Those three things Super Fan funnel to find the right.
People Loop design to create the experience that people will want
to stick around for and an concept testing so you don't get
lost in the weeds and you actually figure out your
experience. Those three things together as a
system where the input of one chunk is the output of the
previous, right? And that's how game Thinking
works. Hey everyone.
My name is Henry Surya, we Robin.
And you're listening to the technology, you know, podcast
the show where I'll be bringing you the greatest technical
leaders practitioners and thought leaders in the industry
to discuss about their Journey ideas and practices that we all
can learn and apply to build a highly performing technical team
and to make an impact in your personal work.
So let's dive into our Journal. Hello again, to all of you, my
friends and my listeners, welcome to the technology on our
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F / tip, my guest. For today's episode is Amy Jo
Kim. Aiming is a game, designer
startup coach author and the co-founder of game thinking in
this episode, Amy shared how we can use game Thinking to build
better and successful products. That people want Chief has
described some top reasons why products fail and gave a few
tips to avoid. Up failure by validating our
ideas before building the product, Amy then, explain in
depth. The Three core ideas in game
Thinking which are identifying your superfans building a sticky
cohabit Loop and validating the product concept using
storyboards towards the end. Amy shared, how we can get
started with game thinking, and why we should do it early in our
product journey. I really enjoyed my conversation
with Amy learning about game thinking, a, well, proven
technique. That has been used in multiple
successful, major games and products, such as rock band, The
Sims eBay, Netflix and newyorktimes.com, I believe you
will also find this concept, interesting to apply in your
product development and avoid the costly mistakes of building
products that do not solve real user problems.
And if you do enjoy listening to this episode, please help me,
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Hello everyone. Welcome back to another new
episode of the package, you know, podcast today, I'm very
happy. I attended her Workshop back in
2016 in Singapore. I think that was pretty long
time ago and at that moment, actually, I attended this
Workshop called game thinking, so my guest today is Amy Jo Kim.
She's actually pretty well known for this concept game thinking.
And she's also named by Fortune as one of the top 10 influential
women in games, as you can tell, Amy has a lot of game design,
kind of background also involved in publishing, some of the
famous games, like rock band, and The Sims.
So today, we'll be talking a lot about game thinking, how we can
apply it to actually do product validation, Building Product MVP
and things like that. Amy, thank you so much for this
opportunity. Looking forward for our
conversation, it's a pleasure to be here.
So Amy. I always like to start my
conversation with my guest by asking you to share any story
about your career or any turning points or highlights that you
want to share with us here. Sure.
Like many of my friends in the gaming industry, I've got an
Eclectic background in Psychology neuroscience and
computer science and that includes a PhD in behavioral
Neuroscience. So what that essentially means
is that I really understand how to use the scientific Tiffany
method to get answers and I switch from being an academic to
going into Tech and computers. When I realize that I could
build things that millions of people used.
And so, I did that. I built multimedia databases at
Sun Microsystems doing client-server engineering.
And then I switched over to design and producing working
with Brands like MTV Nickelodeon and Star Trek.
Getting them onto the World Wide Web working with Paramount and
Viacom, who's a major media conglomerate and that was
amazing, combining Tech and media.
And then came one of those turning points in my career
where they were moving. Our Design Lab to New York from
California, and I was given a choice to go ahead and move and
uproot my whole family and move to New York or stay and get
Severance and That's what I did. And I launched with my partner,
a design studio to bring game and Community design, to Brands
and startups, and game studios, which is who are still serving.
And through that Design Studio, I worked as a game designer on
the Sims on rock, band on eBay, working on their reputation
system on Ultima Online and early on Netflix. vut fashion
Bejeweled and Tetris with my partner and recently, very
controversial and explosively popular, AI chatbot called
replica And so, I found that in my career whenever something was
a little bit scary. To me, felt maybe a little out
of my depth, but I felt like I would work with great people.
I'd learn a lot from and I could lift up and learn and become
better at my craft. Every time that happened, and I
took it, I was glad I did. And that's one of the things
about leaning into discomfort. I look back on all these hits.
Every one of them at some point was a nightmare.
We wondered if it would work. It was very uncomfortable, but
that's part of the secret of innovation is.
That's kind of how, you know, you're on the right track.
So that's what game Thinking came from, what you learned
about in that workshop and what we?
Now teach teams worldwide in our training, programs is what we
learned working on. All these hits about what works.
And also even more importantly, what doesn't work when you want
to Validate ideas and build the right product for the right
people. So you can read about this in
our book game Thinking, which we published in 2018, you can learn
the step by step system by signing up for our mailing list.
We offer training programs, and we're really on a mission to
save millions of entrepreneurs and product leaders, billions of
hours of time by testing ideas, smarter and faster.
Thank you for sharing your story.
So, one thing that I found very Very relevant in these days,
right? So you mentioned that you took
severance package and started your own journey.
