Session Information

Jesse Schell is the CEO of Schell Games, a leader in creating transformational games. Since starting his company in 2002, he has grown it into the largest and most successful game development company in Pennsylvania. Under his leadership, Schell Games has produced an amazing array of innovative, transformational and award-winning entertainment experiences for some of the world's most respected brands, such as Disney, SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment, Amplify, Yale University, Lionel LLC and The Fred Rogers Company.

Jesse currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), where he teaches game design. He authored the critically acclaimed book, The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, which captured Game Developer magazine's coveted "Front Line Award" for 2008.

Prior to starting Schell Games, Jesse was the Creative Director of the Disney Imagineering Virtual Reality Studio, where he worked and played for seven years as designer, programmer, and manager on numerous projects for Disney theme parks and DisneyQuest. Learn more about Jesse.

Creating games that meaningfully change a player is tricky business. In this talk, Jesse Schell presents case studies of games that Schell Games has created that each attempt to enact change several ways simultaneously. Showing examples from Playforward: Elm City Stories (with Yale Medical) and Lexica (with Amplify Learning), Jesse makes the case that by having multiple systems of transformation, you help more players, take less risk, and broaden the appeal and effectiveness of your game.