[brightball]

Having spent a ton of my teens playing online games, I agree with you to a point.

It’s also a little dismissive to assume that this is just like every other game. There are so many psychological tricks going on to add a “feeder pellet” aspect to some games today that they are truly designed to be addictive. Games with in app purchases or ads, are usually built for it. Games that have timed reward systems to incentivize you to keep coming back at that same time every day are also part of it. You see these systems with most of the “free” games on touch screens and as a parent I can tell you that my children are significantly different playing them vs playing any other game with their friends (even online). It’s a noticeable enough and shocking enough behavioral change that you have to remove it.

When not having access to a game for a certain period of time creates anger or tears, it’s no longer just a game.

[dageshi]

I've seen player bases (or at least parts of them) beg for these systems to be introduced. Battlefield being the most recent example I can think of. They built Battlefield 1 which didn't really have any "feeder pellet" mechanisms then at some point they asked what the community wanted in the game and the response came back "We need daily challenges/rewards to keep us playing." It wasn't enough to just play the game, some particularly large subset of the game needed something to be constantly working towards to keep them playing, they needed a short term goal/reward.

So they introduced timed challenges (get so many headshots in one life, get a skin as reward) into BF1 as an update and then expanded that in BFV.

[greiskul]

Does Fortnite implement any of these dark patterns? I think the only paid purchases in it are cosmetic in nature, no? And the game itself is mostly skill based.

It doesn't even have the MMORPG hook where if you don't play, your character is weaker then of people that play more then you.

[Nzen]

I haven't played fortnite, but Folding Idea's analysis of Fortnite [0] suggests that it does. As a specific example, it presents only a small subset of the items available to purchase any given day. This allows them to obscure the relative prices in a way that would not be possible with many more viewable for comparison. A microphone hammer is 800v today. How does that price compare to a gold hammer, or what was its price two seasons ago ?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0

[adt2bt]

If I recall correctly, items are priced based on their rarity, which doesn’t change. So an uncommon thing is 800 vbucks (~$8) up to 2000 for a legendary item/skin.

Imo the shop isn’t as much of a dark pattern. The game is just constructed in such a way that it’s constantly engaging and fun from beginning to end, and very good at playing with friends.

[steveklabnik]

You can only buy cosmetics, that’s correct. If you buy a battle pass you get extra challenges but you get no in-game advantage for spending money.

[ehnto]

Kids love the cosmetics though and it becomes as important to some of then as having real gameplay advantages would be. So it's good for the gameplay but I am not sure it is any less nefarious.

[steveklabnik]

Absolutely; I don’t think this absolves Fortnite or anything, just trying to make the details more clear.

[NoodleIncident]

> It doesn't even have the MMORPG hook where if you don't play, your character is weaker then of people that play more then you.

You're character isn't weaker, but it will have fewer cosmetics. I'm not sure that that's a less harsh incentive, personally.

[rewtraw]

"If you play less, you are less likely to win." is obviously harsher than "If you play less, your character won't look as cool."

Apex Legends has re-introduced me to gaming (after being AFK since the Halo 3 days), and I very much appreciate that the only 'perks' of grinding are cosmetic. As an adult with less free time, if I knew that a game would punish me stat-wise for not playing as often as my competition, I probably wouldn't play at all since I wouldn't stand a chance. But cosmetics don't affect gameplay.

[DanBC]

Fortnite used to have loot boxes and they've changed how they worked to make them less like gambling.

[bn-usd-mistake]

You’re talking about Fortnite Save the World which as far as I know still has loot boxes. Fortnite Battle Royale (i.e. the successful one that actually matters) never had loot boxes.

[astrobe_]

That's why I prefer free open source games. Not only the gameplay is not tainted by grey/dark patterns, but also if it is an online game you don't depend on one company running the servers.

[saluki]

y, has anyone seen kids playing Roblox? It actually has a slot machine looking mechanic? I'm a fan of Minecraft, Fortnite and PUBG but Roblox just looks like gambling for kids. Any thoughts?

[piptastic]

I've played Roblox with my kid. It's actually a bunch of different games, some of which are entertaining and complex.

Try experiencing what your kids experience and judge for yourself.

[sk0g]

My girlfriend's sister (was ~10 at the time) is now banned from Roblox because she kept getting sucked into ERP with people in game. Safe to say, the mother wasn't happy when she saw some of those chat logs...

Minecraft is the replacement - no IAPs (as far as I know), online community is pretty varied but pretty decent for the most part, and the game is lots of fun even completely offline.

[twic]

> My girlfriend's sister (was ~10 at the time) is now banned from Roblox because she kept getting sucked into ERP with people in game.

You don't mean Enterprise Resource Planning, do you?

[sk0g]

Stupid sexy Tally talk...

Unfortunately, no. ERP as in erotic role play.

[secabeen]

Roblox has a nice parental control system, and is totally playable with chat disabled (and the preference password-locked with a special parent-held password).

[CardenB]

Modded servers actually have a lot of IAPs and they can be pretty bad. These are really popular with kids.

[daniel-cussen]

Yeah I've seen kids at the local library playing Roblox nonstop for hours. I think the library made a special table of computers for them. Didn't know it was addictive, but it would not come as a surprise.

[Vinnl]

I'm not quite sure how different that is from before. I used to have this Pokemon-themed Tamagotchi ripoff [1] which featured a literal slot machine. I don't think I turned out any worse for it. (Disclaimer: I've never heard of Roblox.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Pikachu

[Buge]

I don't think there's any core slot machine functionality in Roblox.

But Roblox is essentially a game development platform. Anyone can build a game on top of Roblox, and that player-created game could have slot machines in it.

[dalore]

Yeah it can be fun. I play it with my daughter, she loves it. And we've started building in it.

[newsoul2019]

Yes, my son keeps asking me Lua programming questions. I don't know Lua, yet.

[DanBC]

Roblox is hot garbage and it's stuffed full of really weird IAPs.