Manipulative Game Design

It's Not a Bug. It's a Blueprint.

Ever felt a game was designed to be intentionally frustrating? That its economy was engineered to create problems only a cash shop could solve? You were probably right. Those aren't accidents; they are the result of a coherent, data-driven, and often deeply cynical design philosophy.

Manipulative Game Design is a codex of forbidden knowledge, a hands-on guide that deconstructs the "scummy" practices of the modern games industry. Acting as a Corporate Engineer for a fictional company, you will learn to build the exploitative systems that power a fictional flagship title. The purpose of showing you how to build a prison is to teach you how to recognize one—and to give you the tools to fight back.

What You Will Deconstruct:

This book provides the master blueprints for the exploitation engine, teaching you to see players not as people, but as data points to be harvested. You will learn:

• The Foundations: Learn to log every click, hesitation, and purchase as "Digital Exhaust," the raw ore of player psychology, and refine it into a weaponized dataset.
• The Toolkit: Use clustering algorithms to sort players into "grinders" and "prey," build predictive "Crystal Ball" models to foresee churn and spending, and master the science of A/B testing to "prove" that a manipulative design is superior.
• The Architecture: Unleash a Reinforcement Learning AI to invent its own scummy tactics in a "Self-Tuning Skinner Box," master the "Illusion of Control" through choice architecture, and weaponize the in-game economy to engineer scarcity and sell the solution.
• The Human Cost: Analyze the long-term psychological fallout, deconstruct the cynical PR cycle of the "Calculated Meltdown," and study how savvy players act as codebreakers and smugglers to dismantle your carefully laid traps.

Who Is This For?

This book is not for those who want to build more prisons. It is an arsenal for:

• Developers & Designers who know a system feels wrong but lack the vocabulary to win the argument against cynical metrics.
• Data Scientists & Analysts who want to understand the ethical implications of their work and use data to advocate for players.
• Producers & Managers facing pressure to implement these systems, providing them with a clear-eyed view of the long-term costs.
• Students who want to understand the modern industry's ethical landscape before entering it.

Get Your Copy!

This book is available as a PDF here. For those who prefer a durable reference for their desk, a physical softcover version is also available.

Purchase your copy here: https://indieuxr.fi/manipulative-game-design/

The manipulative blueprints are in your possession. Use them to build worlds without walls.