I think in relation to some of the scenes happening in the tech
industry, right there, a lot of layoffs.
People are also not certain in their jobs.
So what made you take that decision during that time when
you decided you want to take severance package and start your
own Journey. Maybe some people here are
contemplating and thinking about that, maybe it can share a
little bit of how you make your decision back then.
Absolutely. That's a great question because
it An easy decision. I absolutely loved the job, I
had, it was very prestigious. I got to work with top creators
at MTV and Nickelodeon, it was crazy, but I knew I didn't want
to move. We didn't yet have a family but
we wanted to and I wanted to be near parents potential
grandparents. So I was at that time of my life
so I knew I didn't want to move. And the other thing that made me
take Severance frankly is I had clients lined up and this is I
think one of the takeaways I'd like to give to anyone listening
relationships are a long game. If you just think extractive lie
about relationships and think, what can someone do for me
course in naturally we think like that, we like to hang out
with people that can do stuff for us, but part of why I was
able to quit that job, take Severance and start my own
design studio is I had developed a lot of relationships during my
time at Sun and at Paramount, and then by a combat Paramount.
So then I would travel to New York every month.
Just part of how I knew. I didn't want to move there and
I developed relationships there as well.
And I had people lined up that were like, if you ever have
extra time, I'd really love to work with you.
So part of it was I put in the time, I think of it as putting
in my dues, I really developed very practical useful skills
that I brought to the table and I built relationships.
I went to conferences, I stayed in touch with people.
I I wrote for various Publications, then that was even
pre-web. But I really shared what I was
learning. I develop relationships, I
stayed in touch with people and it's hard for me.
I'm an introvert, I like this. Like remote work thing.
It works for me, but it paid off because when it was time to quit
my job. I logged people that really
enjoyed working with me and one way or another and we're eager
to know what I was up to and if I would have room in my schedule
and that gave me a lot. Of confidence.
I basically had three clients lined up, but what was
interesting is I really needed a break, because as much as I
loved that job at Viacom, at the time, was my boss.
It was all-consuming. It was a very intense job and
there was a lot of political stuff going on that complicated
it. I bet some of you are nodding
your heads because that just happens when we work in the real
world, we are always doing our best in highly imperfect
situations and the politics. Can get really exhausting and
you feel like if you're away for a weekend, all hell can break
loose. So there was just a lot of
stress to that job and we are at playing at a fairly high level,
which was exciting, but stressful, I knew I didn't want
to do that but I also knew that I had relationships with people
that would vouch for me. That would introduce me to
people, I got a gig 10 years later that was based on the
relationship by built at Viacom years ago.
So I was able to leave. I really needed a break.
And part of what I did was because I had Severance, I said
to all of my potential clients, I'm not doing anything for two
months, if you really need something right away, I can
recommend some people, but I need two months and part of why
I did that is, I've learned something people that are in too
much of a hurry often want to dump their problem on you.
And I'm really careful about taking clients in too much of a
hurry. It's a red flag so that kind of
got rid of the red flags. My world.
And in all honesty I spent a bunch of time playing music
which is I was Semi-Pro for years.
I just really love music. I was playing my bass all the
time I was playing in a band. I did more gigs, you know, I was
really into that for a while I needed.
And I highly recommend giving yourself a break, even if it's a
month or two. It's so important to get clear
on what you miss, what you want to do, what you care about.
So I Really clear on that. I had job offers, but I decided
to launch my own Studio. Did it with my partner who's
also game designer and started taking clients.
I wanted to work with sometimes one at a time.
If it was really intense, like rock band.
Sometimes several at a time to community designed in
multiplayer game design, did ux design thrown in and a bunch of
system design and my background at Sun micro and as a computer
scientist, and as a neuroscientist system design,
comes naturally to me. So that was A place in gaming
that I gravitated to also when you do client-server engineering
with multimedia databases, You're Building fault-tolerant
Systems right on game teams, I would often play a system design
/ U ax / early prototyping role and that was really gratifying.
And the other thing that let me quit my job, take Severance and
start a business is I had a focus which is community / game
design. I was early on the internet.
Son was on the internet, really early, they built the internet.
My job was helping Brands, get onto the internet and the
mid-90s when the web was launching.
So a lot of history with getting on to the internet and dealing
with multiplayer systems and that really became my specialty
and I can't recommend enough, Nisha NG down.
If you're wondering, gosh, can I quit my job?
Do, what does that mean? What can I offer the world?
Am I just a contractor? One client at a time?
Or do I have a package? What do I do?
The more you're clear about what you can do.
That's differentiated in the market and that the market
needs, key phrase, the market needs, the less you'll have to
worry about quitting your job because if you have something
the market needs and you know, how to deliver it, you can make
a business especially now with companies cutting back.
A lot of people are using Freelancers, but at the same
time, I know a lot of people might not have that.
