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Dark Pattern Games

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Re: Dark Pattern Games

#41

Post by toast0 »

keerthiko wrote: post #16

The premise of this site seems to be that anything designed to make the game "addictive" is a dark pattern — this is contradictory to the concept of "dark pattern" in products in general, which I would define as "when an interface biases users towards action that is more in the interest of the business controlling the interface than the user's goals for using the software ." When someone plays a game, the user's goal…

> When someone plays a game, the user's goal could be expected as "having fun for as much time as they want to." Being addictive is usually in service of that.

I disagree. Being addictive leads to it being hard to stop playing when you are done, and sometimes hard to avoid playing, which leads to playing even when you would like to be doing something else.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#42

Post by tigerlily »

mzajc wrote: post #2

I like the idea, but their ratings seem.. dubious at best. For example: Hyperrogue, which hit the frontpage a few times and which I can confidently say does not feature any dark patterns, is rated just 1.19 [0] on a 5 (best) to -5 (worst) scale. [0] https://www.darkpattern.games/game/18554/0/hyperrogue.html

I agree, HyperRogue's rating on this site is just baffling. It should definitely be +5.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#43

Post by nine_k »

p1necone wrote: post #38
teamonkey wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition is not core to all games by any means. You could argue that challenge is core to games, for a particular definition of ‘challenge.’

Solo/single player games are common now , but looking at pre computer history the majority of games are sports where you're competing against others either alone or in teams and board/card/dice games where you are competing against others (and probably gambling too). Sure there are some solitaire card games, and toys like yo-yos, kendama and the like that could be classified as games. But competition defines most of…

Single-player games very much existed before computers: puzzles, solitaires, etc.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#44

Post by p1necone »

toast0 wrote: post #39
p1necone wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think this clarifies the core issue with this kind of thinking (imo). The venn diagram between 'mechanics that make games fun' and 'dark patterns' (as described by this site) is basically a circle. The important thing isn't the patterns themselves, it's that they're used to make you spend money on microtransactions. Looking at just the mechanics divorced of any context of the surrounding business/marketing/mon…

> The venn diagram between 'mechanics that make games fun' and 'dark patterns' (as described by this site) is basically a circle. I don't really think Daily Rewards are a fun mechanic. Nor is Friend Spam, and Social Pyramid Scheme is rarely fun either.

3/16 is not great. All good bullshit is wrapped around a grain of truth, this website might be more useful if they just concentrated on the things are dark patterns regardless of context.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#45

Post by Loocid »

protocolture wrote: post #35
swi wrote: post #22

Chris Wilson released a video on this topic yesterday - "Dark Patterns: Are Your Games Playing You?". He has an interesting perspective having been the lead of Path of Exile. A free to play, decade long, popular, action role playing game. While opinions vary on the correct use of these patterns, the video is a helpful and easy to digest, reminder of them. The video description contains additional links. --- "Dark Pat…

PoE seems to be an outlier, having probably the softest freemium model in existence. I dont recall having been even slightly tempted to spend money in that game.

There is pretty heavy pressure to buy stash tabs once you hit the later parts of the game, but you get a LOT of time to figure out if you actually like the game before you feel it.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#46

Post by toast0 »

thrwaway55 wrote: post #17

This site feels like this it's made by people that misunderstand games and genres and can't stand the concept of live service games which surprise takes money to run. Saw one where powercreep is considered unhealthy ...if you played a competitive card game without power creep you'd quit because the first meta would be the only meta. Controlled power creep is healthy for game longevity.

Some games have enough room for new meta to develop even though there have been no updates.

That doesn't mean that's the only way to be a good game, and I don't necessarily have an issue with powercreep. If it's mild and expected, powercreep can also be a way to handicap... If you're introducing new people to a game, maybe you let them use current cards and you use 5 year old cards (or whatever), they get to practice with current cards, get to experience old cards, you get some nostalgia from your old decks, and you don't have to sandbag, because they've got an advantage.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#47

Post by joaohaas »

Overall it feels like unless your game is a linear single-player game, it will fall under multiple of the site's labelled 'dark patterns'. Here are some really bad ones:

Infinite Treadmill - Impossible to win or complete the game.

Variable Rewards - Unpredictable or random rewards are more addictive than a predictable schedule.

Can't Pause or Save - The game does not allow you to stop playing whenever you want.

Grinding - Being required to perform repetitive and tedious tasks to advance.

Competition - The game makes you compete against other players.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#49

Post by p1necone »

nine_k wrote: post #43
p1necone wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solo/single player games are common now , but looking at pre computer history the majority of games are sports where you're competing against others either alone or in teams and board/card/dice games where you are competing against others (and probably gambling too). Sure there are some solitaire card games, and toys like yo-yos, kendama and the like that could be classified as games. But competition defines most of…

Single-player games very much existed before computers: puzzles, solitaires, etc.

See second paragraph. 'Basically all' may have been an exaggeration, but the crux of my argument is that the concept that human beings know as a 'game' up until the advent of computer games more often than not involved competition.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#50

Post by h4ny »

I encourage everyone to read the definition on the home page:

> Definition: A gaming dark pattern is something that is deliberately added to a game to cause an unwanted negative experience for the player with a positive outcome for the game developer.

And also the detailed descriptions of each of the dark patterns, for example:

https://www.darkpattern.games/pattern/12/grinding.html

Quoting just the short descriptions of the dark patterns without considering the definition above is effectively mischaracterizing the intent of the website and not using the tool as intended, and all the patterns seem like they can be/are just enjoyable mechanics to many.

Some of the users reviewing games on the website seem to also miss the point (inaccurate reviews), which leads to comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45947761#45948330.

It is increasingly often the case in predatory games that a very subtle combination of the mechanics listed make them dark patterns collectively, so it's also important to consider the patterns in groups.

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