Dark patterns in the design of games
By J. Zagal, Staffan Björk, Chris Lewis. International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games, 2013
327 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Game designers are typically regarded as advocates for players. However, a game creator’s interests may not align with the players’. We examine some of the ways in which those opposed interests can manifest in a game’s design. In particular, we examine those elements of a game’s design whose purpose can be argued as questionable and perhaps even unethical. Building upon earlier work in design patterns, we call these abstracted elements Dark Game Design Patterns. In this paper, we develop the concept of dark design patterns in games, present examples of such patterns, explore some of the subtleties involved in identifying them, and provide questions that can be asked to help guide in the specification and identification of future Dark Patterns. Our goal is not to criticize creators but rather to contribute to an ongoing discussion regarding the values in games and the role that designers and creators have in this process.
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/19a241378b06d868eb5f6b76027172c3aaca86f4
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
- Jonathan R. Mayer
- Arunesh Mathur
- Gunes Acar
- Arvind Narayanan
- Mihir Kshirsagar
- Michael Friedman
- Elena Lucherini
- M. Chetty
Citations in the corpus
- UI Dark Patterns and Where to Find Them: A Study on Mobile Applications and User Perception (2020, background): “Games, social media, news applications, and more can all include malicious designs [30, 32, 33, 41, 98].”
- Dark Patterns at Scale (2019, background): “they might not make. Such interface design is an increasingly common occurrence on digital platforms including social media websites [46], shopping websites [32], mobile apps [5, 31], and video games [85]. At best, dark patterns annoy and frustrate users. At worst, they can mislead and deceive users”
- What Makes a Dark Pattern... Dark?: Design Attributes, Normative Considerations, and Measurement Methods (2021, background): “[62] described seven types of dark patterns used by video game developers.”