Game Economist Cast

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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

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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

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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

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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...

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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

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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. 

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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!

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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/

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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!

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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

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• 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.

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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.

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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 State of Gaming in 2024

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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’t seen!

[1] Getting ML-Based App Personalization Right: The Engagement Engineering Framework
[2] Price Promotions for “Freemium” App Monetization
[3] Why Free-to-Play Apps Can Ignore the Old Rules About Cutting Prices
[4] Quantity discounts on a virtual good: The results of a massive pricing experiment at King

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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.