Coding Guidelines

Requiring players to perform excessive, repetitive tasks — such as defeating the same enemies or completing the same actions repeatedly — to progress, artificially extending playtime and creating a deliberate pain point designed to incentivise payment to skip the grind.

The game requires players to engage at specific times dictated by the game rather than the player. Missing the scheduled window results in lost rewards or penalties, subordinating the player's schedule to the game's demands.

Rewarding players for returning daily through login streaks with escalating bonuses and implicit penalties for breaking the chain, engineering compulsive daily check-ins that persist beyond genuine enjoyment of the game.

The game cannot be paused or saved at will, forcing the player to continue or lose all progress. This ties players to sessions longer than intended and makes stopping at any point costly.

Energy systems or real-time timers block the player from performing actions without payment, turning time itself into a monetisation lever and incentivising spending to restore a normal pace of play.

Allowing players to pay real money to bypass deliberately tedious or time-consuming gameplay sections that were designed to be unpleasant in order to incentivise this purchase.

Offering purchasable items, upgrades, or abilities that give paying players a decisive competitive advantage over non-paying players, making fair competition contingent on real-money spending.

Selling DLC or additional content that was already completed before the game shipped, creating the impression it should have been included in the base purchase.

Pitting players against each other in competitive systems where spending money provides a direct competitive edge, applying social pressure to spend in order to remain competitive.

Requiring or strongly incentivising players to recruit friends in order to progress or unlock features, exploiting social relationships as a viral acquisition and retention mechanism.

The game posts to social media or sends messages on the player's behalf without explicit consent, impersonating the player to recruit others and spreading virally under false pretences.

Making players feel socially obligated to play or help friends through gifting mechanics, co-op dependencies, or guilt-inducing messaging when absent — weaponising social bonds as a compulsive retention mechanism.

No achievable end state; the game extends indefinitely through power creep or endless content tiers to keep players engaged and spending without resolution or completion.

Forced, aggressive, or deceptive in-game advertisements that interrupt gameplay or are displayed so frequently as to deliberately degrade the experience, sometimes with misleading reward promises or unskippable placements.

Using an intermediate virtual currency to obscure the real-money cost of purchases, making spending feel less real and preventing direct price comparison with real-world equivalents.

Randomised reward systems purchased with real money that exploit variable reinforcement schedules and gambling psychology — with typically opaque probability disclosures — to drive compulsive and escalating spending.

Limiting availability of items or offers to manufacture urgency and drive purchases, regardless of any genuine supply constraint.

Interface design that makes it easy to accidentally spend real money — through ambiguous confirmation flows, misplaced buttons, or poorly labelled premium actions.

Subscription or recurring charges required for continued access to content or features, often enrolled without sufficient clarity about ongoing costs.

Mechanics that function as gambling with real-money stakes, exploiting gambling psychology and addiction-risk behaviours within the game context beyond loot box mechanics.

Continuously releasing stronger items that depreciate previous purchases, forcing ongoing spending to remain competitive or relevant within the game.

Displaying expensive options first to make other still-expensive options appear reasonable by comparison, exploiting anchoring bias in purchasing decisions.

Essential content, story progression, or competitive features locked behind payment, making the free version an intentionally degraded experience.

Gift systems that create social pressure to reciprocate and thus continue playing or spending, exploiting the psychological norm of reciprocity.

Limited-time events, exclusive items, or expiring offers that manufacture anxiety about missing content, pressuring players to engage and spend within an artificial deadline regardless of their actual interest.

Competitive leaderboards, rankings, and public comparisons designed to shame or pressure players into spending to maintain status relative to peers.

Making it psychologically difficult to quit by leveraging the player's prior investment of time, money, and identity, exploiting sunk cost fallacy to sustain engagement beyond rational self-interest.

Exploiting completionist tendencies with achievements, collections, and checklists that trigger compulsive completion behaviour beyond genuine enjoyment.

Making players believe they have more influence over random outcomes than they actually do, sustaining engagement and spending through false agency.

Unpredictable reward schedules that exploit dopamine-driven reinforcement loops — the same mechanism underlying slot machines — to drive compulsive engagement and spending.

Using colours, sounds, animations, and visual effects to trigger emotional responses that override rational decision-making, particularly around spending moments.

Presenting odds or outcomes in ways that exploit the player's natural tendency to overestimate positive results, sustaining spending on low-probability rewards.

Artificially slowing progression or introducing wait timers to create a pain point that incentivises payment to restore a normal pace of play.

Matching free players against paying players to demonstrate the tangible in-game advantage of spending, applying competitive pressure to purchase.

Battle passes requiring both payment and significant playtime investment to unlock all rewards, creating dual pressure on both wallet and time that compounds over the season.

Marketing materials — including trailers, screenshots, and store listings — that depict gameplay, features, or quality that does not represent the actual shipped product, deceiving players prior to purchase or download.

Reducing the effectiveness of items or abilities after players have purchased them, invalidating the investment that motivated the purchase.

Selling cosmetic items that appear different — typically worse or less impressive — in-game than in the promotional preview shown at point of purchase.

Restricting basic storage or inventory capacity to pressure players into purchasing expansions for functionality that should be standard in the base game.

Charging for fundamental gameplay features — such as additional save slots, offline play, or basic customisation — that should reasonably be part of the base experience.

Using multiple types of virtual currencies simultaneously to confuse the real-world cost of items and make spending tracking cognitively difficult for the player.

Forcing players to buy virtual currency in bundles that do not align with item prices, deliberately leaving residual amounts that pressure additional spending.

Monthly subscriptions that provide meaningful competitive gameplay advantages over non-subscribers, making the free tier a deliberately inferior experience.

The ability to buy items or upgrades that grant immediate and significant gameplay advantages, allowing spending to directly substitute for skill or time investment.

Items or content perceived as grossly overpriced relative to the value delivered, often exploiting captive audiences within established game ecosystems.

Aggressive monetisation mechanics within games that already carry a full retail price, layering paid progression or cosmetics on top of an upfront purchase.

UI and UX deliberately designed to trick players into accidental purchases, unintended subscriptions, or other actions against their interests through confusing layouts or deceptive affordances.