Send us a text Yat Siu , Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Animoca Brands, steps cast to defend Web3 against @Eric and @Phil’s vigorous skepticism. @Chris just want to know why gamers don’t get it. Is Web2 fundamentally incapable of grasping the promise of open markets? What is and should be promised to token holders? We discuss: Laying down Web3’s steelman case Why the West still doesn't get Web3 like the East Examining the original token sin, where did it all go wrong? Do digital property r...
Jun 16, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Send us a text Pokémon's patent of spherical objects throwing of cartoon creatures threatens Palword's lifeblood, while Tim Sweeney has lifted, at least a percentage point, in total gaming GDP with its injunction success. How does Apple's rent-seeking rate change in the face of this ruling? Should Apple lower its rate to 15%, like it did in subscriptions? Remember, it faced competition primarily from "webstores" too. We premier a new segment: SOLVE that for EQUILIBRIUM. We discuss the marginal *...
May 12, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Send us a text What is the GDP-maximizing set of copyright protections? 10 years? 5 years? None at all? Chris, Eric, and I debate the relevance of patents and copyright protections and the gains to network effects of knowledge. Does the "gentlemen's agreement" to avoid patent protections on game design help or hurt the industry? Chris talks about Monster Hunter's lineage and woeful service, while Eric introduces a novel use of AI in game design. Phil believes the Gini coefficient is underutilize...
Apr 21, 2025•39 min
Send us a text Phillip & Eric navigate the strangely subdued landscape of GDC 2025, pondering if there really is such a thing as a free lunch. Chris dials in, wondering if his absence is secretly the key to Eric's roundtable success. They dissect the talks, the conference economics, the rise of mobile's respectability, and a guest in economy designer, Charlie Hsu. In this episode: Is the game industry actually shrinking, or just taking a nap? And if Web3 isn't the savior, what's left besides...
Apr 06, 2025•36 min
Send us a text The best tech firm experimentation seems to offer thousands of button color experiments. Dr.Runge has a better approach, which changes at every game development stage. We debate gaming's broken relationship with science, the proper experimentation framework, and how much you'd bet on yourself to complete Cousera assignments. Read Dr.Runge's new paper NOW! Showlinks: Julian Runge Gaming Companies Run Thousands of Experiments a Year Game Data Pros How to use games to build relations...
Mar 03, 2025•1 hr 12 min
Send us a text Pokémon TCG Pocket is one of a handful of games to implement P2P trading on mobile. Yet it sucks. On purpose. As @Eric explains, their game economy needs high sinks to combat hourly sourcing of card packs. Without the nearly 80% trading tax, prices would tend toward $0. However, that's secondary to a UX that is so gimped it makes Friend Codes look seamless by comparison. We deconstruct Matthew Ball's new State of Gaming report slide by slide (or at least curated slides.) @Chris th...
Feb 10, 2025•1 hr 14 min
Send us a text Loot boxes have all the markings of a moral panic. Dr.McCaffrey reviewed the emerging literature, and like the research on video game violence, it's destined for methodological malfunction. We discuss why everything isn't a loot box, the apathetic interest of economists in games, what George R.R. Martin's economic equilibrium teaches us, and how to get more people interested in economics. Follow Dr.McCaffrey on Twitter [1] , see him on video games [2] , and read his loot box and A...
Jan 19, 2025•1 hr 23 min
Send us a text Is game balance bullshit? The crew goes toe-to-toe debating Sirland’s Don't Use Math in Balancing Games . Chris emerges from his Roblox hibernation, Eric tells us Street Fighter is more accessible than platform fighters, and Phil goes bonanza for All in Hole.
Dec 01, 2024•1 hr 21 min
Send us a text Anti-cheat economics, web3 property rights, Deirdre McCloskey, institutional incentives, Halo UGC, and the if single player games have a natural advantage outside the West. Oh my. Dr.Jason Arentz finally guest stars, and he's bringing the econ juice, finally striking a 50/50 web3 split on the case. Zynga Car Price Experiment: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/zynga-apologizes-for-random-dlc-pricing-experiment...
Nov 04, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Send us a text Economist Dr.Peter G. Klein joins the cast to discuss Why Managers Matter: The Perils of the Bossless Company . We debate Valve's organizational structure, the evidence for manager economic impact, and Sweden's success. Read more about Dr.Klein here and find his book below: https://hankamer.baylor.edu/person/peter-g-klein-0 https://www.amazon.com/Why-Managers-Matter-Bossless-Company/dp/1541751043/ 15:37 Why Managers Matter 22:29 CEOs 35:22 Valve...
Oct 20, 2024•56 min
Send us a text Phil and Chris return from Asia, and it's gachupon from here in-out. Eric talks vertical progression in single player games, while Chris actually agree on the future of web 2.5. The economics of unions weigh heavily: within or between professions? The crew finally makes it to THE KING PAPER; Eric and Chris make surprising revalation. Quantity discounts on a virtual good: The results of a massive pricing experiment at King Digital Entertainment...
Oct 06, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Send us a text Eric develops an economic model to explore or exploit game development decisions, while Phil wants a block-grant style gate process to align incentives. Chris is back at Marvel Snap, and boogies with some new social casino mechanics. The team reviews a new Call of Duty matchmaking paper with some surprising and revealing data...
