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Exploitative Patternsin Games

Diegetic vs non-diegetic deception

Also: diegetic, magic circle

Deception inside the consented fiction (fair play) versus deception on the player-as-consumer.

Bluffing, fog of war, and plot twists are diegetic deception — part of the consented-to ‘magic circle’ of play, governed by fair-play and artistic norms. A hidden auto-renewing subscription is non-diegetic: it operates on the player as a consumer and is governed by consumer-protection norms. This locus distinction is the single most useful games-specific heuristic.

See also

References

  1. Gualeni, S.; Vella, D. (2021). Ludic unreliability and deceptive game design. Journal of the Philosophy of Games. doi.org/10.5617/jpg.8722 · citing patterns