I fucking hate game apps. I wanted to play tetris the otherday so I figured there must be a simple tetris app out there its the most basic game. But every app is like heres your daily log in bonus of 10 gold! You get 5 free plays a day. Here’s an ad. To replay a level costs 1 diamond. You can eart gold by earning points in levels. 1000 points = 1 gold. You can exchange 550 gold for one diamond but we have a sale right now that they only cost 500 gold. Heres an ad. You can buy a loot crate of diamonds for 5.99$! You leveled up! Heres 1 free diamond. Youve run out of free replays for today, would you like to buy some more diamonds? Heres your daily tasks, make sure to log in every day this month for a free reward chest. its free! Heres an ad. Would you like to sign up for this credit card to recieve 10 free diamonds? Invite a friend and you can earn points! Ding! Youve leveled up. Heres an ad. This is our special bonus play weekend, you get one free replay and a pack of diamonds only costs 4.99$. You can use your gold to purchase new skins for the tetris blocks. This ones shaped like cats! It costs 100 diamonds. You need to collect them all. Free to play, may be some in-app purchases.
I agree with literally everything op is saying and I don’t want to detract from their point but this website here, specifically for mobile games (though they intend to eventually branch out to other types) is creating a database that flags those exact types of predatory things. It also flags games as safe, so if you want to look for safe mobile games this is an invaluable resource.
https://www.darkpattern.games/
It also has definitions, explanations, and examples of all the different types of psychological manipulations games pull on the website so if anyone ever tries to give you “just don’t spend money, it’s easy” you can send them this
Oh thank god, I lost my link to dark pattern some time ago and I thought I would never find it again.