YSK about Darkpatterns.games, a website that rates mobile games on their "Dark patterns"

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨ericbomb@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨youshouldknow@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.darkpattern.games/

Definition: A gaming dark pattern is something that is deliberately added to a game to cause an unwanted negative experience for the player with a positive outcome for the game developer.

Learned about it from another lemmy user! it’s a newer website, so not every game has a rating, but it’s already super helpful and I intend to add ratings as I can!

While as an adult I think it’ll probably be helpful to find games that are just games and not trying to bait whales, I feel like it’s even more helpful for parents.

Making sure the game your kids want to play is free of traps like accidental purchases and starting chain emails with invites I think makes it worth its weight in gold.

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parpol@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Back in uni, most of these dark patterns were taught as “game design fundamentals”.

Now as I work on my indie games, I avoid using what I learned in uni.

Game design all boils down to “is it fun?” and anything else is bullshit sales tactics.

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- finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I think the focus on mobile is due to the fact that very few people would choose to make a fun game on mobile unless they were deliberately chasing money. Indie devs don’t want to use and make customers use an inferior device with more hoops to jump through. Publishing for PC is easy, publishing for Console has a higher bar to clear for quality. Publishing for mobile is more difficult than PC and makes it more difficult to build a quality game, so the majority of mobile games are unrewarding trash so the only incentive to make them is pure monetization.
  
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  - doctortran@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Also because the install base for mobile device is just about everyone everywhere, and yes, a fair amount of people, particularly young people, would much rather play something on their phone than a PC or even console.
    
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- BangersAndMash@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  What games do you make? If you’re actively working on games that are anti dark pattern then that’s the type of game I want to hear about
  
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  - parpol@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’m sorry, I’d share some links, but I make too many shitposts and unhinged takes on this account to want to link to my projects and thus my real name.
    
    But I would argue that most at least somewhat successful indie games (at least on PC) have very few dark patterns.
    
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- ericbomb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  They said they’ll expand to steam eventually, but sounds like they wanted to focus on mobile to start because it has biggest player base and most of the dark patterns are industry norms for mobile.
  
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- Jesus_666@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’d argue that unfun design elements can be useful in games if used with care and purpose. For instance, “suddenly all of the characters you’re attached to are dead” is not exactly fun but one of the Fire Emblem games used it to great dramatic effect at the midway point.
  
  Of course the line between an event or mechanic that players love to hate and one they just hate is thin.
  
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- xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  What makes mobile games not “real”? Sounds very gatekeepy. I don’t always have mhe space to pull out my laptop.
  
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  - kabi@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The vast majority of mobile games are comprised of three mechanics:
    
    click X times to get something
    
    wait X amount to get something
    
    watch an ad to skip having to do the first two
    
    and repeat.
    
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RedC@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Literally just found out yesterday my wife has been spending on average 100$ a month on one of these games yesterday, thanks for the helpful site.

Now I guess I get to figure out how to have conversations with her that I never thought I’d have to have.

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- ericbomb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Oh no! That’s so annoying, maybe can help her quit by finding a better version of the game.
  
  Like stupid match 3/candy crush trash has a million free clones.
  
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  - RedC@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Thanks for the advice. I’m honestly trying to wrap my head around the appeal or what it does for her. The app is called Gold and Goblins, and it’s an idle game. I’ve never understood idle games as a genre but I want to try to come from an understanding place. I’m a PC gamer myself (factorio currently) and I’m used to paying once for a game and being able to play forever.
    
    I mean I have my own problems as well, my addictions are caffeine and nicotine. So I’m definitely not a saint. But it’s hard to talk to her about it when she pulls the whataboutism on my vices. I get it, my stuff is wasted money as well. I just don’t really see it as the same thing, Noone is compelling me with a time limited event or something to get me to smoke more.
    
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hate2bme@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
If you want games just to play games I recommend downloading from f Droid. Pretty much every other game has ulterior motives be it ads or microtransactions. I haven’t come across the game on f Droid yet that has either of those.

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- original_reader@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Fair. Just that the selection of quality games is rather limited.
  
  IMO monetisation is fine, after all we all need to make a living. To goad people into spending money is the issue. Enter dark patterns.
  
  A one-off purchase after testing the first level? Awesome! Wait a few hours - or days - for a building to finish? Watch a deceptive ad for a meager reward over and over? No, thanks.
  
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  - doctortran@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It’s the difference between a theme park and a casino. Both are legitimate forms of entertainment for many people, and both do need income to maintain their operations.
    
