Professor Game Podcast

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products, with one real-world example in your inbox each day: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Rob breaks down why disconnecting on vacation is so hard for driven people, and why it is a motivation problem rather than a willpower one. He maps the specific Octalysis Core Drives that keep high achievers tied to work during a break, includin...

These engagement failures, and how to fix them, map directly onto the Octalysis Core Drives. Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Rob breaks down why Amazon shut down KiroRank, the internal leaderboard that scored staff on raw AI usage on its Kiro developer platform. He shows how stacking Core Drive 2 (Development & Accomplishment) and Core Drive 5 (Social Influence &...

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...

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real corporate cases: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Rob breaks down why enterprise AI adoption stalls even with paid licenses and training, while a group of students beat a locked, proctored exam with ChatGPT and no support at all. Reading both cases through the Octalysis Framework, he shows how the exam accidentally stacked Core Drive 8 (L...

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide and see behavioral design applied to real products and services: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Eleanor Ross, Creative Director at Expert Theory and one of the youngest recipients of the National Training and Simulation Association's Top Under 40 award, breaks down how she designs wargames and simulations that put learners inside high stakes decisions instead of watching...

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Rob breaks down why the most durable loyalty has almost nothing to do with points, contrasting a typical airline miles program with a neighborhood barber who keeps a customer for ten years with no app, no tiers, and no expiring rewards. He shows how the same Core Drive can run in opposite directi...

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Victoria Ichizli-Bartels, author of fourteen books on gameful living and coiner of the term "self-gamification," explores how the role of the tabletop RPG game master maps onto the inner conversation we have with ourselves. She walks through Jill Bolte Taylor's "brain huddle" concept (a 90-second...

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Tetiana Kobzar, product designer with 18 years of experience and creator of the Comportance Framework, joins Rob to share how behavioral design turns clinical and educational software into products people actually want to use. She walks through the seven steps of Comportance (goal, baseline, emot...

Don't experiment on your own revenue with broken game mechanics. Get our guide "Core Drives in the Wild" to learn how to apply real behavioral science to your product: professorgame.com/WildCD

Most apps lose 77% of their users within the first three days because they treat onboarding like a tax audit instead of a human journey. In this episode, Rob Alvarez breaks down why your "helpful" 15-step toolkit might actually be causing cog...

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 comm...

Don't experiment on your own revenue with broken game mechanics. Get our guide "Core Drives in the Wild" to learn how to apply real behavioral science to your product: professorgame.com/WildCD

Most companies treat user churn as a data problem, but looking at "where" someone leaves doesn't explain "why" they lost interest. We break down the "Engagement Leaks," a phenomenon where record-breaking marketing spend fails to fix a product...

Exploring gamification for your product or org? Let's chat → professorgame.com/chat

We sit down with product leader and author Nesrine Changuel to explore the behavioral science of "Product Delight." Nesrine pulls from her extensive experience at tech giants like Google and Spotify to explain why emotional connection cannot be treated as an afterthought in product design. By distinguishing between purely functional requirements and...

Master the science of motivation and see how top experts do it right. Get the free 9-day "Core Drives in the Wild" email sequence here: professorgame.com/WildCD

We break down three massive gamification disasters from 3 huge companies to reveal exactly what happens when we ignore behavioral science. We explain how well-intentioned features like leaderboards and point systems can accidentally create toxic work environments or destroy...

Wondering if Octalysis fits your challenge? Quick intro chat → professorgame.com/chat

Most companies rely on traditional design thinking to build their products. That assumption is exactly why their retention rates flatline. In this episode, Rob Alvarez sits down with Joris Beerda, CEO of The Octalysis Group, to unpack the five-step Octalysis design process that drives engagement for Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft and Porsche...

Don't experiment on your own revenue with broken game mechanics. Get our guide "Core Drives in the Wild" to learn how to apply real behavioral science to your product: professorgame.com/WildCD We dismantle the myth that simply adding points, badges, and leaderboards will fix a broken product. We explore why superficial rewards often lead to a 90% failure rate in corporate gamification and cause dangerous spikes followed by massive ...

Have a product challenge around retention? Quick intro chat → professorgame.com/chat

Leif Sorensen reveals why most corporate learning games fail. We discuss the "magic powder" fallacy, where companies try to cram too many behavioral frameworks into a single experience. Leif breaks down his process for building AI-generated learning games at Actee and explains why focusing on the transfer of learning is the real secret to changing ...

If you're implementing AI and want to realize that promised ROI, let's see if Octalysis fits → professorgame.com/chat

Breaking down why most AI projects fail despite being technically flawless. The problem isn't the code; it's the lack of behavioral design. By applying the Octalysis Framework, we see how to move away from "Black Hat" implementations that trigger resistance and identity threats. Instead, we shares how to design AI a...

I've interviewed hundreds of experts and now lead Engagement Strategy (EU) at TOG.
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Can a leader truly be effective without ever presenting a single slide? Clark Aldrich returns to the show to dismantle the "expert-led" model of management and education. He introduces Socratic Cards: a physical tool designed to replace passive consumption with active, high-stakes...

Have a product challenge around retention? Quick intro chat → professorgame.com/chat

Stop feeling like you're grinding without a progress bar. In this episode, we explore the behavioral science of "leveling up" in real life to combat burnout and invisible growth. By applying the Octalysis Framework we discusse how to map your career as an evolving skill tree. Whether you are a product leader looking to build meaningful user progres...