And in that case, maybe look for another job or maybe there's
something else you can do. That's not really my specialty.
I can really speak to myself which is I think as you're
building your career getting clearer and clearer on what you
offer, what your Edge is, what you're unfair advantages, what
you bring to the table, how you make companies, and people money
is critical. And the bottom line of why I
always had work is a Studio owner and Real answer is that I
help people make a lot of money. That's always what it comes down
to, and that doesn't have to be avaricious.
It's about staying focused on providing value.
Wow. So there's a lot of things to
take away from your story. I think it is really relevant
for some people I believe. And when you said something
about politics and stress burnout and things like that,
I'm sure many people could relate that as well.
Especially these days, there are so many pressures, so many
distractions as well, and so many competitions.
So, I believe some of you would relate to this story and a few
things that I take away from your sharing.
This now, is that relationship is a long game, right?
So build your relationship right network with people.
That you want to be associated with and build the relationship
along the way. Who knows one day they would
come back and maybe become your friends or your clients, right?
And the other thing is that before quitting you already have
a few clients lined up. So I think that always helps.
So, instead of quitting your job and starting from start, I think
that is always the, the danger of putting pressure on yourself.
And the other thing that I took away is that you advise people
to take a break, right? Finding out the things that we
miss doing. So I think that's also very
important but we don't want to Just quit and find another gig
right size, sometimes we have to look back.
What do we miss and take away on some aspects of those?
That probably will be useful for us going forward.
So thanks for sharing your story and me.
So you mentioned in your intro that game thinking actually
helps to save billions of hours for entrepreneurs or product
designers. So maybe if you can go there,
what do you think are some of the top reasons?
Product ideas, failing, maybe you have done a lot of
Consulting with many clients. So if you can summarize, maybe
what? The top root causes do you
think? So there's a lot of different
ones. The world is a complex place but
by far the most common reason that products fail as a team
build something that they think is the right thing.
But that the market or the people their customers that need
to use. It don't really need so building
things, people don't need building features.
People don't need or a small part of a market needs is by far
the most common feeling. And it takes many different
forms that type of failure, but if you dig in, you find that the
root cause is often that, the team didn't really validate the
ideas or they give it lip service but they didn't really
let the ideas have room to fail. That's something that happens a
lot often. If we go back to politics
authen, they'll be culture at a company where Executives rise up
and get further by saying, I have a great idea.
Let's do my Eight idea. And that's not actually a really
good idea is get validated, but it can be scary to say, no to
the rising star, the big boss. So people don't say no, that can
be part of what goes on. The other thing that can happen
and this is where you really need rapid Innovation skills.
Not just Innovation skills, is the market can change right out
from under you. We published a video recently, a
little mini case, study of an Indian client of ours.
A brilliant, very successful. Real entrepreneur.
Two exits. Love the sky.
Learn a lot from him, but he had a point and some of his
companies were, you know, it Outsourcing companies that grew
and grew and there is a point where business software was
switching the SAS a few years back and it was a huge shake-up
in his industry. He was really struggling with
it. He came into our game Thinking
training programs and used game Thinking to change the way he
approached the product because the hole Industry was getting
pulled out from under him and that happens repeatedly.
If you're in Tech, disruption is the name of the game, right?
Henry? Yeah, that's correct.
It's how it goes. You can't just go over done.
I work with, VP of engineering, head of engineering, all the
time on leadership teams, you know, tackling tough products,
product issues, and it is very much a moving Target.
You can make yourself Crazy by trying to stay up.
To date on everything, you have to pick your battles, you have
to pick your stack and really invest the thing that game
Thinking brings to the table, is a lot of techniques from the
games industry. But also from the tech and
Product Industry of how to test ideas early and let yourself be
wrong on the path to being right.
Which again, it's easy to give lip service to.
It's really hard to implement for.
Cool reasons for I don't know how to do it reasons and what we
do is make it step by step, easy to implement.
And the reason that we develop this is really simple burning
Market need if anyone listening including you Henry and like,
I've got 30 stories like this, if anyone listening is ever
been, part of a project, you are really excited about and then
you shift it. And then you get that terrible
feeling in your Stomach in your like, Muse isn't catching on
this isn't working. This is not how I thought it was
gonna go. It's very frustrating to think
that you have to even build a prototype to do that or design
detailed screens. You don't what I learned working
on hits is that you can use low Fidelity, storyboards sketches,
all kinds of techniques like that to figure out what works
and what doesn't without detailed designs and without
building a thing, the building and design goes on in parallel,
but that's not the fastest way to learn.
And once I discovered that and I saw hit after hit use these
techniques. While a lot of projects I worked
on, didn't I thought, hold up. More people need to know about
this and that's why I say saving billions of hours there's really
Three core ideas and we've built products prints around Them and
I don't want to overwhelm you with all the details because
it's a pretty sophisticated system and it works, but there's
really Three core ideas. The first is who you talk to and
it turns out we have this concept of superfans.
