Questions From a Student

A truly fun part about being a Game Economist is that 3-4 times a year, you’ll get the odd Linkedin message from students wanting to do the same. It’s incredibly gratifying to help set people on the right track, given I was asking for the same help years ago. There’s so little on game economics…

In-Round Progression Is the Biggest Game Design Innovation in a Decade

Battle Royale and Roguelike are remaking game progression before our eyes. Popularized in earnest during the rise (and eventual pruning) of the MOBA genre, in-round progression mandates players accrue vertical power in the context of a single round. MOBA sessions start with players farming in-round currency to spend on items that persist until the round…

Why I’m a Supply-Side Game Economist

Game monetization discussions tend to focus on what to monetize broadly (gameplay or cosmetics) as well as how to price it. As someone might imagine, these are crucial and foundational discussions to have. So naturally, therefore, it makes sense to invest a lot of human capital into optimizing them. Increasingly, however, I’ve become convinced that…

“Community” Leads Us Astray

A few months back, a member of Biden’s campaign team appeared on CNN. The team member describes how the campaign managed to stay politically center: staying off social media. I tweeted at the time this was great advice for game devs. The vocal members of any community tend to dominate the feedback. And as we…