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DARK PATTERNS & VIDEO GAME DESIGN
The Mutual Benefit of User-Centered Design in Video Games
Consumers have long been skeptical of marketing content. Consumers know that producers have a particular goal in mind when creating content and more often than not it entails selling the consumer on a certain brand, idea, or product. This knowledge of producer goals leads consumers to be naturally distrusting of marketing campaigns, whether their intents are benevolent or not. As Deuze (2005) says in a piece on marketing and communications institutions struggling to maintain credibility amongst their audience, users are cynical of communicative productions because the field of marketing in general has had a long-standing problematic history of failure to understand and address users’ values in textual production. In one study, consumers were shown identical health claims made by food products. These health claims were given to consumers in the form of food advertisements and in the form of food labelling. The results of the study found that subjects were more likely to mistrust the claims provided to them in an advertisement than they were those provided in the form of a label (Mitra, Hastak, Ringold, & Levy, 2019). This consumer skepticism of marketing material is not limited to advertisements, however. Consumers were also shown to be inherently doubtful of the legitimacy of green marketing messages from not-for-profit organizations due to unauthentic greenwashing marketing practices (Musgrove, Choi, & Cox, 2018), and because of deceitful marketing messages employed by Astroturf organizations, corporation backed coalitions masquerading as grassroots-based citizen groups (Yoon & Oh, 2016).
Marketers, whether working for large-scale corporations or individual agencies, have employed deceptive tactics in the creation of marketing content in the hopes of purposefully leading consumers into developing misguided conceptualizations of a brand, product, or company’s core mission and values. These prior utilizations of misleading marketing have set a precedent not only for consumers, but also other marketers producing similar content for similar purposes. Recently, these practices have left the realm of traditional advertising campaign methods and have made their way onto the web and into other digital media. What marketers fail to see is that these methods, although effective in terms of their manipulation of consumers into taking producer-desired action, are ultimately ineffective in maintaining customer loyalty to brands and marketers that employ them.
These misleading practices now have a name. They’re called dark patterns, features of interface or content design crafted to trick users into doing things they might not want to, but which benefit in some way the designer employing them. The term was coined by user experience designer and consultant Harry Brignull (2019). Brignull created a website, darkpatterns.org, that demonstrates the different types of dark patterns that are utilized by businesses to trick users. Here are some of the commonly used dark patterns listed on the site:
Disguised Ads - Adverts disguised as other kinds of content or navigation in order to elicit a user click.
Misdirection – The design purposefully focuses user attention on one thing in order to distract their attention from another.
Forced Continuity- When a user’s free trial service comes to an end and their credit card is silently charged without any warning. Users are often then not given an easy way to cancel the automatic renewal of their subscription.
Bait and Switch- The user sets out to do one thing, but a different, undesirable thing happens instead. (Brignull, 2019).
Readers of this piece have likely had experiences that fall in line with the dark patterns listed above, and it is troubling that these marketing techniques seem to be well on their way to becoming commonplace in digital marketing. This is likely due to the new ecologies provided by the digital world. Marketers no longer have to create advertisements with the goal of bringing consumers into storefronts to sell something in exchange for physical currency. Consumers can simply shop online and provide their credit card information to businesses from their own homes, allowing businesses to store their financial information and abuse their possession of it in ways that often go undetected by consumers. According to Chris Nodder (2013), author of the book Evil by Design: Interaction Design to Lead us into Temptation, these techniques of profiteering are technically not bad design, insofar as they achieve company’s goals of profiting from users. However, they are what he calls evil design. This is a fitting terminology, as this form of user experience design merely perpetuates and expands the problematic history of marketing’s aforementioned failure to understand and address users’ values in textual production.
Dark Patterns & Unethical Design: Text
Dark Patterns
Additional information about dark patterns and examples of them in design. (Nerdwriter1, 2018).
