Online games use dark designs to collect player data
Online games use dark designs to collect player data
Online games use dark designs to collect player data
October 27 2023
Summary
While online gaming can improve wellbeing and foster social relations, privacy and awareness issues could potentially offset these benefits and cause real harm to gamers.
The study also offers risk mitigation strategies for players and design recommendations for game developers to improve privacy in online games.
'We had two supporting lines of inquiry in this study: what players think about games, and what games are really up to with respect to privacy,' says Janne Lindqvist, associate professor of computer science at Aalto.
Our game analysis revealed that some games try to nudge people to reveal their online identities by offering things like virtual rewards.
The authors identified instances of games using dark design - interface decisions that manipulate users into doing something they otherwise wouldn't.
In some popular games, users can log in with their social media accounts, but these games may not specify what data is collected through such integration.
Overall, the authors recommend that games and gaming platforms strive to protect all their players.
Reference
Online games use dark designs to collect player data. (2023, October 27). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1006170