A normative database covering deceptive design in games.
P(l)ay to Win is an academic annotation platform enabling researchers to capture, classify, and build consensus around predatory monetization and dark patterns in interactive media.
Peer-Reviewed Annotation Workflow
Every submission goes through four stages — capture, localisation, expert review, and consensus — before it lands in the dataset.
1. Capture & Localize
Researchers upload high-fidelity image or video captures from target titles. Our extraction engine locks temporal video data into annotatable static frames.
2. Bounding Box Marking
Using coordinate-independent markers, researchers isolate the exact interactive element initiating the deceptive or predatory flow.
3. Taxonomy Assignment
Each piece of evidence is assigned to multi-label classifications derived from the standard deceptive design literature.
The Taxonomy
Five high-level domains group sixteen mechanism families and thirty-five leaf patterns. Annotators pick one leaf code per evidence; the hierarchy supports aggregation up to the family or domain. The full tree, with definitions and Mathur/Narayanan cross-references, lives on the Guidelines page.
Deceptive Representation
Strategies that mislead the player about what the game is, what they are purchasing, or what they will receive — creating a gap between expectation and reality.
Psychological Exploitation
Strategies that exploit known cognitive biases, emotional vulnerabilities, or behavioral psychology principles to manipulate player decisions about time, money, or engagement.
Predatory Monetization
Strategies that extract money from players through coercive, deceptive, or exploitative purchasing systems that obscure true costs, exploit psychological vulnerabilities, or create artificial need.
Social Exploitation
Strategies that weaponize the player's social relationships, social identity, or need for social belonging to drive engagement, recruitment, or spending.
Temporal Manipulation
Strategies that exploit, distort, or weaponize the player's time investment to serve the game creator's goals (retention, monetization) at the expense of the player's autonomy over how they spend their time.