Selected game economy models
A game economy diagram shows how a game creates, spends and removes its resources: currency, experience, materials, items and time. These seven public diagrams from the Machinations Community each model a different kind of economy, from a cooking game's upgrade currency to a 700-component crafting and combat system.
They are published by their authors and we write about each one from its name, description and size. Each one is embedded, so you can Play it here, and each one also opens on its own page.
Currency and Upgrading
Currency and Upgrading models the money loop of a cooking-themed mobile game. Players earn Chef Coins, plus tokens tied to individual restaurants such as Burger Diner, Sushi Showdown and Happy Hour, and spend them to unlock kitchen levels and buy kitchen upgrades. Because every step of the cycle (earn, spend, reinvest) sits in one diagram of 181 components, it shows how a single upgrade decision changes how soon the next one arrives. Gates give outcomes a probability, the way chance-based wins and rewards work in the real game, and pools track experience points, player level and matches played. Press Play in the embed to watch coins accumulate and trigger upgrades.
Game Economy 101
Game Economy 101 is a gather, craft and sell loop. Players harvest resources such as wood and stone, process them in facilities like a furnace and a carpentry workshop, and turn the output into items that can be leveled up or sold for currency. The three questions behind any economy are visible at a glance: how much material comes in from gathering, how much value the converters add, and how much currency is earned when items are sold. Pools store the stock of each resource and each item level, and registers calculate the result of every conversion, so changing one rate shows up everywhere downstream. It is a readable place to see sources, converters and sales working together in one model.
Hearthstone Battlegrounds Economy Simulator
This diagram models the shopping economy of Hearthstone Battlegrounds, where gold buys cards and tier upgrades during a turn. The author splits it into three stages. In the trade stage you press Buy card, Sell card or Roll, and two pools show the cards in hand and the gold in the Gold Wallet. In the tier-up stage you press Tier-up or Free Tier upgrade, with pools for the Tier-up cost and the Current Tier level. A third stage holds the New Turn button and a Turn Counter pool. What makes it useful to designers is the clear separation of player actions (the buttons) from the state they change (the pools), which keeps the economy easy to follow and easy to adapt.
Open Hearthstone Battlegrounds Economy Simulator on its own page
Frostpunk Economics
Frostpunk Economics borrows the survival loop of a city in a frozen wasteland and turns it into flows. Fifty residents are given fixed jobs: coal workers keep a heater burning, wood workers fill the wood store, hunters bring raw food and cooks turn it into rations in a cookhouse. Every day the residents need half their number in rations, and when the cookhouse cannot keep up, starvation takes one resident a day. Registers hold the size of each crew and work out how much food the city needs, so you can see how one job's numbers decide how many people the city can support. Press Play to watch the population fall from 50 until the 15 rations cooked each day feed everyone, at about 31 residents.
Kaiju Kingz Economy by RibbonAx
Kaiju Kingz Economy by RibbonAx models a game economy around creatures that produce currency. Mutant, Baby and Genesis Kaiju are sources of two resources, $RWASTE and $SCALE, which collect in pools and are spent on upgrading Kaiju, creating DNA through a converter, or dealing with outside parties such as Scientists, a DEX/LP and a Merch Store. Gates make outcomes depend on the success rate of DNA creation and on Kaiju upgrade tiers, either deterministically or at random. A Risk Protocol lets Scientists claim a fraction of the resources from failed activities, and Baby Kaiju can be bred. Open it to see a two-token economy in which failure has a cost.
Games: F2P Mobile Battle-Royalesque Full Meta Economy
This diagram models the full meta-economy of a free-to-play, battle-royale-style mobile game. Players buy gems through in-app purchases, buy a VIP pass, watch ads for extra rewards and play rounds that grant XP. Chance gates represent the probability that a prompted player actually buys, and registers add up revenue from purchases and ads to estimate average revenue per paying user and lifetime value. The description points out one loop in particular: playing games leads to ad views and purchase prompts, which in turn raise total revenue. XP gains drive levels, and levels drive the bonuses and VIP benefits. It is the model to open if you want to see monetization and progression tied to the same numbers.
Open Games: F2P Mobile Battle-Royalesque Full Meta Economy on its own page
Crafting, Dismantle, ShopSystem, Combat System
At 700 components, Crafting, Dismantle, ShopSystem, Combat System is a big model that joins four systems: a shop where player and merchant banks exchange resources, a crafting system, a dismantling system and pet battles. Resources come in four colors: Energy, Limbs, Flesh and Sense. Players buy materials to craft domestic animals (Cats, Dogs, Parrots, GoldenFish and Iguanas) and stronger ones such as Lions and Bears, then disassemble them to recover materials. Battles pit chosen animals in battle slots against an enemy, with registers and state connections working out attack, health and the effect on the player's resources. Open it to see how a craft-and-recycle economy can be tied to a combat loop.
Open Crafting, Dismantle, ShopSystem, Combat System on its own page
How to model a game economy in Machinations
A game economy is made of resources and the rules that create, convert, spend and remove them. In Machinations each rule is a node: Sources create currency and materials, Pools hold balances, Converters and Traders exchange one resource for another, and Drains remove resources, the sinks that stop a balance from growing forever. Gates add chance, such as drop rates, and Registers calculate values like revenue or cost.
Build the loop for one currency first, Play it for many steps, and chart the pool you care about to see whether it settles or runs away. Then add the next currency.
In the docs: Sources, Pools, Drains, Converters and Traders, Gates, Charts.
In the glossary: Supply and demand, Shortage and surplus, Relative value.
In the articles: What is game economy design, What is game economy inflation, Game economy design in free-to-play games.
In solutions: Game economy design and balancing, Game economy designers, Free-to-play economies.
Frequently asked questions
What is a game economy diagram?
A game economy diagram is a model of how a game creates, moves and removes its resources, such as coins, gems, XP, items and time. Drawn in Machinations it is also something you can Play: the numbers change step by step, so you can see whether a currency piles up, runs out or stays in balance.
What are sources and sinks in a game economy?
A source adds resources to the economy, for example coins earned by finishing a level. A sink removes them, for example a shop price or a repair cost. A healthy economy balances the two. In Machinations sources are Source nodes and sinks are Drains, and Converters and Traders sit between them to exchange one resource for another.
How do I find out whether an economy will inflate?
Play the model for many steps and chart the pool that holds the currency from the Play bar. A balance that keeps climbing faster than players can spend it points to inflation. Add or strengthen a sink, Play again and compare the two charts.
Are these the real economies of the games they are named after?
No. Some are fan models of published games, such as Hearthstone Battlegrounds and Frostpunk, built by Community members from public information. They are useful for learning how an economy is structured, but they are not the studios' own data.
Can I copy one of these diagrams and change it?
Yes. Every diagram on this page is a public Community diagram. Open its page, sign in and remix it to copy it into your own account, then change it without affecting the original.
More selected models
Build your own game economy
Describe the economy you have in mind or draw it, then Play it and watch how the resources move.