Sep 15, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Send us a text Can a stick of butter keep you sober during high-stakes diplomatic meetings? Eric is sure to tell us. Chris provides a compelling theory for the death of mods, while Phil undergoes a Supercell detox after analyzing Squad Buster's launch. The crew gets back in touch with their microeconomic selves and looks at one of the most interesting explanations for the gender pay gap. ONE COHORT AT A TIME: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THE DECLINING GENDER PAY GAP...
Jul 14, 2024•1 hr 17 min
Send us a text Play to earn hits Steam, and the crew is here to dissect the phenomenon. Why now, and why bananas? Phil is back into the economics of social casinos, while Chris develops a progression model for Darts. Eric and Phil debate the externalities of bots, while Chris solves for equilibrium.
Jul 01, 2024•58 min
Send us a text The crew convenes to square off on....what counts as a store of value? Is Match3 the best game economy of all time? Is progression a wage rate? Will Chris buy digital Gloomhaven? Was Eric among the five people who watched Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire? Will Phil get the crew on a regular posting schedule? E27 IS HERE!
Jun 09, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Send us a text Phil gets Eric pilled into a trio of roguelikes, where we prime the pump for Squad Buster's eventual shake-up of the genre. Chris ran another NFT sale and lived to tell about it. We Snap our fingers for Eric's take on Snap's doubling cube mechanic. Should all ranked systems use it? Should the bet limit expand to infinity? We conclude with a discussion of Eurovision's political economy. https://ericguan.substack.com/ https://chriseconomics.substack.com/...
May 19, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Send us a text Dr. Sam Rosen of Temple University finally unleashes the Veblen Goods model for which every Game Economist yearns. We discuss: Why don't sold-out artists raise ticket prices? Why do NFT projects go boom or bust? Should auction-based goods mask demand for their products? What types of Pokémon are optimal for collecting in Go? Dr.Rosen's paper , co-authored with Dr.Anthony Lee Zhang & Sebeom Oh , is out now!...
Apr 28, 2024•57 min
Send us a text Eric reminds us that The Wizard of Oz is a heated monetarism debate, while Chris goes six layers deep on enforcing royalties. Phil thinks Warzone Mobile is a good executive Powerpoint math muddled with poor execution, but good economics secured him Taylor Swift tickets. Subscribe to Chris' Substack and Eric's Substack Limit Break's New ERC standard...
Apr 13, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Send us a text Eric Guan on the economics of the video game job market Phillip Black on why big gaming co. employees are frustrated Dr. Julian Runge build a theory of persona and personalization in an Uber to the airport Christopher Kaczmarczyk-Smith solve for the missing web3 UGC game Plus, a GEC After Hours on the state of San Francisco....
Mar 26, 2024•50 min
Send us a text Matthew Melnyk joins the crew to finally tell us what's social about social casinos. Eric discovers a genre outside of CCG roguelikes...Psych, this time, it's Cobalt Core. Chris bends the supply survey backward to explain progression windfalls, while Phil tries to connect the dots between leaderboards and auction systems....
Mar 11, 2024•52 min
Send us a text No Palword take is too late; something is not lost on the Game Economist Cast crew. Eric beguiles us with Cassette Beasts' analysis, while Chris reminds us of web3's oft-forgotten but newly popular Airdrop mechanics. Bonk? Phil can't get over the post-COVID decline in weekly gaming hours, but Eric cooks on a theory that a growing leisure pie might save us all. [1] Sub to Eric and Chris's Substack! [2] It's a bubble, it's a market, it's an Airdop! [3] The Tremendous Yet Troubled St...
Feb 20, 2024•1 hr 15 min
Send us a text Eric starts 2024 with a new paper on League of Legends published by leading researchers. Is there an optimal amount of excitement in matches, and if so, where is it? Chris returns from Italy, and holy cannoli, did he have a "time" while Phil laments subscription-based pricing as the antithesis of game monetization. The crew agrees to spend money on Magic The Gathering this year....
Jan 22, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Send us a text Inflation is a wild word, with everyone playing fast and loose with the definition of in-game economies. Eric isn't convinced inflation is the evil Friedman claims it is, while Chris defends the honor of game tokens from Phil's stablecoin inquisition. The crew debates the meaning of game inflation: in what units and for whom? The answer is not as clear as first thought.
Dec 10, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Send us a text Price discrimination is the economist "duh," yet few firms engage in the *welfare* enhancing practice. What's with that? Dr. Bill Grosso , CEO of Game Data Pros, joins the crew to tell us that sometimes it's just about more columns in the database... We cover his efforts to build price personalization at scale, community pushback, the pricing power of brands, and the best things about game economists. [1] A two-armed bandit theory of market pricing...
Nov 26, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Send us a text It's finally here...the EVE episode. The crew speaks to one of the world's first Game Economist, Dr.Gudmundsson , who helped manage and advise on one of gaming's most durable and well-known game economies...ever. We cover the origin of E.V.E. (a simulation!?), his biggest wins at CCP, the role of game economists, and if crypto has a future....
Nov 13, 2023•1 hr 8 min
Send us a text Somehow, 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....
Oct 30, 2023•1 hr 16 min
Send us a text You 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’...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 20 min
Send us a text Chris wants to close the loop on game economies, while Eric compares Pikmin to Marx's Labor Theory of Value. Phil thinks Hawked is the next evolution of extraction shooter but doesn't understand why Indiana Jones needs to be involved. The American Time Use Survey is in, and... surprise, the crew plays Magic but can't decide to dust or auction cards.
Sep 10, 2023•1 hr 17 min
Send us a text Chris 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.
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 22 min
Send us a text Eric 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.
Aug 13, 2023•1 hr 10 min
