Pay to Skip
Spend money to avoid waiting for a timer to expire.
There are a number of ways that this dark pattern can be used, but they all rely on spending money to skip over something in the game that you don't want to do.
1) You may have a limited amount of "energy" or "turns" that you can use before you are no longer allowed to play the game. You then have to wait for that energy to recharge, or you can pay to instantly recharge it.
2) You may start an activity in a game (building, researching, hunting, etc) and the game starts a timer that indicates how long it will take for this activity to finish before you can collect the rewards. You have to wait, or you can pay money to skip the timer and collect the rewards right now.
3) The game show you advertisements, but will allow you to spend money to skip the ads. This is how you can trade money for your attention.
In these examples, a game designer intentionally puts an undesirable blockage into the game that prevents it from being played unless you wait or pay money. This causes the player some discomfort which can be overcome by paying money. If the player chooses to wait instead, this turns into a different dark pattern called Wait to Play.
1) You may have a limited amount of "energy" or "turns" that you can use before you are no longer allowed to play the game. You then have to wait for that energy to recharge, or you can pay to instantly recharge it.
2) You may start an activity in a game (building, researching, hunting, etc) and the game starts a timer that indicates how long it will take for this activity to finish before you can collect the rewards. You have to wait, or you can pay money to skip the timer and collect the rewards right now.
3) The game show you advertisements, but will allow you to spend money to skip the ads. This is how you can trade money for your attention.
In these examples, a game designer intentionally puts an undesirable blockage into the game that prevents it from being played unless you wait or pay money. This causes the player some discomfort which can be overcome by paying money. If the player chooses to wait instead, this turns into a different dark pattern called Wait to Play.
Citations and Sources • Dark Patterns in the Design of Games
• You Shall Not Pass! The 4 Types of Paywall in Mobile Games
• You Shall Not Pass! The 4 Types of Paywall in Mobile Games
Examples
Shadow Fight 3"void energy"
SimCity BuildIt"When you want to finish completing some in-game items for houses upgrade, you can spend simcash."
Kawaii Home Design"If you pay Premium membership, you'll never have to vote before playing again."
Food Street - Restaurant Management & Food Game"You can buy gems to skip waiting time"
Zombie Frontier 3: Sniper FPS"Weapon upgrade, replenish energy does require some kind of gem to skip"
DRAGON BALL Z DOKKAN BATTLE"you can but they added items that do replenish energy"
Secret Cat Forest"Players can pay for permanent reductions to furniture building timers, but not to skip them entirely as far as I can tell. These purchases are separate for each of the three areas!"
MARVEL SNAP"You can spend money on gold which allows you to buy credits which you need to advance your collection level."
Kingdom Maker"Offers packs that include in game timer speedups for building and such"
MARVEL Contest of Champions"Energy timers"