It's means High need special beachhead niche of your Market
at. That's what it means and finding
a particular slice of your Market that Is seeking Solutions
and they show you through their behavior.
Not their words and aspirations that they're looking for the
solution, finding that slice of your Market isn't easy, which is
why we have all these templates and guidance, but when you do
five to seven of those people is more valuable than thousands of
demographic. Lee relevant people that don't
have those qualities. So there's a surgical Precision
in testing your ideas, Will speed up your ability to hit the
mark and build the right product like a hundred times.
It's astonishing. And we call that super fans, we
have a technique called the Super Fan funnel.
So, that's one idea, is you don't just talk to your
customers or your potential customers.
You talk to really specific ones that represent exactly the
people that are getting give you feedback, you need to listen to
to make your product decisions. The second idea is really very
much out of gaming. It's something we call the core
Loop or the core habit Loop or the core learning Loop or the
compulsion Loop. But in gaming least the
multiplayer online gaming that I practice your thing about
retention from the get-go because you know often the
business models built around that free-to-play or
subscription. So how do you do that?
Well, you have to have a habit, you have to have like stuff.
They do over and over again, that pulls them back.
But the stuff can't be boring. It has to get more interesting
over time. How do you solve that problem?
Well, you build a learning Loop or a habit Loop that has some
sort of repeatable pleasurable activity in it that describes
most games. Usually there's a chain of
activities but the loop itself, the journey, it's embedded in
changes over time, it gets more interesting over time, that's
what keeps people around and it's so that combo which is
Something I just learned from being on, you know, dozens of
games, including these massive hits is something that any
product can adopt, if you want to drive retention, it's not at
all limited to games. But you don't see it in popular
methodologies, like, design thinking, or lean agile, even
jobs to be done, all of, which we Embrace and pull the best
elements from You. Don't See.
How you build a sticky habit Loop?
You know, it would be nice to do it, but how do you do it and
then who do you talk to? If you want to really test your
ideas on the right, people quickly in rough form and then
the third piece is concept storyboards and this is a mix of
what game designers call paper prototyping, where let's say
you're doing a board game or even other kinds of games and
some ux people do this, you know, cut up little paper.
Sir, if you're doing a board game, you mock up, you know,
with cardboard and paint or markers your game pieces and you
might work out the rules of the game, you know, with your
buddies, over afternoon tea on your dining room table like that
would be paper. Prototyping done.
A lot of that. It's low Fidelity, prototyping,
a lot of people understand this but you also look at what Pixar
does with their storyboarding and they do rough storyboarding
for like a year. Working out their story testing
and on various people. Before they commit to the very
expensive and detailed process of Animation.
So you don't need to do it for a year.
But it turns out that you can storyboard your end-to-end
experience, not the details of the screens, not your prototype,
but just what experience do we want to deliver?
You can do that before. You've built anything before.
You've designed anything, before you've committed to a design
Direction, you can do it for features major features in the
in launching and you can test it.
Especially if you know exactly the right people to test it on
those three things, Super Fan funnel to find the right, people
Loop design to create the experience that people will want
to stick around for and and concept testing so you don't get
lost in the weeds and you actually figure out your
experience, those three things together as a system working as
a system where the input of one chunk is the output.
Out of the previous, right? For every engineer out there, I
have a big engineering background.
I built a lot of systems and that's how it goes.
You modularize it and you figure out your inputs and outputs and
that's how game Thinking Works. We've run our signature training
program, which is the game that you master class, hundreds of
people dozens and dozens of teams of run through it.
And the thing, I most often hear a few things one, I wish I'd
done. At six months ago.
So if you're wondering, if it's like too early, it's like the
earlier, the better, but you can also do it once your product is
out there and you're trying to fix your leaky bucket, retention
issues, a lot of people do that. The other thing we hear all the
time is that save me probably a year 9 months to a year?
I thought now I know something. I thought it was going to take
me a year to figure out and that's why we do what we do
because we see the results and we hear not Not from what we
think but what the people who did it think, how much time they
think it's save them. That sounds really amazing to
me. Just now what you mentioned,
right? I think it makes sense.
So one thing that I just want to touch on a little bit at these
kind of things have been shared by many people write, maybe
especially in the product. So we don't want to build a
product that market doesn't need.
But somehow, I think many people including me sometimes when I
have an idea, right? So sometimes the tendency is for
us to just go build and design it instead of validating doing
this prototype, finding people who actually want it or need it.
Right talk to them, maybe a few tips.
Like the last tips that you want to give for people who know
about this concept, they understand the theory, right?
But why they are not moving into that direction and start
building instead? So maybe a few tips, how you
would nudge people to just again.
