I was pretty intrigued by this, because I actively avoid games that try to push me into doing things I don’t want to.
Unfortunately, after reading their descriptions of the various “dark” patterns, I am quite worried that this site could do more harm than good if it gets broad traction.
While it has a few notes here and there disclaiming people’s preferences and fun, mostly it heavily over-identifies “dark” patterns. It doesn’t make it clear enough to the non-gaming friends/spouses/parents of the gamer that these patterns aren’t by default “dark”.
It over-classifies many forms of difficulty, mastery, complexity, routines, socializing, and more as “dark”. I hope this website doesn’t gain traction in its current state, because if it does it could further a moral panic around many games that people enjoy. Based on their descriptions, this panic would likely be even more focused on games that neurodivergent people enjoy, because of course…
Moral panic about video games in the past has been an excuse to bully people, often kids in the past, but more and more adults as well.
For example “Reciprocity”. Unless it’s something I’ve never seen in gaming I don’t see how that’s a dark pattern. Giving other players stuff is not a dark pattern, the “dark pattern” is when the person feels like they should contribute back. How can a game make a player NOT feel like they should contribute back? There is nothing a game can do to fix this which is why I don’t see how that can be a dark pattern for games.
Some games do create a need to depend on some. For example, in Old School Runescape, you make a decision in a quest and rely on someone who made a different decision. You cannot change it and you do depend on them. So they may feel obliged to reciprocate. The obligation is created due to a game design decision rather than because of an intrinsic decision of players.
Some games are set in such a way where you cannot of progress without assistance. New players can get locked out of progression. Maybe this could be relevent in those cases.
I guess so, you just cannot quit midway through a day without losing progress or sleeping early and losing a day. There is a negative cost that forces to play to when the dev chooses rather than you.
Great game, great developer, but it is a dark pattern.
It’s not a dark pattern. It’s a technical limitation.
Concerned Ape wrote that game with very limited programming experience. Having significantly modded the game in the past, the code is a mess, but indicative of someone who is learning to program still.
While I haven’t played SDV in a long time, there was a mod when I played that allowed you to save at any time. It was buggy as hell.
It’s an indie game made by one dude. He got some help from CF for multiplayer and porting, but that was about it.
At this rate, all indie games have dark patterns lol.
So he’s capable enough to add new islands and content, but not change a trigger on how to save. One button. Same logic…
A buggy mod by someone who didn’t write it doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Many mods are of poor standard and don’t have access to the same code or the facilitate a way to change something, so they often have to work around whatever APIs are exposed.
It is a dark pattern. You can like a game and someone and still be able to be critical of a game design decision they make. Not everyone is good or bad. A hero or villain. No one is perfect.
So he’s capable enough to add new islands and content, but not change a trigger on how to save. One button. Same logic…
Correct. The entire game state was not designed to be serialized. You can see this with how buggy multiplayer is. He could do saving mid-day, but I don’t think most players would want that over an entire new island worth of content, especially when the amount of work is comparable.
A buggy mod by someone who didn’t write it doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
I didn’t say it’s not possible. Anything’s possible when it’s your code. I said it would be hard to add now.
You can like a game and someone and still be able to be critical of a game design decision they make. Not everyone is good or bad. A hero or villain. No one is perfect.
This part, I don’t get. I maintained a mod with thousands of endorsements and over a hundred thousand unique downloads. I talked with modders even bigger than me regularly. Even the lead dev of SMAPI, who has some more insight into the codebase than anyone else in the modding community.
None of us succeeded in it.
At no point did I defend the game on its merits of being “good or bad”. I haven’t played it in years. All I did was explain that this is technically very difficult to do.
On the topic of dark patterns, many games have specific points where you can save. This is not unique to SDV. For example, some games only allow you to save at specific points to avoid save scumming and increase the difficulty.
What matters isn’t when you can save. It’s whether your inability to save at times is being exploited for their benefit.
The core problem here is that the author(s) don’t seem to consider that not every game is intended for everyone, and instead seem to imply that if they’re not for everyone then some of the reasons they aren’t is a “dark pattern”.
I really cannot be exhaustive because there are so many problems. But I will try to give a few examples. Fair warning: As I wrote the below, I began to get a bit irreverent because reading the text is pretty upsetting so I needed to lighten my own mood. I guess maybe the authors here are using some sort of dark pattern? /s
“Some games have special events that occur during specific times. If you want to participate in the special event, you must play during this time window. Players who work or travel may be unable to play during these time windows and will miss out and feel stress.”
Many ARPGs that have fixed-length events that occur over a period of hours, days, or months. Some games (eg. Grim Dawn) even have these modded in by players. Are those players modding in a dark pattern? Maybe the author of this personally doesn’t like the idea that some people may be left out by work or travel requirements, but like, can’t the rest of us enjoy our game without being effectively told that work and travel come first, so therefore it’s a dark pattern?
“Some games use the time of day to change aspects of the game. Maybe certain items can only be collected at night. This forces people to play the game during times when they might not otherwise play.”
Like, don’t play a game during a time you don’t want to? There are game developers that would like to experiment with this type of mechanic.
