Game Economist Cast

Chuck E. Cheese is still alive, and so is the analytics-to-product pipeline. @Amanda Cesario analytics lead turned product leader, joins @Phillip Black, Eric, and @Christopher Kaczmarczyk-Smith argue for embedded analytics, sharper language, and game systems that actually produce cooperation instead of a cosplay community.
We discuss:
• The missing vocabulary for economy design in live service, and how it's harmed the entire industry
• Why office ball pits best start-up ping pong tables
• The analyst’s real job: explaining “why,” then realizing the only way to fix it is to own the lever
• Embedded analytics vs centralized service orgs; who beats who
• Roblox as a laboratory: aspirational visibility, server “neighborhoods,” and system norms that communicate more than art
• Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, Axelrod’s tournaments, and why tit-for-tat is a design principle
• Monopoly Go partner events as rare, genuine, cooperation-through-repeated-interaction design
• Why Discovery Zone died, but Chuck E. Cheese prints money anyway

Is fair matchmaking actually bad design? And how exactly did gaming companies fumble the bag when it came to the army of PhD psychologists they employ?
We talk:
• Sweepstakes, social casino, velocity, and why most players never cash out
• Why Wordle feels flat to some designers and why elegance is not the same as progression
• Surveys as UX, not truth machines, and how to extract signal without lying to yourself
• Compensating differentials, handicaps, and why 50 percent win rates kill progression
• Bots, deception, and whether games are magic shows or fraud

What happens when autobattlers fail to monetize? We pull Arto Huhta [https://x.com/ProofOfDork] into the cast to chat about Telegram’s pseudo-WeChat ambitions. Eric releases a distrack on Game Designer's obsessed social spaces, and Phil wants more blood from psychologists' nonsensical F2P "choice overload." Chris enleashes a model-meets-UGC experiment: a three-algorithm simulation that shows how recommendation systems distort consumer welfare and creator inequality. We discuss:
How Arto sees the split between economy design, product management, and classical economics (hint: it's not what you think)
Pets as permanent progression, and the design logic behind Nonstop Knight’s monetization turnaround
Why creator inequality explodes under bad reinforcement
A brewing debate on regulation that is just getting started...

Chapters 00:00 Journey to London: A Game Developer's Path 00:49 The Role of Economy Design in Gaming 01:20 From Academia to Game Development: Bridging the Gap 03:16 Experimentation in Game Design: Lessons Learned 05:22 The Intersection of Game Design and Economics 10:07 Understanding Game Development Roles 11:00 Monetization Strategies in Game Design 11:55 The Evolution of Publishing Models 12:42 Transitioning to Web 3: New Challenges 13:54 The Economics of Game Spending 18:27 Introduction to Game Economist Cast 19:06 Current Gaming Trends and Preferences 20:51 Game Modes and Player Engagement 22:03 The Future of Game Monetization 27:33 The Social Hub Experiment in Fighting Games 28:26 Street Fighter VI and Social Interaction 30:28 The Rise of HTML5 Games on Platforms 32:37 The Trend of Casual Games in Tech Companies 34:42 Telegram Games: A New Frontier 37:21 Challenges in Game Discovery on Telegram 38:52 User Engagement and Retention in Web3 Gaming 39:43 Consumer Welfare and Content Creation Dynamics 43:04 The Impact of Algorithms on User Experience 49:31 Heterogeneous Goods and Their Effects on Engagement 57:35 The Impact of Algorithms on Content Quality 59:04 Understanding Algorithmic Risks and User Retention 01:00:16 Exploring Algorithm Design in Gaming Platforms 01:01:54 The Role of User Choice in Content Discovery 01:04:29 The Future of Pricing Strategies in Free-to-Play Games 01:08:10 The Debate on Standardization and Market Forces

UGC is about to change forever. In the same way all technologies govern and enable the creative, MTX will do the same for Fortnite. Or will it? Alex Seropian (Look World North, The Forth Curtain) joins the cast to discuss UEFN's ability to enable creators to monetize islands directly. 
We discuss:
What new games will emerge with MTX?
Is UGC IP defensible? 
What exactly is the endgame for UGC studios?
What's the maximum a Roblox studio earns?
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to UEFN and Guest Background
03:48 UEFN's New Features and Developer Impact
07:22 Comparing UEFN with Roblox
10:23 The Future of IP in Gaming
17:47 Epic's Strategic Vision and Development Tools
21:04 The Evolution of UGC Platforms
22:53 Challenges in User-Generated Content
26:27 Monetization Models in Gaming
28:01 The Joy of Game Development
30:46 The Future of Fortnite's Economy
39:16 China's Role in UGC Development
41:40 Feedback Loops in Game Development

Eric Seufert joins to dissect AI hype, marginal ROAS, Jeremy Bentham's legacy, and managing a multi-million-dollar marketing budget that falls empirically short. WE discuss:
How do you evaluate an “AI startup” in 90 seconds without being duped?
Can LLM-driven hypothesis testing replace the Monday creative meeting and outperform it?
If marginal ROAS is the real constraint, why do teams still optimize to averages?
When should a Battlefield-scale launch actually spend less on day one and wait two weeks?
Why did free-to-play economics conquer games but stall on platforms like Twitch or Spotify?
Will AI-driven volatility make electricity markets funky?