Gold by the direction of unit, testing your idea before you
actually build any tips that there Amy Yeah, well, I want to
start with empathy because I was that person with itchy hands
wanting to build stuff and wanting to design specific
things because I think once you know how to do that and you've
had success with that we all as humans lean on the techniques
and strategies that have brought of success.
So I think that's something. You know how to do.
You're naturally inclined to do it.
We also have some people who are Engineers who Managed to kind of
prototype their way into certain things, that's really what the
Lean Startup is. Its some things written by an
engineer and that's the kind of things, he knows how to do.
So I have a lot of empathy for wanting to do it for feeling
like just ship it build it, that's how you learn and
occasionally it works, which is occasionally.
You also win the lottery occasionally, you win at Vegas,
but the house has the advantage. And one of the most dangerous
things I see and I work with some really, I Clients is people
that kind of stumbled into building something and it worked
and then they try it again and they try it again and they try
to reproduce that magic and they blow through hundreds of
millions of dollars if they had a big success early on doesn't
work as it technique but sometimes you luck out and you
stumble into it. So I want to acknowledge that.
If you've ever felt that way, it absolutely happens, but it I
work over and over again, is what I've seen with my own
clients. When I've seen people including
myself, make the transition advice.
Number one is, it's going to be uncomfortable.
It's going to feel like walking over hot, coals.
It's going to feel wronged your brains going to go.
Why am I wasting my time? And if you're so easily, swayed,
then, stop listening. Like I can't really help you.
I don't work that hard to convince people because I've
learned Got to walk with the willing and there's a lot of
willing I'm not in the business of arguing about terminology or
convincing people. I'm in the business of holding
your hand when you walk over the hot coals.
So you get to the other side and get to the value and if it's not
uncomfortable, you're not learning, is what I've learned.
So that's one thing is that there's a discomfort that you
can actually use to guide you. Another thing is, There's help
there's a lot of advice out. There are programs, you know,
let you do in three months, what it would take you a year.
So you can get guidance specific expert, weekly coaching, and
advice, and all that stuff. It's out there if you want it.
So come and check out all the things we offer.
Because, as you can see, I'm very passionate about saving
people time. Another piece of just Hands-On
advice for you yourself is who you ignore is Every bit as
important as who you listen to and one of the most common
things that startup Founders including myself do is want to
be everything to everyone. They say, no, no, no, I'm
narrowing it down. I'll just, you know, moms with
young kids ages, you know, 2245, and that's not narrowing it
down. It's very, very hard to lean
into the reality that you need to Niche way down.
Down to grow big, you need to get really specific.
You need to find people with the problem in the market.
People say, oh, I'm innovating, I can't do it, and that's
bullshit. You can always find people with
a problem. You just have to know where to
look, and if you can't find people with a problem, that
might be a signal to you that this isn't a problem, the market
needs solved. And guess what?
Finding that out after two or three months of low, Fidelity
work versus building and shipping.
Thanks, just think for a minute about how much time and money
that saves well. So I think that's very precious
tips. I think it's very uncomfortable,
especially For Engineers who know how to build, right?
We always jump into solution instead of thinking.
What problem do you want to do? Thanks for sharing that tip.
So, I feel that people here needs to hear this more often,
because that's where the learning is.
And don't forget, also, you have to narrow down before you go,
big, right? So all this thinking, in that
space, other than thinking, how do I Make this big.
How do I make this successful viral?
So thanks for sharing that. So you mentioned this term
called Super Fan, right? And I hear you saying that,
yeah, we need to find people who really need the solutions that
we want to deliver, right? So is there any specific
technique how we can find people who are really like the Super
Fan, right? People who really in dire needs
to have this problem solved. So we have a pretty detailed
process and I'm not going to lie.
If it was snap your fingers, easy, everybody would do it
there. There are some Ninja shortcuts
though that are the absolute best way to do it.
If you're in a hurry and you want to cut to the Chase and be
smart and my best ninjas shortcut is figure out who your
closest competition is and don't say, you don't have competition
figure out what they're doing instead because if you launch
something or not, people are still going to be like out there
getting their problem solved. Right regardless of your
solution. So, if you either have something
in the market, or you want to launch something, or you want to
make a major new feature update, that sort of thing, find people
that have the problem that you solve that are already trying to
do something in the market using a competitor, which doesn't have
to be a nap. Sometimes, the competitor is a
spreadsheet or an exercise class at a park or something like that
but find people that have actively search for a solution.
Ocean that you would then serve who are using a competitor and
interview them. Don't get them to tell you about
your product. Get them to tell you about how
they use the competitor product. And we again we have a whole
technique for doing this. But irregardless of our
technique, this is something that you can go do.
It's friggin cold. It causes you to do all the
right analysis, which is who are our key Market competitors from
the customers point of view, right?
