• Increased spending and addiction: Dark patterns (e.g., loot boxes, time-limited offers, skin gambling, manipulative purchase flows) exploit children’s limited impulse control and understanding of long-term cost, causing excessive microtransactions and compulsive play. (See King & Delfabbro 2019)

• Impaired decision-making and learning: Designed scarcity, confusing choices, and hidden costs teach poor financial literacy and normalize manipulative commercial practices.

• Reduced autonomy and consent: Dark patterns obscure information, use deceptive defaults, or nudge children toward decisions they cannot meaningfully consent to (buying, data sharing). This undermines agency. (Nissenbaum 2010; Gray et al. 2018)

• Privacy risks and profiling: Games often dark-pattern children into granting permissions or sharing data; this enables targeted ads and behavioral profiling that reinforce engagement and consumption. (Zuboff 2019)

• Emotional harm and social pressure: Social comparison mechanics, pressure to pay to keep up, and fear-of-missing-out tactics increase anxiety, shame, and exclusion among peers.

References: King & Delfabbro, “Predatory monetization schemes…,” 2019; Gray et al., “The dark (patterns) side of UX design,” 2018; Nissenbaum, “Privacy in Context,” 2010; Zuboff, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” 2019.