Goethe was born in the south of Norway. His parents were both from Kristiansand. In late 1980s, he became interested in personal computers and worked as a member in the demoscene group named Andromeda. There he was an active Amiga pixel artist. In 1999, he received his undergraduate degree in computer science from University of Westminster in London, United Kingdom and in 2002 earned his B.A. in computer graphics from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in California where he was advocated by Pixar professionals.
He has also worked for Storm Studios in Norway, for Darkworks in France and Factor 5 alongside with LucasArts, which was a reputed name in the US games industry. At Factor 5, he worked both as an animator and supervisor. In 2008 he started his own company and was a supervisor for half of the first season to the Disney television series City of Friends, art director for Bowling Buddies which was Playfish' second title for Facebook, animation director for a music video to name a few.
Goethe received his M.F.A. in motion picture from the Academy of Art University in 2009 and Executive education from BI Norwegian Business School in 2011.
He currently lives in Oslo, Norway.
Goethe is an Associate Professor at Kristiania University, Institute of Film and Media. He became the Program Director of the game design studies in 2015, where he administrated and taught students related to game development and player-centered design.
From 2011 to 2015, he worked at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, where he revitalized the animation program. In 2013 he was also a creative technologist for Harvard metaLAB and is currently a visiting Professor at Hyper Island.
In May 2018, Goethe was the keynote speaker at Universum Awards 2018 and the panel moderator for a VR session at Oslo Innovation Week.
Goethe researches primarily in Human-engaged computing (HEC), a new research area in Human–computer interaction concerning synergized interaction between humans and technologies where he focus on building engaging systems that support diversity and inclusion, longevity in user engagement and engagement at scale. He is currently writing a book entitled Gamification Mindset which aims to develop new models in gamification to enable easier gamification scenarios.He recently announced a research project The Presence Project which is exploring how to build branching VR narratives which merge immersive theater pieces with interactive dramas. The preceding VR game, "One of the Family" developed by the original Presence group at Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), positioned the player as an unseen observer to an unfolding narrative.