this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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Gaming

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[–] ranandtoldthat@beehaw.org 28 points 3 days ago

I was pretty intrigued by this, because I actively avoid games that try to push me into doing things I don't want to.

Unfortunately, after reading their descriptions of the various "dark" patterns, I am quite worried that this site could do more harm than good if it gets broad traction.

While it has a few notes here and there disclaiming people's preferences and fun, mostly it heavily over-identifies "dark" patterns. It doesn't make it clear enough to the non-gaming friends/spouses/parents of the gamer that these patterns aren't by default "dark".

It over-classifies many forms of difficulty, mastery, complexity, routines, socializing, and more as "dark". I hope this website doesn't gain traction in its current state, because if it does it could further a moral panic around many games that people enjoy. Based on their descriptions, this panic would likely be even more focused on games that neurodivergent people enjoy, because of course....

Moral panic about video games in the past has been an excuse to bully people, often kids in the past, but more and more adults as well.

[–] 13igTyme@piefed.social 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Lost me at mobile games. However, it's nice to have definitions for why games are shitty when I tell my friends I'm not interested in the new flavor of the month.

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah, the fact it's only mobile games surprised me a bit, especially since they don't seem to mention it anywhere until you see the only platform filters are iOS and Android.

There are several games I have a small interest in but from companies I don't trust much, so a review of the potential manipulation tactics in those might have been useful to me.

I don't play mobile games though. This is unfortunately not at all exclusive to mobile.

Edit : just saw the notice about other platforms coming. Makes sense.

[–] 13igTyme@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago

FYI it also says for mobile games in the title.