Games, from the massive online World of Warcraft to mobile sensations such as Angry Birds and popular card games like Apples to Apples, are increasingly a visible and powerful part of our media landscape. Thanks to smartphones and tablets, more and more members of the university community are likely to be gamers of one form or another, from students to professors and administrators. This presence is starting to impact universities, which have a lot to learn from games—and from gamers. Gamers are usually intimately familiar with the concept of an ‘Epic Fail,’ which is often a prerequisite for any ‘Epic Win.’ Games are mastered through facing increasingly difficult challenges, and gamers expect to fail often along the way. Universities, on the other hand, don’t always inspire this type of dedicated effort in the face of failure. The mechanisms of universities and the traditional classroom do not lend themselves to a gamer mentality of perseverance. Lessons learned from games and applied to education often adopt only the surface of these experiences: ‘gamification’ involves co-option structures such as levels, points, and badges without bringing playfulness. However, games can offer experiences that demand interaction, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving—and understanding these mechanisms can give us new ways to transform the university itself.