Not from our point of view from the customers, point of view and
then getting them to tell you about their problem in the
context of the competitor. What's working, what's not
working? Gives you a view of the problem
space that might take you four to six months to get otherwise
it's amazing. I think that's really a powerful
shot got right. Look at your competitors
interview and talk to people. Use that competition products
and validate what works and what doesn't work and for people who
think that their idea is really Niche, or maybe uniquely new, I
think, maybe think again. So, almost everything be in
these days would have Alternatives in the market,
right? So maybe it is not totally new,
kind of a problem to be solved. So, thanks for sharing that the
second part of your game thinking is building call habit
Loop, right? So, is this something that a
technique that you take from maybe things like Power of Habit
or maybe hook right? From near a l.
Is there something that we need to think about how to build a
habit, what, both of those books, really lean more heavily
on behavior, modification Loops I've read both and in detail, I
like Atomic habits, much more because it brings in identity,
and it doesn't try and sell a behavior modification, Skinner
box loop as a solution which The Power of Habit.
If you just literally look at their Loop, A Skinner box and
same with near yells book. He's moved on, he's talking
about new stuff now. I wouldn't take that too.
Seriously, Be Inspired, but be really careful about the
techniques that boil down to behavior mod.
I like Atomic habits and our core Loop really comes out of my
experience in game design, being a working game designer in
system designer, and needing to understand that and model.
And it was just something that was Part of my Arsenal that I
learned from working with other people and then Incorporated,
and then developed and, you know, it was part of how we
understood. Okay, what game are we going to
build? And how are we going to tune it
and blah blah blah think that Power of Habit hooked, good,
starting point beyond that, I definitely recommend Atomic
habits and then I look at game thinking because what we're
really getting into is system thinking and system design, but
we're not calling it that, we're slipping it in the back door.
Because this isn't a system design book but there's a ton of
system design in it. And I'd say that's really the
difference is incentive design system, design progression
design versus a manipulative behavior model Loop.
Any time someone tells you that a variable reinforcement
schedule is the secret to engagement, they don't
understand what real engagement is because that's That's what
the one-armed Bandit gambling Loop is.
That's very addictive. But it's also outlawed in a lot
of States. So, no you don't want your Uber
app, giving you a variable reinforcement.
You wanted to be consistent and reliable.
So, I think there's a lot of bad advice out there.
That sounds good. And in some circumstances, makes
sense. And I use certain Behavior mod
Skinner, box mechanics in certain designs where it makes
sense, but it's not Panacea. So you know to help you
understand what do I mean by System thinking so if you're
designing a habit Loop a coral Loop, sometimes it's called a
compulsion Loop. That tends to get more into that
Skinner box design. Let's say you're designing
something for a casino, right? That's a kind of game design.
That's you're going to drive certain behaviors, but those
Loops are a system, and its not just a trigger, and a habit, and
a result, it, It's an incentive system.
And if you don't put learning and skill building into your
loop, it's going to get really boring because there's nothing
to get better at. So, the core idea of a learning
Loop which comes out of games, is your habit, Loop has skill
building built into it and that's what keeps it
interesting. Either something you can get
better at in some way and that's completely missing.
That idea is completely missing from the first two books.
You mentioned and that's a really, really really important
idea. Cuz Skinner box mechanics
backfire overtime. They have really good stats at
first but they backfire over time.
And again we have a lot of psychology that we share with
our customers in an efficient way to help.
You understand why that is and how to combine extrinsic and
intrinsic rewards to drive long-term engagement which is if
you want that, that's the way to do it.
You walk that middle line. So for system, Thinking we have
this core Loop which I like to think of as what are people
doing on day, 21 or day, 30 model it out.
How is it different than day, two, or day?
Three, you know, kind of get started there and then there's
how you design incentive, and progression systems.
So simple, gamification levels, and points and badges often
results in something. That feels like clutter, a
really good progression system. Might not even be visible, it
might just open up. New challenges or maybe things
get harder. It really depends on what you're
doing and incentive systems are related to progression systems.
But when we talk system design, you can look at any progression
System, including hey, I threw some points and badges and
levels at it. How about a leaderboard?
Yeah, I think I'm done, right? You can put that in.
But then, what are you incentivizing?
It. Totally depends on like, where
you put it and what behaviors it shaping and all that.
So, So a lot of what we work on in game thinking, we give you
the tools to understand how to tell what the right incentive
system is how to tell what the right progression system is if
you want to throw some gamification in their great,
here's how to test it with the right people.
And they will tell you if it's working or not.
The other thing is, systems are 90% balancing and tuning 5 to
10% design. And that's something that a lot
of people especially if they Lot of web designer, they design
Pages or, you know, they design something that's a little bit
simpler, they don't really understand it.
And so part of what game Thinking brings to the table
again, that takes it Beyond agile and lean and design
thinking is understanding that and building artifacts that help
you know, which systems to build, because this is how real
stuff happens. The interesting part of games
isn't the points and badges in the graphics.
