Building a Lasting Free to Play Economy

This change of importance is because games no longer just need to last 10-20 hours of gameplay, but now need to last years. Economies are the key to making scaleable systems. As a economy designer, it is your responsibility to ensure that the currencies involved in your game are always tight: are always sought by a player.

Inflation is the enemy of an economy designer. Avoiding inflation and managing sources and sinks are a key job for game designers in free to play.

Model a simple game economy:

1. Given some assumptions, can calculate how many battles it would take an average player to get the necessary XP to level up.

2. How much time it would take a player in an idle game to purchase the next upgrade

Model a simple RPG economy or a simple Idle economy, and how it changes over time

3. Able to adjust parameters and see how it impacts the player progression curve

Balance a basic gameplay system:

1. Given some goals (ex. We want an average player to be able to play 20 times per day) you can balance an economy to work.

Ex. a Energy system in a Match 3 game (how long until the energy refills, what the max cap is)

Ex. setting the price of a weapon in a RPG game

Ex. creating a formula for XP in an RPG game

From: https://mobilefreetoplay.com/bible/building-lasting-free-play-economy/