PlayVS, which is creating esports and gaming programs at schools, has partnered with Skillprint on game-based wellness and learning.
Together, the two companies will bring the science of play into competitive gaming communities across schools, helping students not only sharpen their skills but also build resilience, focus, and confidence through play. It turns out games can help people with mental health and wellness.
PlayVS will weave Skillprint’s neuroscience-powered technology into its platform to help students better understand how games impact focus, mood, and resilience. Together, the companies will surface insights on the cognitive and emotional benefits of play, introduce curated wellness-driven games, and provide players with personalized profiles and wellness tracking over time.
The result is a first-of-its-kind collaboration that transforms scholastic esports into not only a space for competition, but also a pathway to measurable growth and wellbeing.
“We’ve always believed that games can enhance the mind. I think PlayVs is very much of the same, maybe from a different angle,” said Chethan Ramachandran, CEO of Skillprint, in an interview with GamesBeat. “We’re more about let’s take existing games and show what the neuroscience is and what that can do. You can adapt to somebody’s unique mind.”
In scholastic esports, competition is often the draw, but the deeper value lies in what students gain beyond the screen. Skillprint was founded on the belief that games can be a force for good, and their technology proves it. By analyzing how players engage with different games, Skillprint can surface insights into mood, mindset, and cognitive skills.
“Our mission at PlayVs is to continue to make competitive gaming and esports a really positive experience for for those who compete with us, whether it’s in middle school, high school, or now in college,” said Jon Chapman, CEO of PlayVS, in an interview with GamesBeat. “We’re always trying to look for tools that shine a light on making this experience positive. And as Chetan mentioned, using some of the technology and the secret sauce of Skillprint to direct kids towards games that are good for them, with whatever frame of mind they’re in, or, even if it’s not a game on our platform, may be a way to decompress after competing in one of our games.”
He added, “We continue to believe that esports and competitive gaming can be a really positive experience for students, and Skillprint is a great tool to add to the mix of what we’re doing with our community.”
The Skillprint platform’s Adaptive Play engine goes a step further, dynamically adjusting games in real time to help students stay in the flow, reducing frustration, boosting motivation, and creating space for both learning and joy. Whether it’s recommending a calming puzzle game before a big exam or spotlighting a strategy game to build focus, Skillprint personalizes play for each student’s needs.
“Esports is about much more than winning a match — it’s about discovering who you are and what you’re capable of,” said Chapman. “Partnering with Skillprint allows us to show students that the games they love can also help them manage stress, sharpen their minds, and grow as individuals. That’s a powerful message for this generation.”
For Skillprint, the partnership is an opportunity to bring its mission to scale in schools across North America. “We’ve always believed games can unlock potential,” said Ramachandran. “Working with PlayVS means we can meet students where they already are — in their favorite games — and help them discover how play can fuel wellbeing, focus, and resilience.”
The collaboration reflects a growing recognition of the role games can play in education and wellness. PlayVS has long been the trusted bridge between esports and schools, ensuring competition is accessible, inclusive, and meaningful. Skillprint brings a complementary layer — insights and experiences that highlight the personal benefits of play.
Together, the two organizations are helping schools and communities reimagine esports not just as competition, but as a catalyst for mental fitness, social connection, and lifelong growth.
PlayVS is North America’s leading esports and gaming platform, helping students unlock the many benefits of competitive gaming at every level. It offers a comprehensive community where players, coaches, educators, and parents come together to compete, connect, and grow.
With the launch of the PlayVS College League (PCL) and the acquisitions of Generation Esports and Playfly College Esports, PlayVS now provides the most comprehensive pathway in scholastic esports, from middle school through college.
The unique value proposition
Ramachandran said Skillprint sets itself apart by taking a suite of simple existing games, curating them based on different facts, for students to use either pre-tournament or post-tournament as a kind of mental wellness regime.
“If you want to play a tournament, but you need to get a little more focused, we’ve got a suite of games that can act as a kind of a mental wellness regime to get you more focused,” he said. “Afterwards, if you need to relax a little bit and calm down because you were intensely in the game of Rocket League, we have a suite of those games too. The games themselves can adapt to a unique player. They get highly personalized to really help them relax in the right way.”
He added, “Everybody’s mind is different. Some people like timers and that really focuses them. Sometimes you don’t want a timer that will really focus you. It just depends on who you are. That’s the way we’re integrating it. And we see a tool here for the coaches to create a mental wellness curriculum around PlayVs core activities. Players will get the benefits directly from playing the games.”
Skillprint is also working on things for the ecosystem and parents. It is deconstructing some of the games that PlayVs teams can play. It talks about things like the benefits of playing Rocket League. Skillprint has been building this list for a few years now.
“One of the things that’s really unique about the partnership is we have the scale of our community where we can really start to implement and measure the effects and benefits of a tool like Skillprint,” Chapman said. “We’ve got hundreds and hundreds of teams playing Rocket League, for example. And so we can, work with coaches who can advise their players, and we can hopefully see some real material benefit of a tool like this.”
Working on different vectors
Skillprint focuses on health and mental wellness, education and learning, and performance and training. PlayVs touches on all of that too.
“We can certainly help with the emotional well piece. But if you think about where they’re going, they have middle schools, high schools, and now colleges. There’s a lot to be done with the education and learning part. A big part of our platform is revealing to people what their cognitive skills are and mapping them to career paths,” Ramachandran said.
Chapman said that PlayVs is using video game concepts to engage hard to reach learners in middle school and high school, unlocking their curiosity and engagement around traditional subjects like math and science, unlocking their interest in potential career paths. We’re trying to be a community for schools where we can serve students with these video game concepts and a product like gaming concepts in schools during the school day.”
And then they can also focus on training and performance for esports after school. Some of this is very different from Skillprint’s earlier research. The company started thinking about how to help people find a career path based on how they played games. But the company got pulled into the mental wellness area to make people feel better every day. Now the company has found a good partner that can get it to the market. Other partners will be announced soon, Ramachandran said.