Your economy is like the heartbeat of your game—when it's not quite right, everything else feels a little out of sync. To keep the progression of your game both challenging and rewarding, it’s important to focus on balancing the economic systems of both your core gameplay and the meta layers. Each of these layers have their own distinct economies, but they're intertwined and reliant on one another. Nailing this balance is a huge step towards creating a game that players will love and want to keep playing.
In this article, we'll walk you through how these core and meta economies should interact and share tips on keeping them balanced to provide players with a smooth and enjoyable gaming experience.
Drilling down to the core
Let's start by discussing the essentials of your game's economy, which all centers around its core mechanics. At the center of your game is a straightforward and engaging loop, which works as follows:
This cycle is important because it’s easy to grasp from the get-go, giving players an intuitive first-time user experience (FTUE). When players dive in, the FTUE should be simple and straightforward, with complexity ramping up gradually. When it comes to the economy at this stage, start with introducing one main currency (hard currency), such as gold coins. The hard currency will serve as the premium currency, which your players will constantly be on the hunt for. It should be limited, difficult to obtain, and impact deeper elements of the game.
Once your players get the hang of earning and spending, usually by the end of day one, you can start introducing more challenges. As players progress and collect more hard currency, the game levels should naturally get tougher. To make this transition smoother, add boosters, like extra lives, to help players through the tricky parts.
The main takeaway is to keep a gradual difficulty curve so players can fully wrap their heads around the game mechanics. If things get too hard too fast, it might lead to players dropping out, which is not ideal in hybrid games. To prevent this from happening, you need to add another currency to keep that feeling of motivation strong.
Bring on the meta layers
Now that you have the core down, it’s time to add meta layers to bring depth and excitement to your game. The meta helps you earn rewards that help you advance or perform better in the core. Generally, the meta layer is added at the exact moment your players start to get tired of the core loop so the game feels less monotonous. The meta adds a sense of ‘relief’ from the core and will later establish the game’s economy.
Once the meta layer is added, your loop should look like this:
When you expand to the meta layer of your game, introducing a second currency is key to maintaining balance. This is because a single currency can't effectively support both layers and may even work against you by overwhelming players.
So add soft currency (SC) such as diamonds, purchasable with hard currency (HC), to streamline spending and encourage purchases. This soft currency will be a bit more common and easier to gain. By using two distinct currencies—you provide clarity and prevent players from feeling like they're constantly spending real cash.
Make sure your soft currency supports the hard currency and simulates real-life spending within the game's context. In order to accomplish this, you need to have checks and balances between the two currencies and the perfect mix of challenge and reward.
Balancing your economy
Now that you’ve implemented both HC and SC, the key to crafting a balanced in-game economy lies in managing currency sources (places to earn currency) and currency grinds (places to spend it). Currency sources reward players for completing tasks like levels or achievements, while currency grinds are the spending opportunities, such as purchasing boosters, unlocking upgrades, or acquiring limited-time items. To maintain balance, currency grinds should always outnumber sources.
Here’s how it works: achievements, like completing levels, fuel player progression by rewarding them with currency, triggering a sense of achievement and satisfaction. But as levels get harder, players often rely on currency grinds, such as purchasing boosters, to keep progressing. These moments act as "sinks" where players spend their earnings. Early gameplay should provide generous rewards—such as free boosters and soft currency—to establish flow and avoid frustration. However, as players advance, pressure points should become more prominent, driving players to spend either through earned currency, IAP, or ads.
Striking the right balance is critical. Players need steady gains to motivate and reward their efforts, but grinds are essential to maintain the value of your currency and create meaningful challenges. Without sufficient grinds, an oversupply of rewards can lead to inflation, devaluing the currency and dampening the player’s sense of accomplishment.
In essence, a healthy in-game economy mirrors a real-world one: demand (currency grinds) should always exceed supply (currency sources). Players should feel a constant pull to spend on items like upgrades, limited-time content, and desirable gear, ensuring they stay engaged and invested. By carefully balancing currency sources and grinds, you can build a dynamic, rewarding economy that keeps players motivated and excited to keep playing.
Putting it all together
So now we have the core of your game which uses hard currency, the meta layer which thrives on soft currency, and the need to manage the gains and sinks between the two in order to keep the game rewarding and profitable.
But how do you know the right amount of hard currency and soft currency to offer? How do you ensure the feeling of gains is dominant over sinks? How do you make sure your boosters and soft currency gains don’t cannibalize hard currency? How do you make sure that you have more places to spend currency than earn currency? In essence, how do you keep all these elements balanced?
The best way to get there is to monitor data and tweak your game as you go along. To figure out how much of each type of currency players should earn per achievement, it's a good idea to check out what other games are doing as a starting point. Once you have some insights, you can play the game internally to see if the amount feels right. This process is all about trial and error—you might start with a reward of 100 gold and decide to tweak it to 120 based on whether it feels too challenging or too easy.
Before the game goes live, it's important to test it thoroughly. Keep an eye on metrics like player retention, playtime, and drop rates, and observe the player's journey through the game. Reading player comments can also offer great feedback. For example, if players are dropping, it might be too hard and if players are not spending, it might be too easy. To sum it up, it's mostly about setting some numbers, testing them out, and making changes based on what you learn.
Create your own thriving game economy
So now that you have these economy basics down, it’s time to apply them to your game. Start researching other games, and apply your findings to create your own hybrid hit!
Let's put these tips to good use
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