Transformational play

I have my dream job: designing and studying transformational play experiences, teaching game design, and training some truly amazing students (two of whom are shown here!). My workday might include writing, advising my doctoral students, teaching, research planning, playtesting a new game, or consulting with our non-academic partners.

What I love most about my job: watching people play something I've made, and hearing back how it affected them.

What's most frustrating about my job: the current political climate, in particular how it is affecting my students and my team.

You don't have to be in academia to work on transformational play, which is good because American academia is in crisis. I have colleagues in industry, the non-profit world, and (formerly) government. You do, however, need to develop both your play literacy and your taste in games. It's easy to fall into the trap of "let's add points, badges, and levels" when you're designing a playful transformational experience. Your job is to think harder and dig deeper than what's on the surface; a good grounding in cognitive psychology, social psychology, and sociology will help.