Vulnerability and Play: Exploring the Mundane Ways in Which Games Might Harm Players
summary
Argues that vulnerability is not just a player trait but an emergent property of games where mechanics, context and design choices produce vulnerability as situational, not fixed demographics. Shows examples from deceptive pattern analyses and invites long‑term studies with off‑the‑shelf games and improved measurement tools to detect everyday, low‑severity harms. Recommends treating vulnerability as artifact‑level, measuring interactions between mechanics and social contexts, and developing instruments that track subtle, cumulative negative effects over time.
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