Reading the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) article about the game “Remission” was most enlightening. Maybe not for the reasons that most readers would have found.
Remission has been around since 2006. It is a serious game, aimed at players between 12 and 29 years old — that happen to be undergoing cancer treatment. It is a third-person shooter in which you guide a “nanobot” through your own body killing cancer cells.
The game (seven years later) still has good traction and is well accepted by the medical community as being of value. By what measure? How is it decided that the game is doing its job?
Before moving on with an answer to the above question, I’d like to acknowledge that kids are still playing the game. The fact that your target market actually plays your game is not something to take too lightly. Before a game can hope to be effective it must be played. Cancer kids are still playing the game. So that is a good thing. And this probably accounts for a good portion of why the game is perceived as effective. “If they kids like playing it, then it must be good for them.” But there is more to the story.
In addition to any reputation up stats caused by the mere fact that kids play the game, there is something else upon which number crunchers base their positive opinion of the game. Is this “something else” the fact that the game is causing remission, extending remission, or bring about cancer cures? No. That is not what the number crunchers are looking at.
The game could in fact directly cure cancer. I’m not saying it is. Just saying that it is within the realm of possibility. Please note, “realm of possibility” was used here rather than “realm of probability.” There is a difference. So it is possible that the game could be bringing about the cure of cancer in the players. Thing is we will never know. There is not the funding for such a study. There may not even be an experimental protocol possible that would isolate the game as the single variable in an A/B test.
Think about it, in order for a gaming company to suggest that they game cured cancer they would need to have access to studies with cure rates, death rates — all kinds of numbers collected over an extended period of time. By the time that the studies were done the game would most likely be obsolete.
What are the number crunchers pointing to when they say the game is good and contributes to the curative process of cancer patients? It is the following:
“We showed that it had an impact on a major factor that is related to survival, which is taking your medication. The children who played our game took more of their antibiotics and more of their oral chemotherapy.”
Someone else put in the hard work to determine that taking more of one’s antibiotics and more of one’s oral chemotherapy helped with cancer survival. (Either that, or someone just assumed it to be true.) Point is, taking one’s meds is totally accepted by the number crunchers as something good and a definite contribution. So now all that the “Remission” gaming folks needed to demonstrate was: “kids playing our games were more inclined to take their meds.”
This kind of study was quicker and definitely cheaper to do. So if you want to conjure up something to give the number crunchers then use the following formula:
- Find something which is generally accepted as contributing to the cause of the result you want to claim your game can accomplish.
- Demonstrate that your game will enhance that “something”.
If A causes B and C helps A then C helps B is the logic of it.
Do I believe it is necessary to satisfy the number crunchers? No. I believe it is important to provide your target market with a product they value. If folks want to stand on the side-lines and talk about it, that can help marketing. However, if you need to satisfy the number crunchers for any reason, then look for a commonly accepted good thing and then demonstrate you make more of the good thing happen. This is by what measure.