Game Economist Cast

The podcast discusses the concept of game inflation and its impact on players, including their experiences with idle games. They explore the misunderstandings surrounding game inflation and the lack of steady state in game design. The speakers propose solutions like a staircase tax and emphasize the importance of understanding economic concepts in game design.

Bill Grosso, CEO of Game Data Pros, talks about price personalization at scale, community pushback, pricing power of brands, and the best things about game economists. They discuss challenges of regional and dynamic pricing in the gaming industry, optimizing game ecosystem, churn models, personalized treatments, and building a community of game data professionals.

Dr.Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, one of the world's first Game Economist, talks about the origin of EVE, his wins at CCP, the role of game economists, and the future of crypto in gaming.

Send us a textSomehow, the cast wrings another guest, David Nelson, the former VP of Experimentation at King. Christopher Kaczmarczyk-Smith runs a regression on negative price, while Eric Guan explains the economic dynamics of rewarded video - bots and all. The crew debates how to solve the F-99 monetization problem and checks out what the NEW Experimentation Group is up to.

Send us a textYou won’t want to miss this episode of Game Economist Cast.Guest! Finally! Dr.Julian Runge is here to add some much-needed seasoning to the regular crew, bringing the takes. We discuss the role of art, science, and academia, analytic organization structures, the role of flow in retention, the role of sales versus personalization, and the best theories of difficulty. We cover a lot of PUBLICLY published research in this episode (most by Dr.Runge!) that most industry venters haven’t seen![1] Getting ML-Based App Personalization Right: The Engagement Engineering Framework[2] Price Promotions for “Freemium” App Monetization[3] Why Free-to-Play Apps Can Ignore the Old Rules About Cutting Prices[4] Quantity discounts on a virtual good: The results of a massive pricing experiment at King

The podcast covers topics such as game economies, Pikmin as a complex strategy game, mobile games and gamification incentives, blockchain resource management game development, limitations of averages in tracking consumption patterns, employee leisure activities, and trading and crafting in digital card games.

Send us a textChris beguiles us with tales of Disc Golf, while Eric describes, in detail, the "fully modeled genitalia" of Baldur's Gate 3. Phil is too busy brushing up his Redditor voice which will surely get him canceled. The crew laments the declining utility of cosmetic economies but doubles down on the mechanics of emergent gameplay.

Send us a textEric brings us to the streets of Vegas for EVO while Phil finds solace in another hypercasual hit. Chris has a new metric for web3, and the crew laments inflation: it got ranked systems. The crew debates taking a bullet for millionaire execs who desperately need the help.

Send us a textChris takes another swing at mid-2010 gaming with an update on his Brawl Stars experience. Eric takes us to Vietnam for League of Legends game patching while Phil laments the very slow, not-so-fast F2P Revolution.  Battlebit made waves as a low-poly indie shooter at $15 -- should they have gone free-to-play?[1] Battlebit utilizes Low-Poly to beat Battlefield at their own game

Send us a textThe crew celebrates July 4th with a travel mishap, poor driving, and a lack of Sam Adams. Eric chooses Guile to explain Street Fighters' live service attempt, while Phil demands a blood oath from the crew. Chris is glued to ads and won't let go.