Gaming Company DeepWell To Publish Games with Therapeutic Value

DeepWell Digital Therapeutics (DTx) plans to develop and publish games that have therapeutic value and can treat a variety of health conditions. DeepWell hopes to combine entertaining gameplay and medical benefits at the same time, said Mike Wilson, Co-Founder of Devolver Digital. DeepWell believes that video games have the potential to change lives and these games can be available worldwide to anyone with an internet connection and a desire to better themselves through the power of play.

“Our medium is often harshly judged for its perceived negative impacts on the mind and body,” said Wilson. “But the scientists who study video games, as well as the developers that build them at the highest levels, already know that the opposite is true. DeepWell is bringing entertainment and medical science together to build upon the proven fact that video games can be good for you, and, thanks to global digital distribution, they’re an important tool to make treatment affordable and accessible.”

DeepWell will make its own games, working with independent creators worldwide to publish new titles spanning every platform and genre. It also plans to use the company’s research-driven technologies to assist developers in designing and repurposing games to magnify their innate therapeutic value. DeepWell is already hard at work on a slate of DTx-enabled games that will support the company’s patented technical processes and systems.

The company will offer support for other publishers or even self-publishing game makers to ensure their games are more beneficial for players. On top of that, Wilson said the company will identify games that already exist and are beneficial players — and then it will promote them.

More than 40 creators, game designers, scientists, and medical researchers have joined DeepWell as a response to the urgent public health concerns associated with psychiatric conditions – exacerbated incalculably by the COVID-19 pandemic – and the need to expand the availability of digital health therapeutic devices to combat it.

Its expert advisory board has been donating time and resources, and collaborating on defining and regulating the central tenets of therapeutic game design in order to enhance the power of interactive media for a generation to come.

(All information was provided by VentureBeat)