Economic Concepts

Economy is one of the primary domains of the System Designer. You would be shocked, or maybe you wouldn't, by the amount of your day that will be spent thinking, analyzing, and studying the economy of your games. Even in a game with a hero as meat-headed as Kratos lies the beating heart of an economy.

Common questions that an economic approach can help you answer?

• How much XP should an enemy give?
• How much loot should it drop?
• How much does it cost to upgrade the leviathan axe?
• How MANY different upgrades should you have?
• WHEN should the player be allowed to get them?
• How many materials should you earn for selling or breaking down your loot?
• Where are the vendors located?
• What do they sell, and what is their purpose in the game?

Answers to these questions are not intuitively obvious! Especially, ESPECIALLY, as the game's landscape is shifting underneath you due to the realities of game development. Monday, you knew exactly how many Raven Enemies existed in the game, and how many the player was likely to kill, which meant that they should give the player 20 XP each... Tuesday, you learn that the Raven Enemy was cut from the game. Now what?

The articles in this section are here to provide you with a few incites into some of the tasks that you might need to perform as it relates to constructing the economy of your game, and if you do it correctly, the answer to the Raven problem will be trivial, and cost you no more than the click of a few buttons.

The Value of Items

Let's talk about how you actually determine the value of things in your game.

Determining Drop Rates

The next step after learning how to assign value, is using that value to determine the rate at which things should be added into the world.