OUT NOW. Game Economy Design: Metagame, Monetization And LiveOps: is a new textbook exploring how to design, implement and deliver a viable and successful economy within videogames written by Scottish author Charles Lees-Czerkawski.
The book provides a comprehensive overview of all aspects of game economy design. It begins with a high-level overview of the key challenges and goals, then over subsequent chapters breaks these down into actionable design and development decisions to create a manageable, practical, long-term game economy – and metagame experience.
Game Economy Design also provides insight into associated practices and adjacent roles including business models, monetisation and Live Operations (LiveOps).
The book contains step-by-step processes with best practices and examples, with content written from an empirical standpoint. Readers will gain insights into the components that must come together to form a game economy, how these components are then utilised to shape a metagame experience as well as how and where monetisation should be integrated into this.
The book considers the entire life cycle of the game economy from initial design decisions, through to post-launch LiveOps maintenance.
Game Economy Design has been written to appeal to all game design professionals and students of game design who wish to gain a deeper understanding of how to develop game economies and create financially successful videogames in 2024 and beyond.
About The Author
Charlie is an Abertay Graduate and one of the co-founders of Dundee studio Guerilla Tea, which existed from 2011 to 2017 and worked on games including Incandescence, Genes In Space, MIND, The Quest, Staking Claims and many more. Most recently, Charlie’s career has taken him around Europe, focusing on larger projects including the hit mobile game, Shadowgun Legends.
Author Charles Lees-Czerkawski, told the Scottish Games Network:
Game economy design is an emerging specialisation within game design, and something which comes with its fair share of misconceptions. It is a field which has attained significant importance with the rise of Games-as-a-Service, along with the Free-to-Play business model. For the past few years, I have structured the knowledge and experience I have gained over my career to date and put this on paper.
It feels incredible to see my book, “Game Economy Design: Metagame, Monetization and Live Operations” released; and published by CRC Press. The book covers the core components of game economy design, from high-level planning, through to lower-level design techniques and methods for post-launch development, along with monetisation.
A key aspect of the book involves a practical approach, beyond purely theoretical knowledge, with empirical examples, and insights into the realities of building metagame and economy systems within modern video games.
Thank you to my editor Will Bateman, Matt Zanetti for the cover design and help with diagrams, Tobias Sjögren for the foreword, and Heikki Joas for introducing me to this fascinating field. This book has been a labour of love, and I am delighted to get it into the hands of readers!
Buy The Book
Game Economy Design: Metagame, Monetisation And Live Operations is available from Routledge in hardback, paperback and e-book editions. Find out more and buy it here.