    One of them charges for entry and then you enjoy the park, only paying for additional but ultimately optional things like merchandise or food.
    
    The other is designed so you have to spend small amounts consistently, and it is designed in incredibly manipulative fashion, literally employing tactics that trigger addictive responses.
    
    The people designing the theme park are designing something entertaining, the people designing the casino are perfecting a skinner box.
    
    One is more deserving of income than the other.
    
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- DashboTreeFrog@discuss.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  As a former gacha addict I totally agree. Nowadays when I get the urge to play on my phone I’ve been doing Open Sudoku, Fruity Game or Ricochlime. They don’t scratch that same itch quite right but I’m definitely wasting less of my time and money.
  
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KonnaPerkele@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Tbf, last time I checked the site it had stuff like ”random loot” listed as a dark pattern. Gacha sucks, but random loot from a boss is IMO valid game design.

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- dwindling7373@feddit.it ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There’s a spectrum, but if I were to map all and every dark pattern, random loot surely qualifies.
  
  If a fight is compelling it has its own reward, random drop chances (especially abysmal drop-rate) will have you mindlessly repeating it no matter the quality of the boss design.
  
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  - azulavoir@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I like the strategy most Terraria bosses go for: You always get something good, it just might not be exactly what you’d wanted in that exact moment, but the re-spec to use it effectively will be pretty easy.
    
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  - Sinuousity@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Boss fights definitely, your sentiment reminds me of Warframe. Don’t miss farming bosses. However, there are a lot of ways randomized loot can be implemented, and I wouldn’t call all of them dark patterns
    
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- ericbomb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I mean it is a dark pattern. It drives us to play more even when we’re not having fun. How many times have we all done a dungeon not because it’s fun, but because we want it to drop the thing?
  
  But at the same time, if that’s the “only” dark pattern, that’s probably fine! And it’ll most likely get a high score of 3+ on the positive side. But if you combine the random loot with time gate, pay to skip, pay to win, etc. then the score rightfully craters.
  
  I think the site is good because it empowers us to pick what we actually want to deal with.
  
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Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s kinda funny, I’ve become so turned off to these manipulations that the gamification of duolingo just annoys me more than it motivates me. The whole point is to learn a language. Power ups that let you extend the time to complete a timed exercise don’t help with learning a language. Getting to the top of the leaderboard didn’t make a difference either, especially if it was done using xp boosts.

At this point, I just hate that it forces me to spend time watching various meaningless bars fill up after each lesson.

I’ve even missed a couple of days, thinking “oh well, there goes my streak, which also doesn’t really matter”, only to find that they cared more about keeping that than I did and have automatic freezes. Though it wanted me to buy more after the last one, so I’m thinking the next time I miss a day it’ll finally go back to 0.

Oh and yes, duolingo is a pay to win language learning game where you can give them money for boosts in the meaningless gamification shit. Even after buying a year subscription (that I don’t plan on renewing).

They also completely skip any of the foundational stuff and jump right in to phrases that they don’t explain. I’m a few months into Japanese lessons on there and it still hasn’t even mentioned that it’s been teaching the polite form and that other forms exist (which makes things confusing if you try to use other resources that generally use the neutral form).

It might be better for other languages that aren’t so different from English, but I do not suggest duolingo if you want to learn Japanese.

Tbh I don’t suggest learning Japanese at all if you aren’t strong with languages and memorization. There’s a couple thousand kanji symbols you need to learn for everyday communication, and each of those can be combined with others to form words that aren’t always intuitive, and then those words can be strung together into sentences that also aren’t intuitive to interpret.

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- ericbomb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yeah I did the Spanish for months and it was like “You’re so high level!” but I realized as soon as I stepped back that I mostly had just gotten good at playing their games because they were formatted where the answers were generally obvious, to where I felt like just memorizing key words then trying to read children’s books would have been more helpful.
  
  So yeah they for sure use a dozen dark patterns. Making you feel like your account is valuable, making you feel bad for skipping, giving you bonuses for playing on their schedule, and making you feel better at the language than you are.
  
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  - Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Lol Spanish is one language that I had assumed might actually work decently with that approach, but I can’t say I’m surprised it doesn’t.
    
    And yeah, they do seem to design the exercises to be easy. Like translate a sentence to English, but they only give one verb option, or sometimes they don’t even provide any options that aren’t a part of the sentence and it becomes “can you string these English words together to form a valid sentence with hints in the language you are learning?”
    
