My opening remarks for the workshop on Game Design Patterns held at the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) Conference 2012 (June). This is where I talked about dark patterns in game design. Note: I removed the slides that had to do with administrative details of the workshop.

1. Foundations of Digital Games 2012
DESIGN PATTERNS IN GAMES: THE WORKSHOP

2. Opening Remarks
BIG QUESTIONS AND CHALLENGES

3. 1977
 Architecture and urban
design
 “ Organize implicit
knowledge about how
people solve recurring
problems when they go
about building things”
 Present a problem and a
solution
http://www.patternlanguage.com

4. INFLUENCE ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
 “reusable solution
to a commonly
occurring problem
in software
design”
1994
(with lots of earlier work at least as far back as 1987)

5. GAMES?
1. Need for a language/vocabulary for
describing and talking about game design
2. Desire to document design
decisions/conventions
 Often problem/solution pairs

6. GAMES – EARLY WORK
Formal
Abstract
Design Tools
1984 1999
Crawford Church
(Game Developer)
The Case for
Game Design
Patterns
2002 2005 2005
Bernd Kreimeier Bjork & Holopainen Zagal, Mateas, et al.
(Gamasutra) (also earlier work in 2003)

7. TODAY
Genre Descriptive
Generative
Specific Notation &
Grammars
Patterns Grammars
Game Interface
Programming Patterns
Patterns
Abstract
Taxonomies Logical Etc.
Formalisms

8. WHY PATTERNS IN GAMES?
1. Common solutions for design problems
2. Development of critical/expressive language
3. Framework for developing/sharing deeper
understanding
4. Exploring/mapping design space
5. Formalizing design knowledge for
automated creation
6. Support for games education

9. It’s been about 10 years….
DESIGN PATTERNS AND GAMES
BEYOND 2012

10. THE BIG CHALLENGES
1. Accessibility & Usability
2. Significance of Contributions
3. Ludic Responsibility

11. ACCESSIBILITY & USABILITY (1/3)
 Barriers to Entry
 How to navigate and make sense of?
 Topologies of patterns
 Entry Points
 Experts invest time to learn language
 Elitist
 Fragmentation
 Multiple approaches re-inventing the wheel

12. ACCESSIBILITY AND USABILITY (2/3)
 Why not useful?
 Is this work relevant? To whom?

13. ACCESSIBILITY & USABILITY (3/3)
 Appropriate Level of Abstraction
 Focus on the tree, miss the forest
 Focus on forest, what trees?

14. SIGNIFICANCE OF CONTRIBUTIONS
 Theoretical Underpinnings
 Are we creating theory?
 What theory/ies are informing/supporting our work?
 Methodological Rigor
 What are our methods?
 What are the drawbacks?
 What are the strengths?
 Documenting and developing
 Data collection, data sharing

15. LUDIC RESPONSIBILITY (1/3)
 “Good” Design vs “Bad” Design vs “Design”
 PositiveValues (e.g. cooperation)?
 Negative Values (e.g. competition)?
 Is our work descriptive?
 This is what we’ve seen
 Is our work prescriptive?
 This is what you should do…

16. LUDIC RESPONSIBILITY (2/3)
 Anti-patterns
 Examples of “bad design”
 Common Mistakes
 Laziness
 “Should know better”
 Dark Patterns
 From wiki.darkpatterns.org (UI/UX)
 “User Interfaces Designed to Trick People”

17. LUDIC RESPONSIBILITY (3/3)
 Dark Patterns = Patterns for “Evil”
 “Evil”?
 Patterns for manipulating players
 Removing the player’s autonomy
 Don’t make an informed decision about game
 When the designers’ intentions aren’t good?

18. DARK PATTERNS – FRIEND SPAM
 “A site or game asks for your twitter or email
credentials for an allegedly benign purpose
(e.g. finding friends who are already using
that service), but then goes on publish
content or send out bulk messages using
your account - i.e. from you.”
http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/Friend_Spam

19. DARK PATTERN? – IN-GAME PURCHASES
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/11/06

20. DARK PATTERNS?
 Charging extra for additional game
options
 E.g. Skip a level? Pay now!
 Pay-to-cheat
 Words With Friends: Buy ability “look in bag” and
see what letters are left (access to hidden info)
 Mercenary Treadmill
 Game’s features depend on in-game currency
that takes forever to amass - unless you pay real
$!
http://s349909351.websitehome.co.uk/blog/

21. THE BIG CHALLENGES
1. Accessibility & Usability
1. Entry Barriers
2. Who is this for? What is the relevance?
3. Level of Abstraction?
2. Significance of Contributions
1. Theoretical Underpinnings
2. Methodological Rigor
3. Ludic Responsibility
 Descriptive / Prescriptive
 Supporting Values

22. THANK YOU, ANY QUESTIONS?
Jose Zagal
jzagal@cdm.depaul.edu
http://facsrv.cdm.depaul.edu/~jzagal