I was pretty intrigued by this, because I actively avoid games that try to push me into doing things I don’t want to.

Unfortunately, after reading their descriptions of the various “dark” patterns, I am quite worried that this site could do more harm than good if it gets broad traction.

While it has a few notes here and there disclaiming people’s preferences and fun, mostly it heavily over-identifies “dark” patterns. It doesn’t make it clear enough to the non-gaming friends/spouses/parents of the gamer that these patterns aren’t by default “dark”.

It over-classifies many forms of difficulty, mastery, complexity, routines, socializing, and more as “dark”. I hope this website doesn’t gain traction in its current state, because if it does it could further a moral panic around many games that people enjoy. Based on their descriptions, this panic would likely be even more focused on games that neurodivergent people enjoy, because of course…

Moral panic about video games in the past has been an excuse to bully people, often kids in the past, but more and more adults as well.