This kind of software exists in an interesting space. It's effectively a medicine that can be distributed and administered at no cost. If we had a physical drug with those properties, access would be ubiquitous. Instead, the controlling company will likely use DRM and otherwise do everything in its power to prevent access. IP law is supposed to ultimately maximize public good by gaurenteeing a return on investment, but denying someone medical treatment that costs nothing just feels wrong.
After reading one[1] of the studies(the FDA release says there are multiple studies but provides no links) that supposedly supports the claim that this game could be beneficial, my opinion is that this is entirely bogus.<p>The issue is that the only metric that this game improved was performance on a TOVA assessment[2]. TOVA is itself essentially just an absurdly boring video game: You press a button when the correct target appears, and don't press when incorrect targets appear. I have personal objections to idea that TOVA can really be a reliable indicator of ADHD, but it is approved as one.<p>The "therapeutic" video game is described in the study as game where half of the gameplay is "a perceptual discrimination targeting task in which users respond to the instructed stimulus targets and ignore the stimulus distractors". Meaning this game is almost literally just the TOVA test but with better graphics. The control game appears to have been a word game along the lines of scrabble. Unsurprisingly, kids who played the first game had more improvement on the TOVA test.<p>They just developed a game that taught to the test. Of course the results improved.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500%2820%2930017-0/fulltext" rel="nofollow">https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_of_Variables_of_Attention" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_of_Variables_of_Attention</a>