Stop Dumping Textbooks Into Your Games, with Alan Yeats | Episode 449 cover art

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

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

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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 0:00 - Stop cramming textbooks into games0:16 - Meet Alan Yeats and Pocket Sized Hands3:16 - A knife-crime game blocked by firewalls5:23 - Design for the stakeholders you forget8:08 - The Cambridge stem cell game that worked9:03 - Make the game fun first10:40 - Co-design and finding the real problem12:33 - From corporate progress bars to magical worlds14:54 - Focus on the play, not the game16:25 - The future guest he would want to hear17:46 - Why Deep Work sharpens his focus19:04 - His superpower, favorite game, and final advice 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 Pocket Sized Hands: pocketsizedhands.comPersonal site: alanyeats.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alanyeatsX (studio): @PKTSizedHands 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 yetRecommended book: Deep Work by Cal NewportFavorite game: Ratchet & Clank 3 Free Resources and Get in Touch Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Free GuideGet Daily Value on Your EmailLet's chat about your gamification projectYouTubeLinkedInInstagramFacebookStart Your Community on Skool for FreeAsk a question
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