S6.E6 | Game Changer: Rewriting the Rules

A board game may look simple. A set of pieces. A set of rules. A way to win. But every game is a system. It teaches us what to value, how to compete, and what success looks like. In this episode of What Does It Profit?, we follow the unexpected journey of Elizabeth Hargrave, a health policy consultant turned award-winning game designer, whose hit board game Wingspan reshaped an entire industry. What began as a simple idea, a game about birds, became one of the most successful and celebrated board games of all time, selling over two million copies and opening the door for more women in game design. But this story is about more than one game. It's about who gets to design systems and whose ideas shape the rules we all live by. In an industry where women create fewer than one percent of games, Hargrave's success signals both how far we have come and how far we still have to go. From early pioneers like Elizabeth Magie, the creator of The Landlord's Game (the anti-capitalist precursor to Monopoly), to today's emerging designers, women have always been part of this story, even when they were written out of it. This episode asks a deeper question at the heart of work and economic life: not just who plays the game, but who designs it. Because when new voices shape the rules, the game itself begins to change.