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 2"Infinite energy to play"
Monster Legends"The egg, building, and cell extraction timers can be skipped using game currency paid using real money."
MLB 9 Innings 19"league balls"
AFK Journey"You can pay to instantly receive a few hours' worth of AFK loot such as purple essence."
Hearthstone"Sometimes U can prepurchase an expansion and play with the new cards before the actual release day."
Guardian Tales"Reponer energia"
Hello Kitty Dream Village"You can spend coins to refill your energy, but coins take a long time to earn, so the only players who can usually afford to spend on energy are paying for coins already."
Battle Bay"Pearls can be used to skip timers."
Warspear Online"You can spend miracle coins to skip the waiting time for crafting items, and buy items that instantly restore stamina and oxygen, which need time to restore. You can also use gold to buy these items from another player. Miracle coins can only be obtained with real money."
Phobies"There are offers to skip the daily cap, and to get more daily rewards"