Dark Pattern Games

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.

Especially for online games, these aspects are actually quite core to long term play. I am pretty casual as far as time invested goes, but many online games have to cater to both me and the Die Hards who play their games 10x more than other players.

To the die hard players, the infinite grind is a feature, treadmills help them reach whatever insane goals the developers have to keep cooking up so that they're satisfied.

Watching Arc Raiders evolve recently is a great example. It's trying to cater to casual players. It is going well now, but the die hards are going to ruin that experience I can promise. Then the die hards will be all that remain, and they'll have to cater to them.

The difference between a casual player and a die hard can be, 30hrs in a year played. And 5000 hrs in a year played. Some people play like it's their job.

What % of the time do you think the die-hard gamers live a healthy lifestyle? I’m thinking it’s higher than my knee jerk reaction, like 40-50%, but an important consideration. Of course people define “healthy” differently too, but obesity and mental health crises have objectively grown and correlate with rising technology use.