I wrote a meditative slow game called Calmer (was iOS, sold terribly, no longer available). I was contacted by a US psychiatrist who said he prescribed it for anxiety patients.
It never occurred to me to try to raise tens of millions of dollars for medical trials and then charge a huge amount to insurers!
It does strike me as dubious that the investors are backing this game. When surely any positive result would hold for any number of similar games. A branding play, presumably 'we're the game that did the trials'. But it does seem like that relies on ignorance of what games are available. It remains to be seen if and when they actually show the gameplay!
@sago There's a fair amount of this going on rightnow, that is, using mobile games to address anxiety. Partly because your phone is always there and having treatment options outside the hospital have historically been limited. Psychiatry is very different compared to other fields of medicine in that things tend to be difficult to measure objectively.
That's exactly my thought after hearing this story. Other than the fact that this game has been put through some trials and is backed by drug companies, how is it any different from any other dexterity-intensive videogame out there?
When a video game is backed by clinical trials, you could charge a ton of money for it. Like $100s per month that insurance plans will negotiate down to fewer $100s, but still 100s, per month. At least for a few years.
The difference is that games, unlike drugs, are not mechanistically patentable (correct me if wrong please). Someone could create a close-enough lookalike, and sell it for $1. And if it really works, which I sort of don't believe, then it would improve access to real therapy. A lookalike would not have some of their proprietary evaluation system based on ever-questionable psychology metrics, but I bet a few hours with the game would show the gist of it: "You're paying attention! High score!" "You're old and also can't rearrange the blocks like you used to," -->poor executive function and memory, maybe dementia, etc
And yet given the ubiquity of the standard cognitive battery tests like MMSE and Minicog, I do question whether any therapist would ever recommend a substitute. The difference is these tests are often printed out on paper and royalties are not paid to the owners, whereas a tighly controlled Saas model would really cut down on illegal distribution and encourage alternatives.
Any thought on how a developer can adequately monetize a game so as to pay their own bills without charging ridiculous sums to begin with? I mean, say you know how to do something like this, you want to promote health, you loathe the way our current medical system bleeds patients for money. How do you find the sweet spot?
I've tried to find more information on what this game actually does, and how it treats ADHD / autism. I looked at a few articles and the Akili website, but details are pretty spare.
Does anyone have some additional information of how this video game plans to treat autism / ADHD?
If they want to fight ADHD, I have a feeling meditation would be a better treatment. (Too bad you can't make money off it.) And this is coming from a HUGE fan of games (17 days till Fallout 4, OMG).
It seems like it could be useful, so it's a shame either Cochrane haven't repeated their analysis or that other researchers aren't doing good quality research on meditation.
And you can make money off it. You give it a brand and sell DVDs. That brand then gets assessed, and promoted. Other people who come along and rip off the brand are not being recommended.
I would love it if this turns out to be effective, but we've already seen something similar with Cogmed - bought by Pearson, can cost thousands of dollars, overhyped claims and highly dubious benefits
"Cogmed working memory training is sold as a tool for improving cognitive abilities, such as attention and reasoning. At present, this program is marketed to schools as a means of improving underperforming students’ scholastic performance, and is also available at clinical practices as a treatment for ADHD. We review research conducted with Cogmed software and highlight several concerns regarding methodology and replicability of findings. We conclude that the claims made by Cogmed are largely unsubstantiated, and recommend that future research place greater emphasis on developing theoretically motivated accounts of working memory training."
Is someone trying to market mobile gaming as a therapeutic?
It looks like it does the same thing than other click-fest-attention-grabbing games on mobile OS. The claim that as you progress you need to "multitask" more, seems familiar. They maybe adding their on twist on it. So, Minion Rush with a metric based difficulty generator?
from the sound of it it is based off this[1] research about brain multitasking (where tasks require both hand eye coordination and higher reasoning functions)
One of my favorite Mac (anti-)games was a zen-like, music space platformer called Tranquility[1]. The relaxing "floating" gameplay was interesting enough, but the generated ambient music was the best part. I'd leave that running on the background like some rain loops I use nowadays. It was an online game, despite being single-player, and I paid $10 out of my allowance for a lifetime membership. I was pretty sad when it abruptly shut down some years afterward.