Dark Patterns & Unethical Design: Video
Recently, one of the largest offenders of employing dark patterns in design is the video game industry. Game designers are typically regarded as advocates for players, but this is certainly not always the case. Creators' interests may not align with the players', especially when profit is weighed advantageously against user satisfaction. According to Zagal, Björk, and Lewis (2013), a “dark game design pattern is a pattern used intentionally by a game creator to cause negative experiences for players that are against their best interests and happen without their consent.” Now, I think that this definition of a dark game design pattern is apt with one exception. It should be noted that these intentionally negative experiences creators use are marketed as fair and reasonable design, or at the very least aim to be perceived that way. Some examples of these dark game design patterns include “pre-delivered” and “microtransaction” content. Oftentimes this takes the form of pre-delivered content, or content that is already present in the initial download/disc of a game but is only accessible after the player pays more to have it. For example, “Street Fighter X Tekken…[had an] original retail price…[of] $30 and for an additional $20 players could unlock twelve characters whose data was already on the disc,” (Zagal, Björk, & Lewis, 2013, p.5). The data for these 20 playable characters was already on the Street Fighter X Tekken disc, but players needed to pay more in order to access these characters that they technically already "owned". Microtransactions are very similar and in some cases identical to pre-delivered content in that it is additional content for a game that is only accessible via a pay wall. This type of dark pattern has become very popular among mobile games, which will market themselves as "free to play" but then provide the gamer the option to unlock in-game content by means of paying money. Purchased downloadable content (DLC) for games is not an inherently bad thing. It incentivizes video game producers to create additional content for gamers and work hard to further enhance user experience. It is not unwarranted that developers ask for compensation for the hard work of creative, design, and software teams in producing said content. The issue comes when players pay for a game expecting the game they’ve purchased to be a complete product, when in actuality it is not.. Again, asking the consumer to pay for content is not a crime. If it was, then every video game would need to be free. That being said, when the only way for a gamer to unlock content in a game that has been marketed to them as "free" is by paying, the consumer has been manipulated into maintaining false beliefs and dark game design is present.
One example of such dark game design practice can be seen by game developer King in their popular match three puzzle game Candy Crush. In the app, players attempt to match three candies of the same color together in order to eliminate them from a board and get points. Candy Crush also offers the user several power ups to help them complete levels. Some of these power ups include a lollipop hammer that will eliminate any candy piece of the player's choice from the board, a gummy hand which allows a player to swap candies without using a turn, and a UFO that will turn pieces on the board into "special candies," which will have unique effects when matched. Power ups in Candy Crush are obtained one of three ways. The player can earn power ups for free by spinning a prize wheel or completing a set number of levels, a player can purchase power ups from an in game shop using in-game currency, or lastly, by paying real world money to unlock them. In the case of Candy Crush, it isn't a dark game design pattern to ask a consumer to purchase additional content in-game, especially when the player has other ways of obtaining the same content that they can purchase by means of earning the content in game. A player doesn't need to pay in order to obtain the aforementioned power ups, however, there is some content in game that a player can only access if they purchase it. For instance, the game will occasionally give the player a "special event.” These events take many forms, but most of them include having the player complete a particular challenge in order to obtain an in-game reward, whether it be beating a determined number of levels or getting higher scores on levels than other players who play the game.
One such special event has players earn stars to obtain in-game currency, gold bars, which can be used to purchase power-ups and bonus lives so that they can continue to play more levels. Stars are obtained by the player when they beat a level with a certain point value; if the player beats the level with the bare minimum requirements they'll receive one star, and so on and so forth until they beat the level at the highest point value requirement, wherein they'll receive three stars for the level. In the special event example I gave previously, these stars fill a golden piggy bank until the player has accrued thirty stars, at which point they are able to purchase their loaded piggy bank in order to obtain 30 gold bars. Now, this event is in of itself not dark design. But, it becomes apparent that the event is an example of dark game design when the player has been led to believe that their actions in game have earned them this piggy bank and in-game currency, when in actuality the only way for them to access these gold bars is by purchasing their piggy bank using real world money. This is a dark game design pattern. The player has been deceived into believing their efforts in game have earned them a reward, when in actuality, the only thing that can earn the player the reward from this special event, the in-game currency contained in this golden piggy bank, is by purchasing it with real money. They cannot earn their gold bars from this piggy bank in any other manner, and thus the option for the player to obtain this in-game content through means of playing the game is not present. Candy Crush tricks the player into believing they have worked for the gold in the piggy bank, and when the player feels they are owed their just reward, they are withheld it by means of a pay wall. Here's what the screen looks like to purchase one's piggy bank in this Candy Crush special event:
Dark Patterns & Unethical Design: Text
Piggy Bank Screen in Candy Crush
This is the screen that players see once they earn stars to go towards their piggy bank. As you can see, there is no option to earn gold bars other than by paying for them.
