What are financial dark patterns? Name examples.

Patterns that lead players to spend money they regret, lose track of, or did not knowingly agree to, e.g. pay to skip, pre-delivered content, and monetised rivalries (pay-to-win).

Guiding questions:

• How likely is the player to regret spending money on the game?
• How likely is the player to lose track of how much they are spending?
• Does the player know what they get for their money?
• How likely is accidental spending?
• Does the player know how much they must spend to reach their goals in the game?

Examples:

• Pay to skip: players can pay to progress instead of playing through. The game is made tedious so that paying looks attractive.
• Pre-delivered content: content is already in the purchased files (on the disk or in the download) but stays locked until an extra fee is paid.
• Monetised rivalries (pay-to-win, pay-to-cheat): exploits competition between players to make them spend money they otherwise wouldn't, to gain status such as a high leaderboard rank.

Go deeper:

• Wikipedia: Free-to-play — pay-to-win, pay-to-skip and other monetisation models.
• Fitton & Read (2019): dark design aspects in free-to-play apps — a framework for spotting them in children's apps.