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Dark Pattern Games

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Re: Dark Pattern Games

#81

Post by oreally »

loveparade wrote: post #52
protocolture wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You absolutely need to spend money in PoE to buy stash tabs. It's basically mandatory if you play regularly. The difference to most dark patterns is that the spending has a very low cap. Once you've spent $50 or so on stash tabs you are set forever and never need to spend again. So it's not so different from buying a $50 game, just that you get to try it out for free first.

$50 is exaggerating it nowadays. With async trade you could buy a single merchant tab to gain access to trade (stuff sells pretty quick with async trade!), and maybe a currency and scarab tab for the bare minimum convenience. Around $20 and you've got yourself a meaty beast of a game.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#82

Post by sally_glance »

cflewis wrote: post #62

I'm a co-author of the first paper cited in the citations page, "Dark Patterns in the Design of Games" http://www.fdg2013.org/program/papers/paper06_zagal_etal.pdf I see at least some of the patterns we came up with appear on the site. Happy to answer any questions about it all, I think we were the first to write about dark patterns in games, at least academically. It was 2013 so predated Overwatch loot boxes, which…

I enjoy following academic discourse, review and collaboration give me the feeling that actual progress is being made.

So I love that you linked the rebuttal paper. In the last paragraph the authors mention that some ideas could lead to "fruitful analytic or empirical starting points" - did anyone follow up on these? From your perspective, what are the most interesting directions in this area of research today?

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#84

Post by blharr »

stackghost wrote: post #21
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…

Yes, not everything here is a dark pattern. The one that stood out to me was "Wait To Play"[0]. In the before times, there was a browser-only MMO called Urban Dead[1] which had a cap on the number of actions any player could take in a single 24-hour period. This was to avoid giving undue influence/advantage to players who could play more during the day and disadvantaging people who e.g. had to work during the day and…

These are still kind of bad, because it encourages a routine of playing every day. If I work 5 days a week and want to play only on weekends, I might get capped out when I do what to play. So it shifts the advantage to daily scheduled tasks instead of being able to play when I want to play.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#85

Post by p0w3n3d »

symbogra wrote: post #80
offsky wrote: post #75

It’s always shocking to see one of my sites pop up on HN. For context around my motivation to make the site. I was really addicted to a certain mobile game to the point that it was affecting my work and family life. I stumbled upon an article about how game companies hire psychologists to make the games more addicting. This led me down a rabbit hole of researching dark patterns. It was very eye opening and by learnin…

Thanks for doing this! Years of grinding in Diablo 2 and reading about the psychology of intermittent rewards has made me able to see through any game with a grinding mechanic and not play it. So naming and explaining the dark pattern can help.

You mean the new diablo 2 right? I doubt the original Diablo 2 grinding was money-earning focused. I mean the old games (as they appeared to me) were focused on "do it, sell it, make people fall in love with it while we prepare the new game". The new games are more like "make people hooked on it, while we prepare another DLC" - I've never played the new Diablo 2 so I am asking. However I used to grind Diablo 1 (and still do it sometimes with devilutionx) and while I am grinding they do not earn anything, so I feel that it's only to my guilty pleasure...

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#86

Post by amne »

joaohaas wrote: post #47

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. Grind…

Chess:

- infinite treadmill: theoretically you can play all possible moves but not in a lifetime.

- variable rewards: sometimes you stumble upon (or try) a tactic that works.

- can't pause or save: except when you maybe play against a computer which is not the point of the game

- grinding: you need to play the same openings many many times to encounter all the responses that will let you know if your "build" is worthy

- competition: nothing to add

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#87

Post by seba_dos1 »

stackghost wrote: post #21
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…

Yes, not everything here is a dark pattern. The one that stood out to me was "Wait To Play"[0]. In the before times, there was a browser-only MMO called Urban Dead[1] which had a cap on the number of actions any player could take in a single 24-hour period. This was to avoid giving undue influence/advantage to players who could play more during the day and disadvantaging people who e.g. had to work during the day and…

You're talking about a completely different pattern that just happens to be possible to describe with the same three words.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#88

Post by david_shaw »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #85
symbogra wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for doing this! Years of grinding in Diablo 2 and reading about the psychology of intermittent rewards has made me able to see through any game with a grinding mechanic and not play it. So naming and explaining the dark pattern can help.

You mean the new diablo 2 right? I doubt the original Diablo 2 grinding was money-earning focused. I mean the old games (as they appeared to me) were focused on "do it, sell it, make people fall in love with it while we prepare the new game". The new games are more like "make people hooked on it, while we prepare another DLC" - I've never played the new Diablo 2 so I am asking. However I used to grind Diablo 1 (and s…

Since they mentioned intermittent reward, I take that comment to mean that they prefer to play skill-based games rather than time-sink-for-variable-reward games.

I agree with you that Blizzard didn't stand to directly earn from the D2 grind, but it's valid to not want to participate in a time-sink.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#89

Post by dominicrose »

joaohaas wrote: post #47

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. Grind…

The game I was the most addicted to was Age of Empires II, but I don't blame Microsoft for this: they just created an awesome game. Competition + "can't pause", these two can really make you disconnected from real life if you're competitive, but it's also fun and somewhat useful to know how much you can push yourself and how far you can go on the ladder.

My advice is to force yourself to stop playing after each single match, but that's hard when you're in a loosing streak because you want to win at least one match.

Paul Morphy has to become the best chess player before he understood that chess was a waste of time. He said that it's important to know the game well but there's a limit.

Re: Dark Pattern Games

#90

Post by mbf1 »

It's amusing to me that Roblox appears like it's a healthy game when I recognize the platform's top earning games having most of the dark patterns.
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