Dark Patterns & Unethical Design: Image
Not only does Candy Crush give the player false expectations of ways that they can obtain gold bars in the game, but King, the developer of Candy Crush, also engages in the dark pattern practice of misdirection. If you take a look at the image of the piggy bank above, you'll see that the button for purchasing the piggy bank is a bright green. Contrast this with the option to close out of the pop-up window, a red/pink “X” button, being colored in such a way to purposefully blend in with the window surrounding it. The juxtaposition of color between these two buttons serves to confuse the user into possibly believing that the green purchase button is the only command they can give in order to close the window. The window is designed to corral users into purchasing the piggy bank rather than exit the pop-up and preys on our antecedent knowledge of culturally mediated color associations. We associate the color green, especially in an American context, with connotations like "good" or "go". For instance, when one is stopped at a stop light and it turns green, they know that the light is telling them that they can go. The color green has also become synonymous with giving individuals the "go ahead", or has been used in phrases of speech to signal readiness to proceed, such as letting someone know they're "all green." Additionally, red is a color that is typically aligned with principles of negation or stoppage. In summation, the visual design of these buttons is a clear choice meant to utilize misdirection and ignore player goals within the textual space. Instead of employing user centered design principles, King factors into their design choices only their own goals: to make more money off of players through microtransactions.
One way that King might ensure their game design follows user experience best practices is to eliminate the use of dark game design patterns such as the misdirection outlined previously in the piggy bank example. In order to highlight specifically how they might obtain this, I have modified the previous image with aims to tackle the misdirection of the pop-up window. You will find the image below:
Dark Patterns & Unethical Design: Text
MODIFIED PIGGY BANK SCREEN IN CANDY CRUSH
Dark Patterns & Unethical Design: Image
In this image, I made one simple change to King's design choices in order to ensure that they refrain from utilizing the dark game design pattern of misdirection. Instead of making the button leading the user to the purchase screen for their piggy bank the largest and most visually singular button on the screen, I changed this button to read: "sweet!" Upon pressing the button, the user would be returned to the prior screen wherein they may select a new level to continue playing. Now, there still needs to be a way for the user to obtain their piggy bank if they decide they would like to purchase it. In order for the user to know more about what they need to do to purchase their piggy bank, I believe they should have to press the red/pink information button in the top left corner of the piggy bank purchase pop-up window to go to a purchasing screen instead of the large green button in the pop-up window. This way, the user would no longer be tricked into perceiving the large green purchase button as seen in the first piggy bank image to mean "proceed," and would not press the button on accident if they had no intention to purchase their piggy bank. This allows King to still make money off of player purchases of piggy banks, but only when the player has taken it upon themselves to investigate how to purchase their piggy bank and not by means of dark game design. If they so desired, King could make the information button as striking a color as the “sweet!” button that I made in this image, so long as there is still a clear and unmistakable way for the user to exit the pop-up without navigating a purchasing window if they don’t want to. By making the button to proceed out of the screen and back into the game easy to see, King would be employing methodologies of user centered participatory design by accounting for users’ goals and desires within their text rather than just their own. It is a design choice as simple as switching the functionality and coloration of two buttons which can lead to video game design which privileges user experience, not conning users into making purchases they don't want to make.
However, the fix to dark video game design isn't always as simple as altering the effects of two buttons. Sometimes, deeper fixes to games' structures need to be made. Take for example the uproar over the perceived as unfair microtransaction system in EA's Star Wars Battlefront II. It all came to a point in the fall of 2018, when gamers voiced their widespread disapproval of the microtransactions in EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II due to the game’s emphasis on loot boxes. Loot boxes are rewards that a game's player unlocks in-game, either by playing the game or via purchase, that reward the player with in-game content such as cosmetic upgrades or game-play focused upgrades to character equipment or attributes. Much of the disapproval of EA’s use of loot boxes was based in the fact that their loot boxes provided in-game advantages to players like upgraded weapons and stat boosts. The loot boxes could be purchased with real-world money, and soon, players who chose to spend time to unlock these loot boxes instead of purchasing them directly quickly fell behind other players that elected to purchase the loot boxes with real-world currency. Players that elected to purchase loot boxes received character upgrades more quickly, and thus were able to outperform other players in online matches who did not have the same level of character progression. This directly affected player experience, and players who didn’t want to spend money on loot boxes felt as though they needed to purchase loot boxes in order to play on the same level of other players, considering the game’s mainly online multiplayer focus. In essence, players felt like they were conned in to purchasing loot boxes because they believed EA purposefully designed the game to be hard for players who chose to unlock in-game content through hard work and grinding, while it was easier (and in turn, more fun) for players to unlock in-game content and receive better odds of overcoming other players by purchasing loot boxes.
