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Mike Wilson, founder of Devolver Digital is starting to turn career disillusionment into optimism.
He’s been Be candid about the past about how the fall of his first major endeavor, Gamecock Media Group, was a good thing — its efforts to humorously lampoon the industry were more bully than benevolent. Devolver Digital was founded after the demise of Gamecock Media Group. This company kept the good-natured snark and redefined indie relations with publishers. Wilson also co-founded Good Shepherd Entertainment, an attempt to fight against the indecent practices in indie publishing. In addition, he joined Take This, a gaming mental health charity. And he’s done numerous speaking engagements on the importance of good mental health, often drawing from his own struggles and personal experiences to offer encouragement to others.
Not long ago, Wilson found himself once again disillusioned with his career path, and feeling like he was “part of the problem” in an increasingly crowded, messy, often toxic, and at times predatory games industry. He tells me he felt “done with digital everything.”
Wilson met Ryan Douglas (a roboticist and former CEO at Nextern Medical Devices), while in pseudo-retirement. Wilson was in a similar place of disillusionment about the medical-tech industry. The two began playing tennis together and talking about their respective fields…eventually arriving on the ways in which others had tried, and failed to bring games and health together.
From Wilson’s perspective, he had seen firsthand the numerous benefits video games had on mental health especially. For instance, he had been receiving letters from all over the world about how Devolver-published Fall Guys had helped with people’s depression during the height of lockdowns. And more personally, he was watching his son play games with his friends during that same time, socializing and enjoying himself even when they couldn’t meet in person.
While games had an effect, mainstream gaming couldn’t capitalize on it without the scientific knowledge, tools and resources necessary to prove that the effects were real.
Meanwhile, on Douglas’ end, plenty of medical and wellness companies were making games and apps. Because they were so focused on the health aspects, no one wanted to use them. They ended up being boring.
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“We’re just terrible at doing things that are good for us, unless we happen to also enjoy them,” Wilson remarks.
Wilson and Douglas agreed that these companies didn’t have the 40-years of research that had gone into understanding what makes video games so popular. Wellness companies working in the space were implementing the exterior trappings — scores, rewards, and so forth — but none of the thoughtful design. Douglas compares these attempts to gamify wellness to a company that makes cans, then decides to “space-ify” them and become a company that makes “space cans.” Without something more behind it, it’s a meaningless endeavor.
“If you create [a pill that cures cancer] and people won’t take it, have you really created a treatment, a solution? I think that we need to start saying that the answer is no,” Douglas says.
Ryan Douglas (right) and Mike Wilson (left), the DeepWell CEOs.
Wilson and Douglas merged their expertises and today announce a new company, DeepWell. DeepWell is a new games publisher that is focused on developing and publishing games that have proven health benefits. They also partner with established developers and publishers to get similar approvals for existing games.
Wilson claims that DeepWell will feature games that will benefit both mental AND physical well-being, with a heavy focus on mental health. That’s in part due to Wilson’s own background in promoting mental health, but as Douglas explains, there’s been a disturbing trend in recent years – Particularly during the pandemicThere have been significant increases in anxiety and depression across the country, but there are not enough therapists or doctors to address these problems. The few that do exist are: Many times are not accessible to everyoneCost, insurance concerns, wealth inequity, and many other factors.
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While they’re not ready to announce any specific games just yet, we won’t have to wait long — Wilson says he hopes to have some things to show in late spring of this year. He breaks down the games we can expect from DeepWell in three categories.
They will be the first to feature original titles that were created internally and are intended to be both entertaining and therapeutic. Importantly, he says they will “look just like games,” and will aim to interest audiences who may not specifically be looking for health benefits. He also wants them to be widely accessible without the need for proprietary tech or wonky peripherals. They’ll be on platforms most gaming audiences already have access to.
Both the first and third will be in partnership with other game developers, especially independents. DeepWell plans to work with third-party game developers who are currently making games that may meet its criteria for therapeutic use, and help them navigate the approval process. DeepWell will also assist with existing games that have potential health benefits.
“We can take these preexisting, very therapeutic games and get them out in the world in a way that they can be deliberately presented to people with issues, and help them get treatment,” Douglas explains. “Build real adjunctive therapies that can relieve pressure for depression, anxiety, stress in a world where there [are] just not enough therapists to go around.”
