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.
Exactly. I’m not blaming Google entirely, though I do condemn them for being an example of what emerges from a system who’s only incentive is maximum profit.
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.
Brand new is definitely a stretch, their legal page seems to date back to 2019.
Good looking out
They probably just never got around to updating that description. I only inquired because I’d heard of that website before.
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.
Vampire Survivors is a great game but the mobile version is the fucking worst.
Hard agree
I didn’t know there was a non-mobile.
I didn’t know there was a mobile version. PC version was like £3 and had no ads/payments/nonsense, what’s in the mobile version?
No ads unless you want to “pay” for a free revive. No micro transactions that I’ve seen.
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
So the only mobile game I really play often is Mad Skills BMX 2 which has 0 dark patterns. Yay
Why is Roblox in the wrong list
This could encourage anyone to make an alternative for it
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im glad it also highlights the ones that have less of these patterns, some really good games there
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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