Star Trek: Fleet Command is a big hit for Scopely.
Star Trek: Fleet Command is a big hit for Scopely.
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Balancing game economies is an art and a science

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 30 min

Game economies are a delicate thing. It doesn’t take much to break them. If players perceive a greedy cash grab by developers, as has happened with controversies around loot boxes, they may boycott the game. But if developers don’t price the items in a free-to-play game correctly, they may be stuck with escalating costs and insufficient revenue.

From Electronic Arts’ Star Wars Battlefront II to Blizzard’s Diablo III auction house to Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter, we’ve seen the consequences of failing to get this right.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.