    I’m using another app specific to Japanese that at least has grouped the answers in ways that make it harder but more effective because I need to tell the difference between similar looking kanji. It’s frustrating, but at least the frustration comes from being annoyed at my own pace rather than from getting a false sense that I’m doing very well only to realize I barely know anything without multiple choice hints.
    
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- stringere@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Try Language Transfer
  
  Completely free lessons. No gamification. Really natural feeling learning method.
  
  I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing.
  
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PixelProf@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Interesting. I was chatting with a lot of big name AAA designers and indie designers discussing dark patterns, and they’ve got a very different opinion on what constitutes a dark pattern. To them, largely, it needs to be more technical deception - like having a fake “X” button, or immediately popping up an ad over where a button was to trick you into clicking it, or bait-and-switching pricing before the user notices.

I tried to raise these kinds of patterns as problematic, and it was a mixed bag. The general vibe from them was that they’d only call it a dark pattern if it deceives the player to get more money than they were prepared to spend (or similar for ads). If the player knows what they’re getting into, and they are presented with a choice to stop or continue, it’s on them.

And I’ll admit, while I don’t go that far (and there were designers in both camps), I can at least understand how all game design is manipulation, in the same way that teaching and storytelling is manipulation, and drawing the lines can be very hard. Your job is to convince the player that they are having fun and want to keep playing. Resources in a game have no real value, only valued by the scarcity and utility of them, which the designer intentionally assigns to convince the player it’s more or less valuable.

Curiously, the examples listed in the OP were exactly the patterns I see designers discuss, but don’t seem to be the patterns on the website (like “illusion of control”, artificial scarcity, which is like, game designs while thing).

Either way, nice to have this as a resource because honestly a lot of these elements are what I’d put in the “bad / abusive design” category rather than purely dark patterns, but still great to highlight, but I can agree that we should probably be careful blanket calling these dark patterns; examples: It mentions illusion of control being separating you into shards of leader boards so that you can be in the top 500 of a shard rather than top 200,000 world ranking or whatever, or claw machines choosing whether you successfully grab an item rather than relying on skill. How does this compare to Uncharted not letting enemies successfully shoot you in the first few seconds of an action sequence to give you time to ground yourself, or Resident Evil spawning different loot and enemies based on how good/bad you play?

I’d say, is it to extract money from you in the short term, but it’s more grey than a non-designer might read into from lists like these.

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- OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’m shocked that the people who stand to benefit from it have a different definition than we do.
  
  i’m sure they’d be fine with it if it were their kids on the receiving end, right?
  
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  - PixelProf@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    All I’m commenting on, as a game design researched and professor, is that it’s an established term in a discipline which means something else to those actually within the discipline. These are still patterns, and they can absolutely be harmful patterns, but the terminology is being overloaded and there is some interesting nuance within it.
    
    Also, just to comment on the last quip there, and yes - to those I’ve spoken to, they are okay with those because they (being actively involved in the industry) know more than most people to educate and supervise and ensure that playing games with these patterns doesn’t turn into harmful behaviours. They also call them out for what they are - often, very bad design.
    
    I guess that’s really the line they drew - these patterns are more gray than the examples they presented. Most are good sometimes and terrible other times depending on how it is used. The term “dark patterns” as used professionally refers to always bad, always deceptive, always harmful. I do like having that line, even if it means the dark side is a much smaller subset of the greater space, then you can easily say, “If this uses a single dark pattern, it’s out. If it uses a lot of ‘grey’ patterns, be cautious. If it’s nothing but grey patterns, it’s purely abusive trash.”
    
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- ericbomb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I mean I think this site goes with “overly broad so you can pick what you want” approach.
  
  Also the way I’m viewing it, is each individual item is a thread of a dark pattern. Weaved into normal game play it’s completely fine. It’s just when all the threads of a category come together is it a pattern designed to trigger addiction and over spending.
  
  Like competition is listed under a category, but if that’s the only item in the category, it still has a stellar score and rightfully so and isn’t listed as a dark pattern.
  
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  - PixelProf@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, that’s definitely the way to see it, and as that I think it’s great. I think it might overload the term dark patterns a bit too much, and would have liked to have seen a different name used (as a game design academic), but I absolutely agree with and appreciate the approach otherwise.
    
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limelight79@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

Invested / Endowed Value - Having already spent time and money to improve your status in the game, it’s difficult to throw it away.

Isn’t that every game? I can’t think of a single game, back to old Atari 2600 or arcade games, that doesn’t have this element. Many people are playing to see how far they can get, to beat the game.

