GDC Vault is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC
This is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Free-to-Play Summit: How Games Manipulate You Through Deceptive Design
Video games are an elaborate deception a kind of virtual magic trick that rely on designers' capacity to weave stories, hide clues, leave puzzles, and surprise players.Designers' deceptions are not always in players' best interests however, and game developers often explore the 'grey areas', sometimes unlocking new player experiences, but also unlocking benefits only in their KPIs and bottom lines.This presentation aims to radically mature the discourse around deceptive design in game development, matching the maturity of discussion for websites and services: to define a list of patterns that can be effectively used to deceive players into doing things they likely would not do without the use of the patterns. For example, games can deceive players by using their mental models against them, eliciting accidental interactions, or employing emotionally exploitative fiction.We go over what deceptive design means in games and introduce and detail novel patterns relevant and evident in recent game design.
Did you know free users get access to 30% of content from the last 2 years?