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Exploitative Patternsin Games

Deceptive design

Also: deceptive patterns

The contemporary umbrella term for asymmetric, user-adverse design — broader than literal deception.

Now codified in instruments such as the EU Digital Services Act, ‘deceptive design’ is often used as the umbrella for the whole phenomenon. Strictly, deception is only one mechanism: a design can be manipulative, coercive, or exploitative without inducing a false belief. For precision this library names the specific mode wherever possible.

See also

References

  1. Mathur, A.; Kshirsagar, M.; Mayer, J. (2021). What makes a dark pattern... dark? Design attributes, normative considerations, and measurement methods. Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445610 · citing patterns
  2. Gray, C. M.; Santos, C. T.; Bielova, N.; Mildner, T. (2024). An ontology of dark patterns knowledge: Foundations, definitions, and a pathway for shared knowledge-building. Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642436 · citing patterns
  3. Chang, W. J.; Seaborn, K.; Adams, A. A. (2024). Theorizing deception: A scoping review of theory in research on dark patterns and deceptive design. Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '24). doi.org/10.1145/3613905.3650997 · citing patterns
  4. Timms, R. G. (2025). All 'dark patterns' are 'hostile patterns': A hostility framework for understanding problematic digital interfaces. Ethics and Information Technology. doi.org/10.1007/s10676-025-09856-z · citing patterns