It's The system's underneath. Well, there's so many things you
unpack here. So if I can maybe take a few
things that I took away first is that you don't just build a
queue trigger and then you build a habit and then you get the
result right. It's not as simple as that, but
there's a whole Associated systems, underlying your
product, or maybe your games if you're building a game, and a
few things that I picked the first is about skill building,
right? Don't just build a loop in which
the smaller habitual Behavior change, right?
But it's also a skill building where people have progression,
there's a new challenge You'll difficulty or maybe new features
that they need to unearth by using your product.
And the second is also think about the incentive and
progression especially related to skill building because people
at the end of the day, after using a product several times,
they want to get challenge, or they want to find something new
to upskill themselves. So, I think this is also a key
thing for us to build a product that may be small sticky or has
a higher retention rate compared to other product.
So, thanks for sharing that Amy. So the last part where you
mentioned is about Concept validation or storyboarding.
So for people who hear about storyboarding is it really
necessary to build some kind of persona Journey user Journey or
things like that. So maybe a little bit of
explaining. What do you mean by concept?
Storyboarding and validating it. So it's really easy on any
project to dive into the details of screen design and feature
lists and prds, right. I've definitely lived in that
world for many years. And a lot of agile teams, get
into building fast and effectively, but you, maybe
you're not building the right thing which is why I said the
most common problem is not building the right thing.
But how do you figure out how to build the right thing?
It turns out that you can get a lot of false positives with very
detailed designs. People get involved in
discussing the details. It looks so pretty.
They can say, I love it, but it might not actually solve their
No problem. How do you know, if you're
solving the right problem? How do you actually validate if
you're solving the right problem?
How do you validate if the string of features that you're
imagining delivering, how do you visualize the experience?
Your customers going to have, if indeed you were to deliver those
features. That's what you can do.
With the concept storyboard, you can visualize in a very low
Fidelity way, not what? Your product looks and feels
like and all the details of it but what your product will do
for your customers in their environment over time.
You can do it with stick figures, you can do it with
canva plug-in stuff. In our programs, we have a whole
set of these plug-and-play. Little figurines that we've
developed over time, you can hire a storyboard otters,
there's so many ways to do it but again it's low Fidelity,
it's super simple and it forces you to think through your
end-to-end experience and then to introduce for instance, new
features you're thinking of In the context of that end in
experience, which you visualized by removing a lot of the detail
about your product. So you don't get lost in all
that detail and really focusing on here's a person they're
engaging around and about and inside your product sometimes
they might be talking about your product with someone else,
sometimes they might be logging in what triggers them.
It's day. 21. What reminds them to log in,
right? What happened?
If they turned off notifications?
And what you do is you don't show every screen which is very
hard for designers. You show the key beats of the
experience. Your customers going to have
that's going to deliver the value.
They're there to get bottom line.
And so you abstract out all that detailing, you really say, okay,
what are they doing? Where are they?
Are they holding their phone or the in front of a computer and
star? They, you know, what are they
doing? When are they using this
overtime? Who are they interacting with
the Anybody and it's not easy to do if you haven't thought about
it which is why we have training programs and templates.
But when you do that, you have an artifact that serves multiple
strategic purposes in your organization.
One it's amazing for communicating with stakeholders.
It's not all the details. It's just here's what this
product is going to do for people.
And often a stakeholder when you're trying to explain what
you're doing, why you want to do it, you're negotiating for
resources, this is incredible. I have seen this kind of
document this kind of story board when you've tested it and
gotten results, get multiple projects fun and greenlit.
So it's an amazing, stakeholder communication.
Doc, it's also an amazing team communication.
Doc. How does the head of engineering
and the head of design? And, you know, maybe they had a
customer service or marketing. How do they On agree, on the
thing you're building, is it all the detailed screens?
If you can get your cross-functional team, whether
it's, you know, a product manager in a researcher, and a
designer, or I work a lot with Executives.
So it'll be heads of all the people that care about the
product, if you can get them working together and
understanding what you're building one, you can test it.
And it turns out, if you get the right superfans for testing five
to seven of them and you get The answers you need with these
storyboards. So it's good for stakeholder
communication, it's good for team, communication and
collaborative design, and it's good for idea and feature, and
incentive system, testing of all kinds before you've designed or
built anything. So these Concepts storyboards
serve the right purpose. There's a really great book
called understanding comics. Scott McCloud.
I recently published a short review of it and so are like top
five books for innovators and he talks about the power of having
as little detail as possible in your graphics.
So that the person looking at the graphics can read themselves
into it and identify. So while I think the key message
here is not about building elaborate design and building a
little elaborate user journey. I think the key thing here that
you mentioned is to figure out how to build the right, A thing
or even validating, whether we are solving the right problem.