I've always hoped someone would remake it for mobile or VR. The music/synth engine alone would make a pretty neat app.
You can be prescribed to take over-the-counter drugs, like "take two ibuprofen with each meal for 4 days; if symptoms persist, schedule another appointment". "Prescribed" doesn't necessarily mean "prescription-ONLY".
[+] [-] sago|10 years ago|reply
It never occurred to me to try to raise tens of millions of dollars for medical trials and then charge a huge amount to insurers!
It does strike me as dubious that the investors are backing this game. When surely any positive result would hold for any number of similar games. A branding play, presumably 'we're the game that did the trials'. But it does seem like that relies on ignorance of what games are available. It remains to be seen if and when they actually show the gameplay!
[+] [-] edge17|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] War_Machine|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bduerst|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiro|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] medymed|10 years ago|reply
The difference is that games, unlike drugs, are not mechanistically patentable (correct me if wrong please). Someone could create a close-enough lookalike, and sell it for $1. And if it really works, which I sort of don't believe, then it would improve access to real therapy. A lookalike would not have some of their proprietary evaluation system based on ever-questionable psychology metrics, but I bet a few hours with the game would show the gist of it: "You're paying attention! High score!" "You're old and also can't rearrange the blocks like you used to," -->poor executive function and memory, maybe dementia, etc
And yet given the ubiquity of the standard cognitive battery tests like MMSE and Minicog, I do question whether any therapist would ever recommend a substitute. The difference is these tests are often printed out on paper and royalties are not paid to the owners, whereas a tighly controlled Saas model would really cut down on illegal distribution and encourage alternatives.
[+] [-] Mz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sumaso|10 years ago|reply
Does anyone have some additional information of how this video game plans to treat autism / ADHD?
[+] [-] lectrick|10 years ago|reply
http://www.feelguide.com/2014/11/19/harvard-unveils-mri-stud...
[+] [-] DanBC|10 years ago|reply
It seems like it could be useful, so it's a shame either Cochrane haven't repeated their analysis or that other researchers aren't doing good quality research on meditation.
And you can make money off it. You give it a brand and sell DVDs. That brand then gets assessed, and promoted. Other people who come along and rip off the brand are not being recommended.
Current English advice for ADHD is here: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg72
[+] [-] nerfhammer|10 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogmed
"Cogmed working memory training is sold as a tool for improving cognitive abilities, such as attention and reasoning. At present, this program is marketed to schools as a means of improving underperforming students’ scholastic performance, and is also available at clinical practices as a treatment for ADHD. We review research conducted with Cogmed software and highlight several concerns regarding methodology and replicability of findings. We conclude that the claims made by Cogmed are largely unsubstantiated, and recommend that future research place greater emphasis on developing theoretically motivated accounts of working memory training."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211368112...
[+] [-] Amygaz|10 years ago|reply
It looks like it does the same thing than other click-fest-attention-grabbing games on mobile OS. The claim that as you progress you need to "multitask" more, seems familiar. They maybe adding their on twist on it. So, Minion Rush with a metric based difficulty generator?
[+] [-] LoSboccacc|10 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlrOSbRzakE
[+] [-] woebtz|10 years ago|reply
I've always hoped someone would remake it for mobile or VR. The music/synth engine alone would make a pretty neat app.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquility_(video_game)
[+] [-] DanBC|10 years ago|reply
https://www.sparx.org.nz/
https://web.archive.org/web/20130511003457/http://sparx.org....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparx_(video_game)
[+] [-] jcl|10 years ago|reply
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/can-an-app-help-you-ditch-your-r...
[+] [-] werber|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viewer5|10 years ago|reply