policymakers
19 patterns tagged with this topic.
Loot boxes / gacha
Paid, randomised reward containers whose contents — and often whose odds — are unknown before purchase.
Personalised spend-optimisation
Silently using a player's behavioural data to tune offers, prices, odds, difficulty, or matchmaking to maximise that individual's spending.
Disguised ads / content
Ads are styled as gameplay or rewards so the player cannot tell promotion from play.
Forced registration / data disclosure
Access to play, rewards, or social features is made conditional on creating an account, linking an identity, or sharing unnecessary personal or contact data.
Hidden / undisclosed odds
The probability of outcomes in a paid randomised reward is withheld, buried, or hard to verify.
Obstructed exit / cancellation (sludge)
Asymmetric friction makes quitting, refunding, or disabling far harder than starting.
Pay-to-keep / ransomed progress
The game threatens to take away progress, items, or assets the player already earned unless they pay or keep playing.
Pay-to-win
Purchasable power converts money into competitive advantage, undermining the implicit contract of skill.
Predatory / forced advertising
Unskippable or rewarded ads — sometimes disguised as content — are bundled into progression.
Risk conversion / guaranteed-acquisition bypass
A guaranteed direct purchase lets players bypass gacha randomness — usually priced far above the gamble's expected value.
VIP tiers / cumulative-spend escalation
Privileges, rewards, and status are gated behind cumulative spending thresholds, ratcheting players toward ever-higher outlay.
Bad defaults / preselection
The provider-preferred option is already selected or treated as the normal path, so inaction becomes consent, spending, or data sharing.
Comparison prevention
Making it hard to compare prices, odds, or options so players can't judge value.
Fake social proof
Fabricated or unverifiable signals of others' activity — “1M players bought this!”, fake live counters — used to pressure decisions.
Hidden costs
The true cost of a purchase is revealed late, or never.
Polymorphic / fragmented currency
Many purpose-specific, non-interchangeable currencies fragment a player's funds so true value and price are impossible to track.
Premium-currency obfuscation
Real money is converted into in-game currency at non-round ratios that break the player's price intuition.
Subscription / battle-pass traps
Easy entry and obstructed cancellation, with 'earned' value that expires if you stop paying or playing.
Trick wording / misleading copy
Confusing, ambiguous, or expectation-violating wording makes the player take an action they did not mean to take.