Is it possible to Gamify mental health?

Gamification is fairly trendy these days.  Companies are trying to use it to boost productivity, its come up in the education field, and sites like Fitocracy use it to motivate people to exercise more.  It's a subject I’ve followed with curiosity for a while now but never had any specific area I thought it should be a part of that someone hadn’t already thought of until now.  

As some of you may know life went a bit pear-shaped for me lately.  I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety for most of my life but never really did much about it.  Recently I had to.  I seriously hesitated at first about airing this particular bit of dirty laundry in a public forum but I saw this incredibly edifying Youtube speech today on the topic - Thanks again for that, dude.  You know who you are. - and figured I should sack up.  Its hard to describe depression to someone who’s never experienced it, but the more of us who try to articulate what its like, the more understanding will develop.  Some days the idea of getting out of bed in the morning is so exhausting that you can’t bring yourself to do it.  Other days you might stare at the wall for an hour, crying for no damn reason.  You could be having a perfectly normal day, but all of a sudden you’re outside smoking a cigarette and the thought just randomly pops into your head that maybe it would be a good idea to put it out on your arm, and the thought is as normal and sane-feeling as someone else thinking that a smoothie sounds really good right now.  I was lucky enough to have a solid network of friends that supported me when things went sideways, but that’s not something everyone has.  That got me thinking - even better, it got me outside of my own head for once and so I’d like to share a bit of what I came up with.

Gamification is a powerful tool that can be used for good or for ill, one that I believe should be leveraged to help the people out there who don’t have support.  I don’t have a solid concept just yet, but what is forming in my head would ideally combine something like an MMORPG with bits of social networking and gamified self-improvement a la Fitocracy.  Ideally it wouldn’t be just for depressed people, but for everyone with mental health issues from substance abuse to schizophrenia.  It would be a game, a support system, and a tool to track your improvement.  It would be a hugely complicated thing to build, and thinking about it there are several hurdles I’ve come up with that would need to be resolved.  The one that popped up immediately is membership.  If this was to ever become a real thing, there are two things it would have to require of the user.  The first - that they have legitimate issues they need help with, know someone who does, or have had problems in the past.  How do you monitor that kind of thing?  You could require a reference from a psychiatrist or therapist, but some people don’t have either of those things.  Maybe you would need a reference from a current member, but that still excludes folks who might need help.  There could be a screening process, maybe you’d have to have a talk with a volunteer psychiatrist over Skype or something.  But the point is, there would have to be some way to keep the trolls out.  The second thing it would need from members is a legitimate desire to work on getting better.  Being healthy is hard work, sometimes its easier to stay miserable.  But something like this would need a communal feeling of hope and a drive to have a good life.  I can’t see it helping anyone otherwise.

Then there’s the game itself.  It would need to be fun.  You wouldn’t think this is a thing that needs to be said, but I’ve read a few articles by mental health professionals who have tried to gamify the recovery process and the most common reason they fail is because the games they come up with just aren’t good.  And that involves a lot of things - writing, world building, mechanics, narrative, music, art, etc.  So far the system I’ve envision is intimidatingly complex and I’ve only vaguely mapped it out.  I’ve already decided it would need at least 3 different types of experience points, stats that are dependent on factors both in and out of the game, and a reward system that takes a persons “issues profile” into account and customizes rewards appropriately.  Its pretty daunting, especially when you must constantly keep the fun in mind.

The number of people who would have to be involved is huge.  I know a little bit about a few things like game mechanics, storytelling and even programming.  But not enough for something like this.  And not only would you need all the folks you would normally associate with game development, there would have to be mental health professionals and possibly social workers involved as well, not to mention web and mobile app developers.  That is a lot of people, which means a lot of money.  Money that would have to be donated because it would need to be free.

Yeah, to add onto the pile of complications funding for a project like this would have to come from grants and public donations for the most part.  Maybe I’d ask people to drop a one-time fee when they first pick it up, but it would be optional because at its heart the game would be about helping people who need it.  And then it would be free to play, and not “freemium”, straight up free.  It seems to me that in-game purchases, ads and other revenue generators would have no place in a game like this; it would detract from the mission, which means users would not be paying to keep it running unless they wanted to.  To bring a company on-board they would have to be ok with the idea of backing something with no possible financial reward.  I’ve worked in the non profit sector for a little while now and while things like Child’s Play give me hope, I know its really hard to get people from thinking “What am I getting for this money?” to thinking “What good can my money do?”  Not to mention getting a whole company to think that.

I haven’t only been thinking about the daunting aspects of this idea though, there are a few key features I’ve come up with that would be awesome.  The first one is the Panic Button.  If a player is having a horrible day, or that bottle of pills starts to look super tempting the panic button could connect them with another player who’s set themselves as being available to chat and help them through it (the panic button would need a 911 feature too, obviously).  Building on that, players who make themselves available for support would get rewards like extra spells or appearance customization.  Also equipment stats would be separate from appearance, with one kind of XP (for example logging your daily self-care routines) giving a player access to more stat bonuses while another (maybe helping people out through the panic button) would give you customization options.  Some character stats (like strength and endurance) could increase by fighting enemies in game, while others (like charisma or wisdom) increase by participating in the social aspect.

As long as this is, its only scratching the surface of the shit that’s been going through my brain the last couple days.  Its a little overwhelming I have to admit, but its been so long since I’ve been excited about something positive.  So to all of you guys out there who made sure I stayed safe and here, I give you this idea.  I’m going to pursue it, and maybe one day something will come of it.  And that’s thanks to you.