4 ms·

I built a site that’s adjacent to this idea (www.darkpattern.games). It catalogs the dark patterns found in mobile games. Premium currency and ads are two of t

by offsky 7y ago

I built a site that’s adjacent to this idea (www.darkpattern.games). It catalogs the dark patterns found in mobile games. Premium currency and ads are two of them but there are many more. The idea is that you could educate yourself so the dark patterns have less power over you and also you can browse the site to find good games that don’t have dark patterns.

StavrosK 7y ago
That is extremely useful to me so I can define my guidelines better, thank you!
grawprog 7y ago
Thank you for making this. I've used this site before while trying to explain to my friend how Mobile Legends gets kids hooked on gambling and is basically digital crack. That game might as well have used your site as a manual. It is fun though, but damn, the constant and never ending Skinner boxes, gambling, and dark patterns to suck out money and time are over the top. I think that game covers just about every single point on your site.
cableshaft 7y ago
That's a pretty well done site, thanks for taking the time to make it. I don't think that all 'dark patterns' are necessarily always bad, especially after seeing everything that made your list, as you have "Complete the Collection" as an example. While I think that it can definitely be abused and does belong on the list, I do think collecting things can be part of the fun of games for people, and that's been in games pretty much since games moved from the arcades into the home consoles. Like platform games are often 'Collectathons', and one of my favorite games of all time, Yoshi's Island on Super Nintendo, has 5 collectible flowers and 20 red coins (and you have to do it with full health at the end of the level) to get up to 100 points for every single level. One of the things I love to do in that game is try to get the full 100 points in as many levels as possible. Another one is Badges, which is similar to Collections, but you're collecting the completion of goals instead. Personally I loved when Xbox 360 introduced Achievements, and I still wish the Switch offered them. When done right, it can leave a lasting demonstration of how much I enjoyed the game. Of course there's some stupid, grindy, super time consuming garbage that borderlines on player abuse for them, so I agree they qualify as a dark pattern, but I don't think they're inherently or always a bad thing and something game developers should always avoid if they want to make a game that wouldn't make the bad side of your list. A lot of these dark patterns I do think are probably always annoying and a bad experience, though, like "Wait to Play".
- VRay 7y ago
  I don't know how I feel about labeling achievements, grinding, and leveling up as dark patterns I guess they do technically exploit people's psychological weaknesses to make games more addictive than they'd be otherwise.. if you take all of those out, though, the classic Final Fantasy SNES games are basically just pixel art comic books
  - tripzilch 7y ago
    I mean, I don't like all types of games. What may feel grinding to me, might be fun for somebody else? In fact, I sometimes enjoy watching other people have fun, even if it would be grinding for me. Also helps that they're usually just better at it :)

by offsky 7y ago

StavrosK 7y ago

That is extremely useful to me so I can define my guidelines better, thank you!

grawprog 7y ago

Thank you for making this. I've used this site before while trying to explain to my friend how Mobile Legends gets kids hooked on gambling and is basically digital crack. That game might as well have used your site as a manual. It is fun though, but damn, the constant and never ending Skinner boxes, gambling, and dark patterns to suck out money and time are over the top. I think that game covers just about every single point on your site.

cableshaft 7y ago

That's a pretty well done site, thanks for taking the time to make it. I don't think that all 'dark patterns' are necessarily always bad, especially after seeing everything that made your list, as you have "Complete the Collection" as an example. While I think that it can definitely be abused and does belong on the list, I do think collecting things can be part of the fun of games for people, and that's been in games pretty much since games moved from the arcades into the home consoles. Like platform games are often 'Collectathons', and one of my favorite games of all time, Yoshi's Island on Super Nintendo, has 5 collectible flowers and 20 red coins (and you have to do it with full health at the end of the level) to get up to 100 points for every single level. One of the things I love to do in that game is try to get the full 100 points in as many levels as possible. Another one is Badges, which is similar to Collections, but you're collecting the completion of goals instead. Personally I loved when Xbox 360 introduced Achievements, and I still wish the Switch offered them. When done right, it can leave a lasting demonstration of how much I enjoyed the game. Of course there's some stupid, grindy, super time consuming garbage that borderlines on player abuse for them, so I agree they qualify as a dark pattern, but I don't think they're inherently or always a bad thing and something game developers should always avoid if they want to make a game that wouldn't make the bad side of your list. A lot of these dark patterns I do think are probably always annoying and a bad experience, though, like "Wait to Play".

VRay 7y ago
I don't know how I feel about labeling achievements, grinding, and leveling up as dark patterns I guess they do technically exploit people's psychological weaknesses to make games more addictive than they'd be otherwise.. if you take all of those out, though, the classic Final Fantasy SNES games are basically just pixel art comic books
- tripzilch 7y ago
  I mean, I don't like all types of games. What may feel grinding to me, might be fun for somebody else? In fact, I sometimes enjoy watching other people have fun, even if it would be grinding for me. Also helps that they're usually just better at it :)