Gamers in turn have protested against such gaming practices. Those who heard about Battlefront II’s loot box system took to the internet and voiced their disapproval of the system and some even threatened to boycott the game. “In response to early criticism, EA attempted to tone down the loot box mechanics before the game was released, but it was already too late. In the following stock market chaos, EA lost as much as $3.1 billion in shareholder value (close to 10 percent of its market cap)… Battlefront II fell between one and three million copies short of its early sales targets, and came up several million copies short of the sales numbers of its predecessor in the franchise,” (McCaffrey, 2018). Now, EA did claim that they had learned their lesson from fans’ backlash to their loot box system. EA’s Chief Design Officer Patrick Söderlund was quoted as saying “I’d be lying to you if I said that what’s happened with Battlefront and what’s happened with everything surrounding loot boxes and these things haven’t had an effect on EA as a company and an effect on us as management… We can shy away from it and pretend like it didn’t happen, or we can act responsibly and realize that we made some mistakes and try to rectify those mistakes and learn from them,” (McCaffrey, 2018). However, it seems EA hasn’t holistically learned their lesson. They recently released a new role playing first person shooter, Anthem that does not include loot boxes, but does include a vast array of in-game cosmetic content that players can purchase in order to upgrade the looks of their characters. While this will not affect players’ experiences directly insofar as giving players unfair, paid for advantages over others, the presence of these transactions alone was enough to upset players and cause them to be skeptical of EA’s intentions (Ramsey, 2019), mostly over the fact that some of the cosmetics in the game can cost up to a whopping $15 per skin. EA is also by and large not the only company to employ these sorts of microtransactions, as some of the most popular video games at this time already do, like Fortnite and League of Legends. For more information surrounding the Battlefront II lootbox controversy, check out Gamespot's analysis of EA's decision making and player reaction in the video below:
Dark Patterns & Unethical Design: Text
Battlefront II Lootbox Controversy
Additional information about the lootbox controversy surrounding Star Wars Battlefront II (Gamespot, 2017).
Dark Patterns & Unethical Design: Video
The issue comes from having set a precedent of exploitation for consumers and other marketers to draw upon. Microtransactions are now a staple of many games being released, whether they take the form of cosmetic upgrades or game play altering character upgrades. These microtransactions are characteristic of exactly how not to employ a user centered participatory design strategy to content creation. As mentioned in my introduction to the notion of usability, a user centered participatory design framework attempts to ensure developers create content that is mindful of users' interests and values while also reflexively addressing user feedback and concern. Gamers have voiced their disapproval of lootboxes and other microtransactions based systems for some time, however major software developers like EA, Blizzard, and Activision are still utilizing these dark game design patterns in their products.
In retaliation for their business practices, microtransactions and other dark design patterns are being targeted by lawmakers. In Belgium, games utilizing lootbox unlocking systems have been determined as gambling by the Belgian Game Commission. In the Netherlands, at least four games have been found to violate the country's gambling laws, as their "loot box items can be transferred in a marketplace, assigning them value," (NYT, 2018). In other media such as websites, dark design patterns are also under siege by lawmakers. In the UK, dark patterns that would sneak content into users’ online shopping carts have been deemed illegal, and lawmakers have also deemed it against the law to hide costs from consumers, whether “that’s an undeclared subscription, extra shipping charges, or extra items,” (Brignull, 2014). The fight against dark patterns is happening not just in the UK either. US lawmakers are now having talks to ban dark patterns by tech companies as well, focusing on patterns such as misleading prompts (Fung, 2019).