Even as someone who loves games and finds them beneficial to my own mental state, it’s hard for me to wrap my brain around how exactly a video game could be classified as medicine. Douglas and Wilson reassure me that everything is in order. Part of their confidence comes from Wilson’s experience with games already.
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“A lot of just the way that games are designed, like the core tenets of good game design, have you working through challenges and puzzles and achievements and putting you in fight or flight scenarios, and having you survive those and get through it,” he says. “And a lot of it is already quite good for people in the same way that other types of therapies are good for people. Because we are simply enjoying what we do when we play, it is subconsciously that we work through them.
“…And so imagine you just load your favorite game, whatever you’re playing at the moment, all of a sudden it says, ‘By the way, don’t stop seeing your therapist or taking your medication, but this has been indicated for treatment of anxiety, depression, addiction,’ whatever it might be for that particular piece of software.”
But on the regulatory side, it’s Douglas’ expertise that’s getting games their due. Douglas’ extensive med-tech connections and background have been crucial to making this possible. However, he also says that another key factor in all of this has been the tremendous strides made during COVID-19. These include more studies, financial and academic support, as well as wider recognition of the potential benefits. According to him, the right environment exists for collaborations between scientists and medical professionals to produce games that are both enjoyable and healthy for all.
The DeepWell advisory board
And they’re not the only ones who think so. DeepWell involved more than 40 game designers, scientists, medical researchers, and creators who donated their time and resources to help establish and maintain a core set of principles for therapeutic game design. This includes Tom Hall, co-founder of id Software, Zoe Flower, Hellbent Games’ design director, Rami Ismail, Oddworld creator Lorne Lasnning, American McGee, and Quake engineer American McGee. There are also many doctors and medical researchers.
“We have what we need right now to bring the first games out into the marketplace, and we are working on the things that would make it broad and easier over time for game developers to be able to access this without stopping being game developers,” Douglas says. “And to not stop using the tools, like Unreal, that they use. It all seems to be coming together really, really well. It’s connecting in a way that things only seem to connect when they’re supposed to happen.”
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Wilson wants to emphasize that what DeepWell is publishing won’t be just a single genre — we’re not talking exclusively about “wholesome” games or non-violent games, though those are certainly a part of it. Their mission is to create games that entertain, but not everyone will be entertained by the same thing.
“To be relatable and therefore to do some of the things that are necessary from a therapeutic standpoint…it may not be rainbows and sunshines that you’re going to be able to relate to,” Douglas says. “And sometimes going on a darker journey gives you a moment of distraction and self-actualization, that allows things to happen differently in your mind and could be very, very cathartic. And that’s what you’ve been seeing people say about these games for a long, long time.”
Wilson’s hope for DeepWell is that its attitude toward gaming doesn’t just stop at gaming. He believes that interactive entertainment isn’t the only possibility for media as medicine, and that they could be able to open doors to eventually get literature, music, or film recognized as therapeutic as well, if they can get the science behind it. Similar to how Devolver endeavored to flip the relationships between publishers and developers around, he wants DeepWell to flip the relationship between science and entertainment, empowering artists to be able to tangibly, quantifiably do what he believes they’ve wanted to do all along.
“For me it’s all about: what is your intention as you set out to do this, whether you’re a developer or a publisher or whatever? Do you want to get as much time and money as possible from others? Or, is it to create something meaningful that you can enjoy and share with others? And that’s what I believe the vast majority of game developers are doing, certainly in my experience.”
That’s an enormous mission, of course. But Wilson and Douglas’ first steps are firmly within the crossover between their own familiar spaces, and really just emphasizing ideas we’re all already familiar with: playing video games is fun, often social, and can make us happy.
“The word play, I think, is more important than the word game,” Wilson says. “Because if you think about all the things you could play in this life, almost all of them, or all of them are going to be beneficial for you in some way. Whether it’s music or you play improv or you play video games, you play board games, you put on a play, whatever it is…play is good. It is good for us.”
Rebekah Valentine works as a news reporter at IGN. You can find her on twitter @duckvalentine.
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