DarkPattern.games - a website that rates mobile games for their "dark patterns"
DarkPattern.games - a website that rates mobile games for their "dark patterns"
Game reviews to help you find good games that don't trick you into addictive gaming patterns.
Cool cool cool. The dark games list is basically all the play store recommendations
Keep in mind that the recommendations are likely influenced by being in the top 200, which is where they look for games to review. Careful of correlation fallacy
At the same time, the goal of dark patterns to to make people spend more money. Given that revenue is very likely one of the key things Google wants (and thus promotes) out of apps, its also entirely expected that the apps people find are largely those who try and get the most money from users, which requires dark patterns.
From the link:
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.
Can't find your game? We've tried to include all games that make it into the top 200 on the App Store charts.
This appears to only cover mobile games. I'd love to see something similar for PC/console releases...
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)_/¯
From the site:
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.
Not sure of they fixed Diablo, but that one had some dark mechanics for the season stuff making people accidentally get the premium.
Most games fit multiple categories of dark patterns. Almost all gachas have 90% of these
Many of the games listed here have old or dead links, and you can't sort by rating either. I had a very bad time finding games using this site.
I've always wanted to make a website like this. But then I got too addicted to some game and spent all my time on that instead. /j
Only partly joking, I really wanted to make a website similar to this. But then stuff happened. You know how it is.
(Here was an entire wall of text, where I detailed the idea, before I decided to delete it all again.)
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.
Oh fun. A game series I used to work on is on the Dark Games first page.
After spending days reading this website, write out case study, I can fully quit my mobile game addiction
Great site, lots of info on gamification
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?
Im just a person pointing out that this site has issues. Make up your own opinion, I don't care.
So the only mobile game I really play often is Mad Skills BMX 2 which has 0 dark patterns. Yay
im glad it also highlights the ones that have less of these patterns, some really good games there
Yep, looks like my favourite gacha games are gonna end up on the negative list here. Oh well, it is what it is.
I was honestly expecting a worse rating for my favourite gacha games, not gonna lie...good to see that objective opinions are still around.
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