Although legislative change has happened in the states to combat dark patterns in user experience, a lot of legislation specifically targeting dark patterns in video games has not had as much success. According to the New York Times, "loot box legislation has faltered, including a California bill seeking warning labels; a Hawaii bill proposing a minimum age of 21; an Indiana bill asking the attorney general whether they “prey on children”; a Minnesota bill requiring the disclosure of odds; and a Washington bill turning to its gambling commission," (NYT, 2018). As such, it seems the only industry regulator that stands to keep dark game design patterns in check are developers themselves. Developers need to recognize that ultimately, players are unsatisfied with gaming experiences laden with unfair microtransactions and predatory profiteering methods. Developers are ignoring one of the key components of usability: satisfaction. Because of this, players have protested by severely impacting the economic outlook of particular games and companies via their purchase decisions and response to dark marketing strategies, like in the case of Battlefront II. However, developers continue to implement dark game design patterns in games today.
Developers need to understand that they, like other user experience content creators, are subject to accountable decision making in design. Developers need to align themselves more with the tenets of user centered participatory design, and in so doing, restore the faith lost in media creators and avoid gamer backlash. It serves to be in both gamers’ and video game marketers’ best interests to employ design choices that do not prey on or purposefully mislead users. If producers heed what players want and design the transaction systems in their games to not privilege certain players and alienate others, they’ll employ a more user centered participatory design framework of content creation that not only engages users, but reflexively and continuously incorporates their values and input into the design process. If video game companies employ these strategies, maybe they can change the social landscape surrounding video games and create a precedent of collaborative design and goodwill towards their consumers that will then bolster the sales and acceptance of their future products. Although technically not bad design, dark patterns are undoubtedly not good design, because they effectively discourage users from trusting the authenticity of future content creations from certain developers. Ultimately, if marketers want to make money by selling games that are not only profitable in the short term, but in the long term as well, they need to eliminate dark patterns from their design processes completely, lest users air their grievances by refusing to purchase a product that by design negatively impacts their gaming experience.
References
Bailey, J. (2018, April 24). A Video Game 'Loot Box' Offers Coveted Rewards, but Is It Gambling? Retrieved May, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/business/loot-boxes-video-games.htm
Brignull, H. (2014). Some Dark Patterns now illegal in UK – interview with Heather Burns. Retrieved from https://www.90percentofeverything.com/2014/08/26/some-dark-patterns-now-illegal-in-uk-interview-with-heather-burns/?utm_source=tf&utm_medium=tf
Brignull, H. (2019). What are dark patterns? Retrieved from https://darkpatterns.org/
Deuze, M. (2005). Towards professional participatory storytelling in journalism and advertising. First Monday, 10(7). doi:https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v10i7.1257
Fung, B. (2019, April 09). Lawmakers want to ban 'dark patterns,' the Web designs tech companies use to manipulate you. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/09/policymakers-are-sounding-alarm-dark-patterns-manipulative-web-design-trick-youve-never-heard/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6512ffcb8fd8
[GameSpot]. (2017, November 23). Star Wars Battlefront 2's Loot Box Controversy Explained. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/nVn89eFMh6Q.
McCaffrey, M. (2018). EA's Failed In-Game Moneymaking Strategy Proves that Consumers Remain the Most Effective Regulators of Markets | Matthew McCaffrey. Retrieved from https://fee.org/articles/eas-failed-in-game-moneymaking-strategy-proves-that-consumers-remain-the-most-effective-regulators-of-markets
Mitra, A., Hastak, M., Ringold, D. J., & Levy, A. S. (2019). Consumer Skepticism of Claims in Food Ads Versus on Food Labels: An Exploration of Differences and Antecedents. Journal of Consumer Affairs.
Musgrove, C. C. F., Choi, P., & Chris Cox, K. (2018). Consumer Perceptions of Green Marketing Claims: An Examination of the Relationships with Type of Claim and Corporate Credibility. Services Marketing Quarterly, 1-16.
[Nerdwriter1]. (2018, March 28). How dark patterns trick you online. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/kxkrdLI6e6M.
Nodder, C. (2013). Evil by design: Interaction design to lead us into temptation. John Wiley & Sons.
Ramsey, R. (2019). ANTHEM Microtransaction Controversy Starts Early, BioWare Says Pricing Isn't Finalized. Retrieved from http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/01/anthem_microtransaction_controversy_starts_early_bioware_says_pricing_isnt_finalised
Yoon, S., & Oh, S. (2016). Introduction to the special issue on social and environmental issues in advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 2016(35), 1.
Zagal, J. P., Björk, S., & Lewis, C. (2013). Dark patterns in the design of games. In Foundations of Digital Games 2013.
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