" Some games use a mechanic called “Harvesting” which can be implemented in many ways, but in general the player starts an action that will take some long time to complete. The player must return to the game at some specific time in the future to collect the reward. Sometimes, the reward is lost if not collected in time."
Welcome to almost every city builder, management game, automation game, and so on. It’s perfectly fine if some people want instant gratification in your games, but some of us really enjoy these types of mechanic.
“Another way that developers implement an Infinite Treadmill is by continually expanding the game and adding new content. It might be possible to complete everything in the game right now, but soon the developers will release new levels and extend the game.”
So adding new content to a game is now a dark pattern? This is just way too general.
“Additionally, if someone is already bored with a game and a new event is announced, the player may stick around to see if the new event rekindles their enjoyment in the game in which they have already invested significant time and money.”
Oh no, boredom, we can’t allow people to be bored in the hopes that they find newfound enjoyment in an old favorite game.
“This is often combined with the Playing by Appointment dark pattern. For example, the team may have a raid or other event scheduled for 10:00am. Because players don’t want to let their team down, they may rearrange their schedule or play the game when they should be at work or doing something else important. A player on vacation may be desperate to find a WiFi connection so they can login and support their team.”
Oh no, some gamers treat their games like a social hobby with meetings and events, this must be a dark pattern.
"If the game allows you to share resources, trade items or send gifts to your friends or other players then it may be using the dark pattern of Reciprocity. The person who receives your gift may feel a sense of obligation to return the favor. They may not have resources to share, and so they may feel bad that they gave something valuable away, or they may feel shame or guilt if they do not reciprocate. These unwanted negative feelings make the game less enjoyable. "
Oh no the game encourages… sharing digital items? I don’t know where to start.
And then, the whole section on competition is a mess. Like yeah there can be problems with competitive games, but again it’s just so overly general. Oh no a kid who lost a game of basketball wants to play more to get better?
"For people who collect things, the collection can have significant emotional value. It may connect them to something that they enjoy or feel strongly about. Some people collect for the thrill of the hunt, others may collect because it gives them a sense of security or control. Others may derive great satisfaction from having a complete set and feel anxious when they are missing a piece of a set. “All of these psychological effects contribute to making you keep playing the game, even if the “playing” of the game is not enjoyable anymore.”
This reeks of “you’re not playing it right”. I’m not a huge fan of collection games, but I am close with people who really enjoy that style of gameplay. Thats WHY they enjoy them. Not because of some other “playing” the game, but because collecting things is playing the game for them.
I just found a recent video from Chris Wilson that does a much better job distinguishing dark patterns from game mechanics some people might enjoy and shared it here: beehaw.org/post/23297295
Lost me at mobile games. However, it’s nice to have definitions for why games are shitty when I tell my friends I’m not interested in the new flavor of the month.
Yeah, the fact it’s only mobile games surprised me a bit, especially since they don’t seem to mention it anywhere until you see the only platform filters are iOS and Android.
There are several games I have a small interest in but from companies I don’t trust much, so a review of the potential manipulation tactics in those might have been useful to me.
I don’t play mobile games though. This is unfortunately not at all exclusive to mobile.
Edit : just saw the notice about other platforms coming. Makes sense.
Interestingly enough Luca Galante the creator spent 10 years coding digital slot machines. He used a lot of the techniques used by them to keep you playing. He just did it in a way to maximize fun instead of micro transactions.
DarkPattern.Games is a brand new website. We are starting with iOS and Android games because this is where most dark patterns appear, but we will be adding other platforms soon.
Because we are new, we have a lot of games that don't have any reviews yet. This will improve over time and we are working hard to get games reviewed. Please help us by finding a familiar game and submitting a review.
From the website: “We are starting with iOS and Android games because this is where most dark patterns appear, but we will be adding other platforms soon.” So that looks good for your request.
Anecdotally Fifa (EA FC or whatever they’re calling it now) would have to be up there. Hadn’t played it in years but gave it a go last season as it was free on Game Pass.
They’ve combined the addictiveness of card collecting with loot box mechanics, FOMO and moving the goalposts (pun intended) to get the best players. The gameplay also seemed pretty rigged to prevent grinding rewards out.
Then when the new game is out, rather than dishing out all the rewards to those still playing it instead becomes infeasible to unlock any more decent players so you’re pretty much stuck with what you have.
Even if you pay full price for the next game you’ll have to use low stat players as they only seem to start releasing decent ones half way through the season.
That’s sad to hear. It’s been a long time since I’ve played any sports games and I had a hankering recently but everything has shit reviews and I keep coming across stories like yours.
Remember a game would come out with everything you need to enjoy the game? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Interesting, but its based on user generated input, so this data could easily be manipulated by someone that doesn’t like particular games creating a few accounts to add bad data.
It could also be manipulated by someone who reports the dark patterns are inaccurate. If it were run by a single org or person, it could get sold to a company interested in gaming the ratings or used to bash things the owner doesn’t like. I’m not entirely sure what your point is. Every way to set this up is subject to bad actors. There are some checks and balances present in the website. Why are they inadequate and why should we not trust this site? Are you, perhaps, an industry dark pattern plant trying to get us to avoid something that could deter dark pattern usage?
darkpattern.games
Aktywne