Right? So, we don't need the super
elaborate details High Fidelity and things like that, but do it
in a prototype manner. Low Fidelity, maybe even paper
napkin or maybe Sticky Fingers, like you mentioned so that we
get the validation and also figuring out whether we are
solving the right problem. So thanks for sharing that Amy.
I feel like there are so many things good Concepts here that
you shared for Founders or entrepreneurs, or maybe product
leaders out there who hear about these techniques from this
episode. Is there anything?
Takeaways that you want to give for them to start thinking about
game thinking because I feel that in some parts of the world.
I just feel that this is not popular enough for people to
know. They are more towards lean
agile, design Sprint, and things like that.
How would you nudge people to start looking at games thinking?
So it's true. It's not as popular largely
because we're not invested in pushing it hard.
We're invested in working with people and getting results.
I hear some good takeaways game Thinking Embraces, what you
already know and it pulls the best out and fills in the
problems and the things that are missing.
So if you're already familiar with design thinking lean agile
jobs to be done, personas scenarios, you don't have to
give any of that up, you can embrace it and then you can
level up your practice and that's really the right way to
think about game thinking. It's very modular.
It's very System like it's not Orthodoxy but it's powerful
time-saving tools. I'd also say the more you care
about retention and engagement, the more relevant this is you
don't need to build a prototype or do detailed designs to figure
out a lot of what works and what doesn't you're a founder and you
want to make the most of your run rate, this is cold, this
will give you in three months. What would take you at least a
year? And that's What I hear again and
again, from Founders, I work with.
So the earlier you adopt these techniques the more time and
money, you'll save and it's not easy.
It requires a lot of discipline. What?
I need to apply game Thinking to my own projects, I need somebody
else to like guide me and be my product manager because it's
really hard. It really is like, walking over
hot coals but the results it dramatically accelerates your
ability to To find success and to build something people want.
And if that's the thing you care about the most Market truth
building. Something people want, this is a
set of techniques that's really designed to let you do that,
right? And not to forget these
techniques have been used in popular games which are
successful. So things like rock band, the
seams and many other games, which actually they use this in
the industry, but it's just specific to games, right?
No, but it's not. Take two games.
These techniques were used at Netflix to help them solve a
retention problem. They were used at eBay to help
them design their core system still in use.
Today, they were used at the New York Times to help them design,
their pay wall. So it's Way Beyond games, right?
Thanks for clarifying, that thanks again, Amy for your time.
So unfortunately, due to time, we have to wrap up, but I have
one last question in my show is to ask the guests to share, what
I call tree, technical leadership.
Wisdom. But You can also think it like a
tree product leadership. Wisdom.
So will there be any advice that you want to impart for the
listeners here may be taken from your journey or experience
evening? Figure out how to get the
support. You need to fail fast on the way
to being. Right.
That's one it can be hard especially if your Junior to
fail in front of other people. But see if you can find a way to
do that. Maybe it's a little under the
radar and that leads me to my second piece of wisdom, which
has to do with relationships. Always be on the lookout for
colleagues, for collaborators, for stakeholders in your company
who might have an incentive to want to get involved in your
project and support. You be very aware of who could
be an ally always be on the lookout.
For allies, look at the world not necessarily as a bunch of
competition. Although of course it often is
we compete for scarce resources but be on the lookout for allies
and collaborators they will emerge from unexpected places,
you know, not slimy networking but just keep that I'm
interested in people. Let's stay in touch.
Let me know if I can be helpful for you energy going, and keep
your eyes open for collaborators.
They will fall in your lap. And they will help you and they
will be excited to help you. So keep that in mind as a
positive thing to be on the lookout for and the third thing
is, don't take anything. Personally, if somebody dis is
you online it's more about them than you.
Don't take anything personally, give people a lot of grace mean,
don't be an idiot don't be fooled twice in three times.
It's good to be a shrewd judge of character but most of Life is
not about you. So don't take anything
personally and just hold yourself to your own standard.
If you behave with Integrity, you will get a reputation for
behaving with integrity and you will draw high integrity people
to you. That's part of why I have so
much repeat business. Wow, that's really beautiful.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom, so to speak.
So a meeting for people who want to connect with you, maybe
continue this conversation, is there a place where they can
reach out online? Absolutely.
Go to game Thinking dot IO, we have a contact form that's where
our programs are. You can take our free innovators
quiz and get your own MVP canvas, one of our Cool Tools.
You can also find out at game Thinking dot IO, how to join,
our free community, G school where I hang out more, you can
DME there, but all of it can be easily found in one URL game,
Thinking dot IO, Right? I'll make sure to put that in
the show notes, so, thanks again.
Amy, for sharing your game. Thinking concept here in this
episode, I really enjoy and learn a lot from you today.
Thanks again for that my pleasure.
Thank you for listening to this episode and for staying, right
until the end if you highly enjoyed it.
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And until then goodbye.