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- ericbomb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I mean, games without memory didn’t. Because once you turned off the game, it was all gone. This is more referring to if you have spent $200 on a game, and have like special event stuff in it, you’ll struggle to give it up.
  
  But again, this is all part of bigger pictures. If it has this + grinding + time lock things + micro transactions it’s a problem. Games with just a couple of the features still have a high score of like 3+ and will be good games. Some of the things it asks about are only problems paired with other mechanics, while some categories are by themselves enough to be a problem.
  
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- zlatiah@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I looked at their individual page (darkpattern.games/…/psychological-dark-patterns.h…)…
  
  If deleting the game and starting over from scratch sounds like a horrible idea and a waste of your investment, then the game has Endowed Value for you. The more time and money that you invest in the game, the more value it has over a fresh copy of the game.
  
  So I guess they are referring to is something more transactional… for example, if I spent $100 on a gacha game or loot boxes to get a bunch of ultra-rare SSRs. I’d be pretty compelled to keep playing since I’ve already spent so much money on it.
  
  They are not counting, for example, that I get hooked on some weird roguelike game because I genuinely want to get better at it but can stop any time. And if I lose my save file I would still happily start from scratch again (which, hilariously, a pattern named Infinite Treadmill is marked for both Slay the Spire and Balatro… www.darkpattern.games/…/infinite-treadmill.html)
  
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TriflingToad@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

grinding

glances at my 300 hours of OldSchool Runescape

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- Decoy321@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  You should try a healthier hobby, like heroin.
  
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- ericbomb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Only 300? XD
  
  That game is nothing but grind after like 20 hours.
  
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Showroom7561@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s sad that the most unhealthy games are the ones ranked as most played on the google play store 😮‍💨

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- ragepaw@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s not sad, there is a direct connection.
  
  They are the top games because of the psychological manipulation being successful.
  
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  - prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I mean… It’s also sad
    
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  - JigglySackles@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It can be both…
    
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- ericbomb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It really is, and it kills me when there are legit good games under there.
  
  For a few months I played a cool monster catching game where it was like 5v5 style. The amount of cool combos you could do, the emergent game play with that many, each monster having own unique abilities and moves, etc. was so cool! PVP was really good because once you were proper placed, the games were close and often times came down to either a choice in game or realizing a mistake in team building “Why did I only bring one party member that can counter X?? As soon as they got focused down I got rolled by a team built around it!”
  
  But the pve battles would get harder and harder, but the monsters you could catch weren’t getting stronger. So to continue in the main story you had to do events to get new ones, or… that lovely gacha shop. Eventually in the story the ability to catch new monsters was just removed. You could go back to the early parts to catch the old monsters, but there was maybe one in the main story that was any use once you were to where catching was disabled. Oh and evolving the monsters required you to do events which took… energy! Oh also chapter 1 of the story didn’t require energy to play, and had ability to catch monsters… but later on it did require energy.
  
  So it opened with this really cool game where you could catch monsters, the fights were fair based on what you could catch, and overall was a fun time. Then slowly but surely every team member would need to be replaced by Gacha monsters (that could only be leveled up by gathering materials from events), and all the infinite play game modes would run out of content, leaving only the game modes that require energy.
  
  UGH.
  
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  - Showroom7561@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I think one of the reasons why I stopped gaming as an adult, is because I realized that pretty much all the popular games are rigged to keep you going. The progression is artificial, and demotivates me to invest time in it.
    
    Old games were basically: play them, and with the right skill you can complete the levels and finish. Simple, fun, and you didn’t have to return back to the game in 11h:23m:45sec in order to “unlock” anything, either. You turn it on when you want, then turn it off. You can return to it months or even years later and it makes no difference.
    
    New games? Always moving the goal posts. You have to pay to level up quickly, but the next level just sets you up for another artificial grind. Spin a wheel or open a loot crate? Those are just programmed to give you exactly the items you need to keep going a little further. Seasons, timed events, social media integration… all the fun is sucked out.
    
    Video games use quite a few of the same tactics that you’ll see in lotteries, casinos, and other “games of chance”.
    
    Once you realize that, you can’t unsee it.
    
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jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This is such a good idea, I’m almost mad it wasn’t made sooner!

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narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The list of “Healthy Games” is a great resource to have!

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alphacyberranger@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Thanking for sharing OP. This is really good.

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- ericbomb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Someone shared it with me the other day and I fell in love so had to share!
  
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linearchaos@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Reading the descriptions on the dark patterns and dark social patterns, That’s actually the stuff I miss about world of Warcraft.

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squid_slime@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This is hands down great thanks for sharing!

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