Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Summary
According to a Circana report from October 2024, 71% of US consumers play video games. So why is it that we treat the art and science of game design and development as completely separate from product design? Many of your customers view video games as the ultimate way to spend their time, and the best practices developed there are forged in the fire of a hyper-competitive marketplace. \ In this session, author Cheryl Platz shares her insights as a missing link between the two worlds. She’s worked as design lead for Microsoft’s Azure platform, but she’s also served as UX Director for Riot Games and Scopely’s MARVEL Strike Force in addition to her continuing role as adjunct faculty of video games for Carnegie Mellon University’s Masters of Entertainment Industry Management program. You'll learn about some of the most universally applicable insights from her new Rosenfeld book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, including the Motivators of Play – a tool for understanding player and customer behavior backed by cognitive psychology and industry research that reveals how expectations have changed deeply in the past decade. You’ll also be introduced to useful concepts around monetization, emergent behavior, and designing for positive large-scale interactions. Isn’t it time to level up your product design skills with a new skill tree?
Key Insights
-
•
71% of people self-identify as gamers, making game design principles widely relevant.
-
•
Classic motivators of play include mastery, competition, immersion, meditation, and comfort.
-
•
Modern motivators like self-expression, companionship, and education have risen due to technological and social changes.
-
•
Competitiveness as a motivator has diminished, replaced increasingly by a desire for companionship and collaboration.
-
•
Misapplied gamification, such as meaningless badges or incentivizing harmful behaviors, can demotivate users.
-
•
Game loops help understand and optimize user engagement by linking sequential player actions with feedback.
-
•
Pro-social design focuses on fostering positive social interactions and community safety, a key challenge at scale.
-
•
Ethical monetization varies; pay-to-express models (cosmetics) are less harmful than pay-to-win (pay-for-power) schemes.
-
•
Duolingo exemplifies both strengths (mastery challenges) and pitfalls (manipulative nudges, declining immersion) in gamified products.
-
•
Understanding and designing for motivators can transform traditionally 'non-fun' domains like banking, healthcare, and enterprise software.
Notable Quotes
"If 71% of people self-identify as gamers, why aren’t you learning from the video game industry?"
"Is gamification just last decade’s fad or have the principles become so ubiquitous we stopped calling it that?"
"With great power comes great responsibility; we shouldn’t abandon using motivation techniques, or others will use them poorly."
"Competitiveness doesn’t motivate play as much as it used to; companionship and collaboration are more motivating now."
"Mastery is a core human motivator; people want to understand and feel competent in what they do."
"Pro-social gaming is about designing for positive social interactions that contribute to thriving communities."
"Not all monetization is equal; pay-to-express models are less threatening to social dynamics than pay-for-power schemes."
"Duolingo’s AI push damaged immersion by breaking narrative cohesion and lowering course quality."
"The Echo Look failed because it missed key motivators like self-expression and companionship by focusing too much on AI."
"Designing for human motivation makes experiences more likely to thrive long term."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Instead of trying to give your company a maturity score, focus on concrete observable outcomes to define progress."
Susan WeinschenkEvaluating the Maturity of UX in Your Organization
January 15, 2020
"Committees are the mechanism for debate and scrutiny in science, so I’ve chosen to engage with them."
Mark BoultonOps without Designers
November 7, 2018
"Think of assistive technology in three categories: screen readers, screen magnification, and alternative navigation."
Kavana RameshMeaningful inclusion: Practicing accessibility research with confidence
September 24, 2024
"The scores are a means to an end to encourage behavior change, not to create fear or just produce numbers."
Todd Healy Jess GrecoDriving Change with CX Metrics
June 7, 2023
"There was a naive belief that just implementing content management systems would automatically make great experiences possible."
Bram WesselEnterprise Information Architecture
January 10, 2020
"I found a place I could activate my passions in design operations about six years into my career."
Maggie DieringerCutting through the Noise
September 24, 2020
"We can't just focus on the next deadline; we have to think about how the products and services we build impact the world."
April ReaganLook, Think, Act: The Futures-Smart Design Organization
October 1, 2021
"Over-enforced design system adoption bred resentment and low morale, despite good adoption metrics."
Rachael Greene Alison DavisBuilding a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)
October 2, 2025
"It is not the responsibility of marginalized groups to do all the educating about their experiences."
Reginé GilbertAsking the Right Questions: Life, Hope and Moving Forward During the Pandemic
June 10, 2022
