Applied Game Theory™

Applied Game Theory (AGT) takes what makes games so habit-forming and applies it to everything else.

Games are built on clear goals, the right motivation, well-timed nudges, and satisfying rewards. AGT uses those same ingredients to design websites, apps, and real-world programs, so people take the actions a business needs and keep coming back.

AGT isn’t built on a single model. It draws on a toolbox of well-tested frameworks from game design and behavioral science, like Octalysis, the Hook Model, the Fogg Behavior Model, and more, and we’re always adding new ones. The real value is knowing which tool fits which problem, and when to use it. And because every mechanic is tied to a specific action, AGT is measurable by design.

Applied Game Theory started as a promising idea. I turned it into a method.

Dragon Army began as a game studio, and AGT began as a point of view: that game mechanics could make non-game products more engaging. It was compelling, but it wasn’t yet something a team could put to work day to day.

In 2020, I set out to change that. I pulled together a small working group, with a strategist and a UX designer from my team and a developer from the original game studio. We dug into a wide range of game theory and behavioral research, and talked through how each model could apply to our work.

From there, I built the AGT process as it’s used today, along with the activities and deliverables that put it into practice. Then I worked with every discipline at Dragon Army to adapt their own processes around it.

It worked. Our sales strategy leaned on AGT more and more, and it helped us win business and deliver stronger work. In 2023, AGT was named the agency’s key differentiator. I’ve kept expanding it ever since, defining how we use it and making sure it delivers real value to clients.

Six steps take a project from a business goal to a habit.

1. 01

   Plan

   Define measurable business goals, and the specific actions people need to take to reach them.

2. 02

   Empathize

   Understand the people most likely to take those actions: their needs, their obstacles, and what drives them.

3. 03

   Motivate

   Choose the right balance of motivations to move people past the point where they decide to act.

4. 04

   Trigger

   Remind people to act at the moments that matter most.

5. 05

   Facilitate

   Make the action easier, and better than whatever they do today.

6. 06

   Reward

   End each experience with a payoff that brings people back.

Motivation isn’t constant. People are excited to try something new, build a habit, then coast until they lose interest. AGT’s job is to keep people above the line where they choose to act for as long as possible, and to measure each mechanic so the experience keeps getting better.

A few projects where AGT helped shape the strategy.

• Great ClipsA lookbook with core styles, styling tips, and language to use with a stylist, built to give customers confidence and bring them back.
• Cox MediaA premium content library that gave prospects a reason to return during a four-week sales cycle, building trust with every visit.
• UMCMission.orgDisaster response stories that pair giving, sharing, and prayer, so every visitor has a meaningful next step.
• Restaurant Operations PilotTime windows, teammate boosts, and leaderboards that turned routine restaurant tasks into a team competition.
• Service Invoice RedesignAn AI-assisted strategy brief, created in under an hour, that shaped an invoice built to be paid without a call to support.

A method only matters if other people can use it.

So I built the tools that make AGT part of how the whole agency works, not something that lives in my head.

• Team training: hands-on workshops that teach Dragon Army teams the framework and the research behind it, starting with everyone discovering their own player type.
• Archetypes: ready-made pairings of common goals, like getting first-time users to stick, with the motivations and mechanics that work best for each type of person.
• Templates: a strategy worksheet and brief template, so every strategist builds from the same foundation.
• A research library: a member of my team started a shared library of game theory models and mechanics. I’ve since expanded it with additional models and mechanics, and documented how they all fit together.

The newest tool puts AGT in everyone’s hands: an AI strategist that knows the framework.

I built AGT Expert, a custom AI assistant, to give every strategist at Dragon Army a head start. Describe a business problem, and it narrows it to a single target action, then drafts a full AGT strategy: goals and how to measure them, the audience most likely to act, the right balance of motivations, triggers, rewards, and a short implementation plan.

Building it meant turning years of know-how into clear instructions. I encoded the six steps, our frameworks, and our voice. I also set guardrails for the mistakes people new to AGT tend to make, like turning everything into a game instead of applying the psychology behind games. I refined it over several versions, and paired it with a prompt template so the output is consistent and presentation-ready no matter who’s using it.

The difference is dramatic. An AGT strategy brief used to take me 15 to 30 hours. On a recent project, redesigning the service invoices a global beverage brand sends to its restaurant customers, I produced two complete versions of the brief in under an hour.

I’ve set up the same instructions in Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT, so I can run one prompt across all three and compare the results. And because the method is built in, anyone on the team can produce a framework-accurate brief, even without deep AGT experience.

It doesn’t replace strategic judgment. It gives our teams a strong starting point for projects and new business pitches, so they can spend their time on the thinking that matters most.

• Named Dragon Army’s key differentiator in 2023
• The core strategy behind the majority of Dragon Army’s projects
• Helped drive a 314% increase in recurring online donations for UMCMission.org
• Helped raise Great Clips’ likelihood-to-recommend score 34% in user testing
• Helped increase Cox Media’s inbound leads 21%