GYGO: Dark Patterns, Kind Words, and Data Breaches

Hello, and welcome to GYGO! I’m Kael, a gamer with no self control, and the moment I received a bigger paycheck than I expected I bought a PS4! The past couple of weeks I’ve been sinking my teeth into The Outer Worlds and Final Fantasy XV for the first time. Being who I am, I also couldn’t help but revisit the nostalgic classic Dark Cloud. The dungeon crawling may suck but I will suffer through a lot for a good city building mechanic.

Somehow, between work and gaming, I also found time to scour the web for this week’s most pressing gaming news!

User Experience Expert Breaks Down Ethics in Game Design

Celia Hodent, former director of user experience at Epic Games, outlined some of the ethical dilemmas the video game industry is facing from a scientific perspective. It’s a long read, but it’s full of interesting information about problematic game mechanics. She covers video game addiction, loot boxes and gambling mechanics, manipulative game design, and violence in games targeted at children.

Kind Words Survives Internet Cynicism

The video game Kind Words asks players to confess insecurities and respond positively to other anonymous players. Unfortunately, it’s been attracting bad actors, like trolls and people targeting streamers of the game. Still, the game has proven surprisingly resilient to attacks. Designer Ziba Scott attributes that resiliency to their strong moderation policy and the lack of a reward system for digging at someone.

Nexus Mods Comes Forward About Data Breach

Nexus Mods, a popular site for modders to share their creations, experienced a data breach in November. One month later, after fixing the vulnerability, they’ve alerted users. Email addresses and encrypted passwords were included in the data, leading the site to suggest that users change their passwords and update to their new user service by logging out and back into Nexus Mods.

Mesut Ozil Removed from Chinese Editions of PES 2020

Last week Arsenal soccer player Mesut Ozil criticized China’s persecution of Uighur Muslims over Twitter. This week publisher Netease removed him from the Chinese editions of PES 2020 (following a trend of Chinese media refusing to air his games). Multiple countries have condemned t he Chinese government for the detention and mistreatment of the Uighur people.

In Other News…

• Stardew Valley update 1.4 hits PS4, Switch, and Xbox
• The Last of Us Named GamesRadar’s Game of the Decade
• What 90s Game Commercials Do You Remember?
• Cats (the Movie) Is Getting Patched Like a Game

Kael Langdon

A genderless eldritch beast bound to mortal flesh. Interests include games, gardening, magical realism, and the complete restructuring of America’s political and economic systems. Frequently orders too much food at restaurants. Tweets @unnnez.