Sunk-cost / entrapment
Designs make prior investment justify further spending or time.
- Code
- P2
- Category
- Psychological / reinforcement
- Severity
- Medium
- Evidence
- ModerateMechanism described across predatory-monetization analyses.
- Purpose served
- Gameplay & businessServes play and the provider at once — the contested middle where context decides whether it's deceptive.
- Mechanism family
- Psychological / reinforcement
- Platforms
- Mobile / F2P · Live-service
- Player costs
- FinancialTime / attention
- Modes
- Manipulative
- Tags
- sunk costentrapmentcommitmentserves gameplayserves businesstransparent but exploitativemonetary pressurecognitive pressurevulnerability exploitation
- Also known as
- the trap, commitment escalation
How it works
Progress, collections, or partial purchases are framed so quitting feels like wasting what is already invested.
Why it can be harmful
It exploits the sunk-cost fallacy to keep players committing more money and time against their own interest.
Examples in the wild
- A quest or event banner saying 'You're 80% to the prize — keep going'
- Character, skin, or creature collections that feel wasteful to abandon
Illustrative genre examples to aid recognition — not allegations about specific titles.
References
- King, D. L.; Delfabbro, P. H. (2018). Predatory monetization schemes in video games (e.g. 'loot boxes') and internet gaming disorder. Addiction. doi.org/10.1111/add.14286 · citing patterns
Community catalogue
The community site DarkPattern.games catalogues a related pattern, “Invested / Endowed Value”, with 10+ example game mentions captured in our source crawl, including Dye Hard - Color War, Hatch Dragons, Paper.io 2, Jujutsu Kaisen Phantom Parade.
Community-contributed and votes-based; the listed game titles are page-level examples from that catalogue, not a full game-profile crawl or our assessment. View on DarkPattern.games →
Related patterns
Aesthetic / sensory manipulation
Celebratory audio-visual feedback reinforces spending and reward moments.
Variable-ratio reward / near-miss
Slot-machine-like reinforcement and 'almost won' framing drive repeated attempts.
Collection & completionism pressure
A visible, incomplete collection — roster, index, grid — compels players to keep playing or paying to complete the set.
Endowed progress
Giving players an artificial head-start or visible partial progress so the urge to complete it pulls them onward.
Manufactured competition
Leaderboards, resetting ranks, and rivalry framing turn social comparison into a driver of compulsive play and spending.
Content treadmill
A relentless cadence of new seasons, stories, and limited updates keeps players returning so they never fall behind an ever-moving target.