Focus on… In-game Economies
Focus on… In-game Economies
Focus on… In-game Economies
By Sarah Le-Fevre
November19, 2021
Summary
It can be tricky to get right, but balancing your sources and sinks is essential if you want a compelling game experience, and even more important if you have an exchange between the 'soft' currencies and 'hard' currency as part of the way you monetise the game.
Gambling - If the mechanics of gambling in the game are designed as they are in casinos - the house always wins' - then this is an effective way of removing value from the game.
Taxation - where the game itself takes a small cut for transactions that happen in the game - for example, a 'gaming house' takes a small fee if two players want to wager against each other, or the mages guild charges a fee to bring a dead warrior back to life.
Given the complexity of designing an in-game economy and the constant need to balance it throughout the life of a game, it is small wonder that there is an actual job, which deals with this and nothing else - The Game Economy Designer.
Points in games are usually of two kinds, cumulative, non-exchangeable points - for example, experience points which allow you to level up in an RPG, or exchangeable points which you can spend to get other stuff you need to move on in the game.
For each of the aspects of a game economy you therefore have design choices about how a particular resource is created, including what the source is called, or represents, narratively, how it functions, and how that source responds e.g. in its rate of production in the context of a game situation or character/player trait.
Given the almost infinite possibilities, it would be impossible to list all of them, but here are a few possibilities you could implement in your game design using exchangeable points.
Reference
Le-Fevre, S. (2021, November 19). Focus on... in-game economies. Ludogogy. Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://www.ludogogy.co.uk/focus-on-in-game-economies/