TEST Builded upon the publication of the Machinations Manifesto for Building Sustainable Game Economies, the recording of our GDC talk is now available for viewing on the GDC Vault. If you missed our talk at GDC or want to revisit the insights we shared, be sure to check out the recording. You can also access …

The way we play video games has undergone a massive shift in recent years. No longer are games static, one-time experiences that we play through and then put away. Instead, games have become ongoing services, with developers providing regular updates, new content releases, and ongoing support long after the initial release. As a result, Live …

In less than a decade, the video gaming industry has undergone a radical transformation. The web3 gaming revolution is now in full swing, with developers harnessing the power of blockchain technology to create new experiences that are redefining what it means to game.  And while this new model holds a great deal of promise, this …

The Citadel is a Web3 2D multiplayer space exploration strategy game that takes place in a persistent world on the Ethereum blockchain. Earlier this year, the game devs teamed up with Machinations, to model and assess their game economy design and after a few months of testing and model iterations, The Citadel became the first …

When the economy or progression system of a single-player premium game is out of balance, it has a direct impact on player experience. In the case of Free 2 Play games, having a bad game economy impacts the chances of players spending money or watching ads. ​ With the rise of Play 2 Earn games, …

As players engage with your game, they gain and consume assets (XP, currencies, items, etc.). Game economy design handles the crafting and balancing of these game systems to translate player engagement into monetization opportunities and embeds them into the core gameplay loop. There are two purposes for game economies. One is to provide players with …

Recent gaming history has been littered with examples of triple-A games being released well before they are ready. Huge releases from major studios and developers such as Anthem, Cyberpunk 2077, and Fallout 76 have all been released to the public as buggy or highly unbalanced messes. These releases were followed by the predictable fallout as …

The idea of a game that essentially plays itself might not sound like the most entertaining thing, but since its inception in 2016, the idle game genre has grown hugely in popularity. In this article, we’ll be breaking down exactly what an idle game is and what constitutes the basic building blocks of its game …

Virtual economies have become a feature of an increasingly large number of modern games and, like any other economy, the in-game ones need to deal with economic factors like inflation. Handled correctly, inflation can actually be beneficial to your game. Handled incorrectly, however, runaway inflation can turn your game into the virtual version of Hungary …