triggering the abstinence violation effect and rage-quitting. Drawing on his own […]
Retention or loyalty on your roadmap? Happy to brainstorm → professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Glen Lubbert presents Stamina Lab’s solution-focused approach to behavior change, which deliberately rejects root-cause analysis in favor of asking “what kept you from doing more of the thing you didn’t want […]
Curious if Octalysis fits your engagement challenge? Quick intro chat: professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Rob Alvarez breaks down “confirm shaming,” the dark pattern where opt-out buttons are worded to make users feel stupid, guilty, or irresponsible for declining a desired action. The hook: a […]
Curious if Octalysis fits your engagement challenge? Quick intro chat: professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Matt Dalio recounts how Endless Studios spent years and millions of dollars building The Endless Mission (a hackable game designed to teach coding the way Musk and Zuckerberg learned it) […]
Aiming for sustainable retention? Intro chat (no sales pitch): professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Rob Alvarez marks the eighth anniversary of Professor Game with a retrospective on 420 episodes, roughly 400 guests, and the consistency that took the show from a launch his mother doubted could […]
Episode Summary Andy and Jeff Crocker of Mister & Mischief discuss their self-published zine Infinite Right Answers, a deliberately analog, imperfect document of their design philosophy for immersive and participatory experiences. They argue against the false binary of “no wrong answers” improv culture, introduce […]
Exploring gamification for your product or org? Let’s chat → professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Exploring where Marty Cagan’s Silicon Valley Product Group methodology and the Octalysis framework reinforce each other and where they leave gaps. He argues that product discovery answers what users need but […]
Episode Summary Doug Weitzbuch recounts launching Housle, the Wordle-for-real-estate daily guessing game, after producing Netflix’s Buy My House. He describes the post-press traffic crash that followed his initial launch, the unplanned Barstool Sports “Mostly Sports” segment that 10x’d his daily player count, and his […]
Exploring gamification for your product or org? Let’s chat → professorgame.com/chat Episode Summary Rob Alvarez announces he has joined The Octalysis Group as Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe, and explains the path from a 2017 Octalysis Design Challenge finalist position through subsequent roles at […]
Episode Summary Jaime Schwarz, holder of the world’s first NFT patent (filed 2017), argues that centralized platforms have turned gamification into extraction (a digital sharecropping system he calls techno-feudalism) and that the next economic frontier is an IP economy where co-creators hold transferable rights. […]