Skip to content

Exploitative Patternsin Games

Patterns Mechanisms Player Costs When is it harmful?Glossary References About

Patterns Mechanisms Player Costs When is it harmful?Glossary References About

Topics/hidden costs

hidden costs

1 pattern tagged with this topic.

Hidden costs

The true cost of a purchase is revealed late, or never.

Sneaking / HidingEvidence: ModerateServes business

Exploitative Patterns in Games

A research-based primer developed at Dagstuhl to exploitative, deceptive, and harmful design in games. Claims are anchored to existing research.

Explore

All patterns
A–Z index
Harm rubric
Glossary
References

About

Content licensed underCC BY 4.0; site code under MIT. Contributions welcome onGitHub.

Shaped by the Dagstuhl Seminar 26261, Harms in Digital Games: Sociotechnical Solutions for Prevention taxonomy working group.

Not legal advice. Severity and evidence labels reflect the cited literature as of 2026 and are versioned.