Game Economy Design

Purpose

Virtual currencies, sinks/faucets, inflation control, reward balancing, and monetization integration. Genre-agnostic — applies to any game with resources, currencies, or tradeable items.

When to Use

Trigger: game economy, virtual currency, sinks and faucets, inflation, reward balance, loot tables, crafting economy, marketplace, monetization, pricing, premium currency, gold sinks, resource balance

Prerequisites

• game-design-fundamentals — core loop understanding
• postgres-game-schema — currency and item data models

Core Principles

Sid Meier: "A game is a series of interesting decisions" — economy makes decisions meaningful. Richard Garfield: "Elegant systems create depth from simple rules."