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YSK about Darkpatterns.games, a website that rates mobile games on their "Dark patterns"
(www.darkpattern.games)
this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
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Back in uni, most of these dark patterns were taught as "game design fundamentals".
Now as I work on my indie games, I avoid using what I learned in uni.
Game design all boils down to "is it fun?" and anything else is bullshit sales tactics.
I wish the site also focused on real games, and not just mobile games.
I think the focus on mobile is due to the fact that very few people would choose to make a fun game on mobile unless they were deliberately chasing money. Indie devs don't want to use and make customers use an inferior device with more hoops to jump through. Publishing for PC is easy, publishing for Console has a higher bar to clear for quality. Publishing for mobile is more difficult than PC and makes it more difficult to build a quality game, so the majority of mobile games are unrewarding trash so the only incentive to make them is pure monetization.
Also because the install base for mobile devices is just about everyone everywhere, and yes, a fair amount of people, particularly young people, would much rather play something on their phone than a PC or even console.
The difference in potential customer base is orders of magnitude larger.
What games do you make? If you're actively working on games that are anti dark pattern then that's the type of game I want to hear about
I'm sorry, I'd share some links, but I make too many shitposts and unhinged takes on this account to want to link to my projects and thus my real name.
But I would argue that most at least somewhat successful indie games (at least on PC) have very few dark patterns.
They said they'll expand to steam eventually, but sounds like they wanted to focus on mobile to start because it has biggest player base and most of the dark patterns are industry norms for mobile.
I'd argue that unfun design elements can be useful in games if used with care and purpose. For instance, "suddenly all of the characters you're attached to are dead" is not exactly fun but one of the Fire Emblem games used it to great dramatic effect at the midway point.
Of course the line between an event or mechanic that players love to hate and one they just hate is thin.
What makes mobile games not “real”? Sounds very gatekeepy. I don’t always have the space to pull out my laptop.
The vast majority of mobile games are comprised of three mechanics:
and repeat.
Clearly you haven’t played any good mobile games. Or any bad desktop computer games for that matter.
The handful of good ones aren't why mobile gaming is worth more than PC gaming.
Nobody is forcing you to play the bad games. In fact, the website in the OP is made precisely for finding the good ones.