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Dark Pattern Games

(www.darkpattern.games)
350 points robotnikman | 1 comments | 16 Nov 25 19:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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swi ◴[16 Nov 25 22:31 UTC] No.45949064[source]▶
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.

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"Dark Patterns: Are Your Games Playing You?" - https://youtu.be/OCkO8mNK3Gg

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protocolture ◴[16 Nov 25 23:58 UTC] No.45949657[source]▶
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.
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p1necone ◴[17 Nov 25 00:19 UTC] No.45949766[source]▶
You say that, but some of the games that people point at as having harmful monetization have basically the same system of only selling cosmetic items that don't give you an advantage (e.g. Fortnite). And PoE's stash tabs straddle that line a bit.

As far as I can tell the main difference is a younger demographic and being more pop culture adjacent. I don't think that should affect whether you consider it "bad" monetization, but I will concede that context is important with these sort of things.

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1. gridspy ◴[17 Nov 25 20:58 UTC] No.45958206[source]▶
Sure, but Fortnite's UI is set up to sell to you the whole time. After every match you can see unlocks. Before every match you spend time surrounded by other players with their skins and emotes.

The relationship between EXP and levels in each season only really reward you if you have a battle pass - so the more you play the more the pass seems like an attractive purchase. Once you have the pass, you're then encouraged to play more than you might otherwise want to in order to max out the time-limited rewards.