Lesson 05 · 4 min · 6 things to do
The economy inside
Trace a game currency from where it enters to where it leaves.
A game's currency enters when players earn it and leaves when they spend it on things that vanish. What happens if far more enters than leaves?
- Yes.It is the same arithmetic as any economy: more money chasing the same goods. Game economies run it faster, in public, with a designer able to change the rules.
- Not quite.For a while. Then everything for sale between players costs a thousand times more and new players cannot participate at all.
- Not quite.Real or not, the mechanism is identical. Several large games have had to redesign around exactly this.
Every game economy has taps that create currency and drains that destroy it. A designer's job is keeping the two roughly in balance.
Which of these create currency, and which destroy it?
Gold dropped by defeated enemies.
Repair costs paid to the game itself.
Quest rewards.
A fee charged on trades between players.
Buying something from another player.
Yes.The last one is the trap: buying from another player MOVES currency, it does not destroy it — unless a fee is taken. A player-to-player economy with no fees has no drain at all.Slide the balance between the taps and the drains.
Drains largerBalancedTaps largerCreated80 per dayDestroyed110 per dayDrains largerCurrency is scarce. Prices fall, and players hoard rather than spend.
Created100 per dayDestroyed98 per dayBalancedPrices hold steady. New players can afford to start and old ones still have something to spend on.
Created150 per dayDestroyed90 per dayTaps largerPrices climb, week after week. Long-standing players barely notice; new players cannot afford anything.
In the last frame, who is hurt most?
- Yes.The same effect as any inflation: it moves value from people holding earnings to people holding assets. In a game it also quietly closes the door on newcomers, which kills the game slowly.
- Not quite.The numbers go up for those who already have them. The rate at which new currency can be earned does not.
- Not quite.They are the ones who accumulated first, and they are usually the least affected.
Move the control to see what changes.
Why do many games make the best items break, expire or bind to one character?
- Yes.Every durable item is a permanent addition to supply. Making things temporary is a drain, and it is why 'why does my gear wear out' has an economic answer rather than a story one.
- Not quite.Sometimes both are true. The economic function exists in games with no purchases at all.
- Not quite.Realism is the justification offered. The reason it survives design review is the drain.
A game creates 150 units of currency a day per player and destroys 90. After 30 days, how many units per player have accumulated?
unitsYes.60 × 30. That surplus does not sit still — it goes into whatever players trade with each other, which is exactly where the prices climb.What does a game economy show you about the real one?
- Yes.Taps, drains, hoarding, price rises, newcomers priced out — all of it, on a timescale of months, with the designer's decisions published in patch notes. It is the closest thing to a working economic laboratory that most people ever see.
- Not quite.The rules of any economy are made up. The behaviour that emerges is not.
- Not quite.The comparison runs the other way. A game designer can change the rules overnight and still cannot control the outcome.
Lesson complete
Every game currency has a tap and a drain, and prices follow the gap.
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