Aesthetic Manipulations
Trick questions or toying with emotions or our subconscious desires.
There are a number of ways that games can use text, graphics or sounds to subconsciously influence our decisions.
1) Toying with Emotions - Games may make players feel bad for making a choice or rejecting an offer. For example, maybe the point of the game is to save cute little bunnies from the evil foxes. When you lose a level, the game may show you a picture of a sad little bunny and say something like "Spend 2 coins and save this little bunny." Even though you know it's not a real bunny, it is still toying with your emotions and trying to get you to spend money on the game. Another example could be to make you feel bad for not helping your team. Because of social pressure, the game can emphasize that you are letting your team down to get you to play more.
2) Trick Questions - Sometimes games try to trick you into doing something. Maybe they give you an option to spend coins on something, but they make the "Yes" button red instead of green. We are habituated to press a red button to cancel something, so mixing the colors up can confuse us into pushing the wrong button. Other ways of tricking us is to make one button bigger than the other. People are more likely to click the bigger button. Using checkboxes to opt-out of something is also a way trick people, since checkboxes are usually used to opt-in.
3) Subconscious Associations - People like cute things or tasty things. This is why a lot of games use cute animals or candy imagery. In-game candy attracts the subconscious desire for sweets and makes the game more desirable.
4) Over-the-top Feedback - This is most exemplified by a casino floor. The constant ringing and dinging and over the top sounds of people winning huge jackpots toys with our emotions. Games do this by using extreme graphics, sounds and vibration when you win or lose.
1) Toying with Emotions - Games may make players feel bad for making a choice or rejecting an offer. For example, maybe the point of the game is to save cute little bunnies from the evil foxes. When you lose a level, the game may show you a picture of a sad little bunny and say something like "Spend 2 coins and save this little bunny." Even though you know it's not a real bunny, it is still toying with your emotions and trying to get you to spend money on the game. Another example could be to make you feel bad for not helping your team. Because of social pressure, the game can emphasize that you are letting your team down to get you to play more.
2) Trick Questions - Sometimes games try to trick you into doing something. Maybe they give you an option to spend coins on something, but they make the "Yes" button red instead of green. We are habituated to press a red button to cancel something, so mixing the colors up can confuse us into pushing the wrong button. Other ways of tricking us is to make one button bigger than the other. People are more likely to click the bigger button. Using checkboxes to opt-out of something is also a way trick people, since checkboxes are usually used to opt-in.
3) Subconscious Associations - People like cute things or tasty things. This is why a lot of games use cute animals or candy imagery. In-game candy attracts the subconscious desire for sweets and makes the game more desirable.
4) Over-the-top Feedback - This is most exemplified by a casino floor. The constant ringing and dinging and over the top sounds of people winning huge jackpots toys with our emotions. Games do this by using extreme graphics, sounds and vibration when you win or lose.
Examples
The World of Magic""200 USD Worth of FREE Items" has been a recurrent theme, but said 200 usd items are mostly EXP buffs that are artificially inflated to accommodate for this kind of marketing"
Angry Birds 2"In the game, you have a little hatchling. You have to feed it apples to power up your flock. When you dont feed him for some days, it will show a sad animated clip of the hatchling crying and then leaving the flock."
Infinite Lagrange"Very pretty combat, soundtrack and graphics."
Zenless Zone Zero"The game has lots of over-the-top explosions during fight scenes and special effects when you win a battle."
Honkai: Star Rail"Many people pulled for Firefly because of her presence in the recent Penacony story"
Star Girl Fashion❤CocoPPa Play"Cute and pretty items can be achieved in gachas, but most of the prettiest options are only in premium or VIP gachas"
King's Throne: Game of Lust"Lust trap"
Dragon POW!"People are likely to spend money because of the cool/cute dragons you can control in this game. Some of their humanoid forms come with cute, stylized skins that may entice players to buy them."
Squad Busters""Don't lose your streak" and stuff"
Super Snail"this one is kinda iffy... it is very self aware as a game, even in its p2w nature. if you choose to watch an advert, a msg pops up saying "Warning! The finance team has threatened to sack devs if they don't play ads! Thank you for helping us keep our jobs!"... idk if this counts buuut at least this is good to know lol"