We design balanced economies for mobile games, from match-3 to strategies. If resource sources exceed sinks, inflation sets in: the player accumulates currency faster than they can spend it, prices lose meaning, and IAP becomes unattractive. If sinks are too aggressive, the game feels pay-to-win and loses its audience. Our approach is numerical design pre-launch, not post-launch fixes based on feedback. Our team has experience with 10+ mobile game projects and 5 years in game design.
A well-tuned economy is invisible to the player. They don't think about balance — they think about what to buy next. We guarantee calculation accuracy using proven tools: Google Sheets with progression formulas and Machinations for simulation.
The Currency System as Foundation
Most mid-core games use a dual-currency architecture, but it's often implemented with flaws. A typical problem: overly generous soft currency sources.
The player earns 500 gold per level, but an upgrade costs 300. After a week, they have 50,000 gold, and they realize the in-game money is worthless. When offered 1,000 gold for $1.99, it feels absurd — they already have a full wallet.
Fixing this post-launch is extremely difficult: you can't just "make gold more expensive" — existing players will revolt. So balancing must be done before launch, on paper.
Designing Sources
Each resource source is classified by:
- Predictability: regular (daily login) vs. random (mob drop)
- Dependency on activity: active (level completion) vs. passive (farm, timer)
- Quantity: fixed vs. variable (with randomness)
To forecast the economy, we build a norm table: how much a player earns per day at casual, average, and hardcore activity levels.
| Scenario | Sessions per day | Gold/day | Spending/day | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casual | 1 (20 min) | 500 | 300 | +200 |
| Average | 3 (60 min) | 1500 | 1200 | +300 |
| Hardcore | 5+ (120 min) | 4000 | 3500 | +500 |
Sinks: Where Currency Goes
Rule: each currency type must have a regular and attractive sink. If soft currency is only spent on content that can be completed in two weeks, it becomes useless afterward.
Good sinks for soft currency:
- Upgrades with increasing costs (each level 1.5–2× more expensive than the previous)
- Consumables in constant demand (potions, ammo, energy)
- Daily rotating offers in the shop
Good sinks for hard currency:
- Timer skips
- Slot unlocks (inventory, construction queues)
- Exclusive content purchases (skins, units)
- Continue after defeat
How to Prevent Inflation in Game Economies?
Hard caps: a limit on the maximum amount of currency that can be held without IAP. For example, maximum 10,000 gold without a "wallet." Players who hit the cap must spend or buy storage expansion.
Limited-time events: events with exclusive rewards create temporary scarcity — players spend their hoarded currency on event content. Flash sales work on the same logic.
Decay mechanics: currency earned through passive sources (farm) stops accumulating after reaching capacity. This forces players to log in regularly and spend.
Numerical Design: Calculation Example
Let's say we have a match-3 game with levels. Parameters:
- Average level length: 2–3 minutes
- Average session: 20–25 minutes = 8–10 levels
- Lives: 5, recharge 1 life / 30 minutes
Gold sources per session (casual player):
- 8 levels × 50 gold = 400 for completion
- Daily bonus: 100 gold
- Total: ~500 gold per day
Sinks: extra lives via IAP or gold (150 gold = 1 life), booster (200 gold). If the player spends an average of 2 lives/day = 300 gold. Surplus: 200 gold/day — an additional sink or source reduction is needed.
After balancing, we add a "double drop on weekends" event — this doesn't break the economy but creates a reason to play more actively.
Why the Monetization Cliff Matters?
The monetization cliff is the point in the game where free progress sharply slows down and the player hits a wall. Either they pay, grind for hours, or leave.
The right approach is not a wall but a slope: progress without payment is possible, but payment makes it significantly more comfortable. The difference between "pay or suffer" and "pay or go slightly slower" is critical for long-term retention.
Designing the cliff requires knowing the progression curve: at what level does average difficulty exceed average player skill? That moment is a point of suggestion, not a wall.
Resource Economy in Strategies
In strategies (builder, 4X), the economy is more complex: multiple resource types with different production rates, dependencies, and timers.
A key tool is the resource matrix: a table where rows are resource types, columns are sources and sinks. For each cell: quantity, condition, frequency. This reveals imbalances before implementation.
Example: if wood and stone are gathered at the same rate, but stone is needed 3× more for upgrades, stone becomes a bottleneck. That's not necessarily bad, but it must be a deliberate design decision, not an accident.
Design Tools
We design economies in Google Sheets with progression formulas, not in our heads. Basic model: columns are days (1–30), rows are sources/sinks/balance for each currency type. Three scenarios: casual, average, hardcore.
For complex economies, we use Machinations — a visual language to simulate game economies without code.
What's Included in Economy Design
The deliverable includes:
- Currency system documentation: currency types, conversions, limits
- Source and sink table with 30-day simulation for three scenarios
- Progression curve with monetization points marked
- Description of anti-inflation mechanics
- Technical specification for developers
- Post-implementation consultation (up to 2 hours)
Our experience: 10+ projects for mobile games, 5 years in game design. We guarantee the economy will be balanced pre-launch and won't require emergency post-release fixes.
Work Stages
- Analyze genre and game mechanics — what the player does, what resources are needed for progress
- Design currency system: number of currencies, types, conversions
- Map sources and sinks with daily balance calculation
- Progression and monetization curve
- Anti-inflation mechanics
- Numerical models in a spreadsheet with 30-day simulation
- Technical specification for the development team
Design time for a basic economy: 3–5 days. Comprehensive multi-resource economy for strategy or RPG: 1–2 weeks. Cost is calculated based on scope and complexity. Contact us — we'll evaluate your project within one business day.