- Design
- Lightweight RPG mechanics
- Loot
- Skill trees
- Monetization
- Battle passes
- Microtransactions
- Season passes
- Reviews
- High professional review scores and low customer review scores
- Reviewers couldn’t cover certain content under embargo
- Reviewers couldn’t show their own recordings under embargo
- Reviewers didn’t have access to all ports under embargo
- Reviewers didn’t have enough time under embargo
- Technology
- Day-one DLC
- DLC released within six months of game release
- DRM on PC that impacts performance
- On-disc DLC
- Unnecessary online connection is required
- Dark patterns
- Accidental purchases: It’s easy to accidentally spend money without confirmation or ability to undo or refund the action.
- Advertisements: You’re forced to watch ads or given rewards for watching ads.
- Aesthetic manipulations: Trick questions or toying with emotions or our subconscious desires.
- Anchoring tricks: Placing a cheap item next to an expensive item to make it look more affordable.
- Artificial scarcity: Limited-time offers with unnecessary urgency.
- Badges/endowed progress: Reluctancy to abandon a partially-completed goal, even one forced upon the player.
- Can’t pause or save: The game does not allow you to stop playing whenever you want.
- Competition: The game makes you compete against other players.
- Complete the collection: The urge to collect all the items, achievements or secrets in a game.
- Daily rewards: Encourages return visits every day and punishes you for missing a day.
- Encourages anti-social behavior: The game incentivizes players to lie, cheat, or backstab other players to get ahead.
- Fear of missing out: If you stop playing, you’ll miss out on something, or be left behind and unable to catch up.
- Friend spam/impersonation: The game sends spam to your contact list or social media account.
- Grinding: Being required to perform repetitive and tedious tasks to advance.
- Illusion of control: The game cheats or hides information to make you think you’re better than you actually are.
- Infinite treadmill: Impossible to win or complete the game.
- Invested/endowed value: Having already spent time and money to improve your status in the game, it’s difficult to throw it away.
- Loot boxes and gambling: Spending real money to play a game of chance for a reward.
- Optimism and frequency biases: Overestimating the frequency of something because we’ve seen it recently or memorably.
- Pay to skip: Spend money to avoid waiting for a timer to expire.
- Pay to win: A player can spend real money to purchase something that gives them an advantage in the game.
- Pay wall: The game becomes impossible to continue playing without payment.
- Playing by appointment: Being forced to play according to the game’s schedule instead of yours.
- Power creep: A permanently purchased item in the game becomes less valuable over time.
- Premium currency: Exchange rate between real money and in-game currency disguises the real price of items.
- Reciprocity: Feeling obligated to return a favor, share resources, trade an item, etc.
- Recurring fee: Encourages players to play as much as possible to get their money’s worth.
- Social obligation/guilds: To avoid letting down your friends, you are obligated to play when you don’t want to.
- Social pyramid scheme: You get a bonus for inviting your friends and then they have to invite their friends.
- Variable rewards: Unpredictable or random rewards are more addictive than a predictable schedule.
- Wait to play: In-game timers that make you arbitrarily wait for something.
- Waste aversion: Capped inventory forces you to destroy items or upgrade inventory. Also, having small amounts of leftover premium currency.