Using Play as a Motivator

To understand the fundamental role entertainment plays in our lives, it’s helpful to look at what drives us.

According to Jessica Hammer, an associate professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and director of the Center for Transformational Play (CTP), human beings have two approaches to motivation. One is intentional and purposeful, thinking about the long-term future of what we are doing: We might put together a budget or work out in the morning not because we want to, but because the process allows us to accomplish a later goal.

The second motivational state is wanting to enjoy the present, staying in the moment of what we are doing right now. If a process is not motivating enough on its own, introducing play — or gamifying the task — makes working on purpose-driven problems more palatable, Hammer said.

Jessica Hammer, Director of the Center for Transformational Play

“It’s a way of linking our commitments to our future selves and our commitments to our present selves,”  said Hammer, who holds a joint appointment at the Entertainment Technology Center.

Play can also help people reduce risks in social interactions, build intuitions about complex systems and explore new topics. So while time spent in play may seem frivolous at first blush, in reality, entertainment — and its subsets, such as gaming — are consequential.

Hammer didn’t start out thinking computer science would play such an important role in her professional life. Although her interests leaned toward poetry, she took a computer science course as an undergraduate at the request of her parents.

But what she found was that understanding technology was the key to unlocking many of her other passions.

“The ability to create systems and prototypes that helped me articulate my ideas was so addictive,” she said. “I found myself asking questions like, ‘What would technology look like to address some of these issues that I’m learning about in my other classes?’”

The art of applying technical skills to real-world scenarios is a strength of SCS, she said. In particular, the HCII excels at asking people who they’re making something for and why it matters.

“When you’re training people with this approach, I don’t think it’s enough to have technical skills. I think you also need an understanding of how you connect computer science to your life’s work,” Hammer said. “It’s not just about writing code. Writing code is one small part of being a great computer scientist.”

Forging Connections

When she founded the CTP, Hammer said she fought an uphill battle to be taken seriously.

But today, both academia and the public recognize that games can change our lives. Hammer’s own daughter taught herself to read by playing Minecraft. And millions of people play Duolingo to gain competency in another language, or use virtual reality to make exercise more fun.

Hammer pointed out that game literacy could help us play music, write poetry or achieve wellness. Her students have designed games that support healthy sleep and also helped mentors and mentees connect.

Sometimes, the meaning of entertainment is rooted in connecting with another person. Mathilde Pignol (SCS 2002, 2004) and her partner Curt Bererton (SCS 2000, 2004) — both veteran game designers — created a tagline for their latest venture, Roboto Games: “Good Alone, Great Together.” The premise being that the company’s games are fun to play solo, but even better to play with someone else.

“For us, it’s a way to keep in touch and to bond. That’s sort of the ultimate reward,” explained Bererton.

Mathilde Pignol (SCS 2002, 2004)

Curt Bererton (SCS 2000, 2004)

The inspiration for the approach was the fact that both Bererton and Pignol, who are married, now live far away from extended family (she grew up in France, he on a farm in northwestern Canada). Games became a vehicle for bringing loved ones together.

Currently, they are developing a game called Stormforge, which Bererton described as “Minecraft meets Zelda.” It’s a game that appeals to people who like to build things as well as those who want to fight, thus allowing people with different tastes to still play together. Currently previewed on the Roboto Games’ website, the company plans to launch Stormforge in the second half of 2026.

Pignol first fell in love with making video games when she took the course “Building Virtual Worlds” from the late professor Randy Pausch at SCS.

“The thing that I love about making worlds for video games is you get to be super technical — games are always trying to push the envelope of what’s possible — but you get to be creative at the same time,” she said. “You really need to be cross-disciplinary.”

She also liked the fact that the end product is fun. “The whole point of building them is to bring joy to people’s lives — that’s next level for me. I think it’s a fantastic way to really be at the forefront of technology, art and helping people join together.”

For his part, Bererton always enjoyed making things, whether it was robots, software or mechanisms. At SCS, he found ways to merge his interests. He built robots that could repair each other or throw Nerf balls at each other, and he explored how to apply some of those algorithms to characters in video games. He audited Professor Jesse Schell’s (the founder and CEO of Schell Games) first class at the Entertainment Technology Center. He also took a course in computer graphics, and he was surprised at the amount of math he was using.

Bererton said that combination of skill sets — storytelling, visual effects, 3D modeling combined with using math and complex coding to simulate visuals such as the night sky or how water moves — results in fascinating, challenging work. Some of his peers in the game development industry spend their downtime driving race cars, climbing mountains, cooking professionally or learning Japanese, reflecting the vibrant personalities of people who work in the field.

When they initially graduated from Carnegie Mellon, Pignol went to work for eBay, then later for a design consultancy that created user interfaces for consumer goods such as televisions, cameras and ovens. Bererton worked at a company that combined video games and artificial intelligence. In his spare time, he was brainstorming startup ideas with a friend from graduate school.

One Friday, the couple were stuck in traffic after work when Bererton pitched an idea to his wife about a website that allowed people to make their own games by dragging and dropping video game pieces — an early 2D concept similar to Roblox, the online game platform and game creation system.

“I had a terrible day at work, I was in a terrible mood,” said Pignol, who had been trying unsuccessfully to convince her employer to venture into video game design. At first, she didn’t like Bererton’s idea. But by the time they got through the traffic jam, she realized that she loved it. A few months later, they both quit their jobs and dove into their startup idea. They’ve been on their own ever since, having sold their first creation, ZipZapPlay, to PopCap games in 2011. Both credit the well-rounded education they received at SCS with helping them realize their vision.

In the future, Bererton believes game development will be both accelerated and complicated by the rapid growth of AI. As with other entertainment fields, he imagines AI will disrupt the current norms. But he believes a solid educational foundation will be key to adapting as the field evolves.

Finding the Guardrails

The proliferation of AI throughout all corners of our culture, including entertainment, has led to an increased focus on the responsible use of computational tools.

Jaemarie Solyst, who earned a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from SCS in 2025, studies the social and ethical aspects of these technologies at scale.

Solyst, who was advised by Hammer and HCII professors Amy Ogan and Motahhare Eslami, is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington.

Jaemarie Solyst (SCS 2025)

“I’ve always been interested in learning, and different ways of thinking and going about the world,” she says. “I think there’s a lot of power and impact happening in computing and technology.”

One of her papers studied how the aesthetics of generative AI influence the way children perceive it. If the technology produces something that looks like what they are expecting, they overtrust it. And if an AI tool shows its reasoning, even if that reasoning is incorrect, children may often still believe it because they don’t always double check the source material.

“People are willing to trust vibes,” Solyst said.

Likewise, as generative AI becomes more robust, people can rely on it for things like friendship or romantic connections. Helping people to think critically about the limitations of technology is useful in combating problematic thinking, she said.

As the technology moves into more functions, it’s important to preserve the human element so AI augments people instead of replacing them, including in entertainment applications.

For example, AI can help a writer or musician ideate a piece, but it shouldn’t replace the joy of a human creating something. In one of Solyst’s studies, she asked young people to use generative AI to design a new clothing aesthetic. As their visions came to life, they were then able to explore identities, narratives, ideas and perspectives, she said.

“A lot of exciting things can happen if we’re thoughtful, if we have the right guardrails in place,” she said.

And while the future of entertainment and AI in general remain somewhat of a mystery, the School of Computer Science’s impact will influence that innovation, ensuring that tomorrow’s technologies still speak to the same human impulse for connection, challenge and joy that have always drawn us to play.

“I think CMU is on the cutting edge of computing,” Solyst said. “It’s a really exciting time to be experiencing innovation as it’s happening.” ■

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