Game Economic Designer

Game Economic Designer As a Game Economic Designer at HighStack, you are the architect of our digital ecosystem's monetary and behavioral flow. You don't just build paytables; you design the "invisible hand" that balances player excitement, long-term retention, and house sustainability. You will bridge the gap between high-fidelity iGaming mathematics (RTP, Volatility) and virtual macroeconomics, ensuring that every gold coin, crypto-bonus, and VIP tier interacts perfectly to create a thriving, non-exploitable gaming economy. Key Responsibilities Systemic Economy Design: Design and manage the end-to-end lifecycle of virtual resources (currency, experience points, boosters). Define how players earn, spend, and trade value within the HighStack ecosystem to ensure an optimal "faucet and sink" balance. Mathematical Modeling: Build complex models that simulate how game mechanics (Slots, Crash, Sportsbook) interact with meta-features like VIP levels and loyalty rewards. You ensure that as players progress, the economy remains challenging and rewarding without breaking the platform's net margin. Behavioral Balancing: Use player data and psychology to set numerical thresholds (prices, drop rates, level-up requirements). You adjust these values to optimize the player journey, ensuring the game is neither too "blocking" nor too inflationary. Economy Guardrails & Risk: Quantify the systemic impact of promos and crypto-linked bonuses. Design automated "throttles" and limits to protect the economy from hyper-inflation, bot farming, and bonus abuse while maintaining the "Provably Fair" integrity of the RNG. Validation & Simulation: Conduct multi-million-iteration Monte Carlo simulations to validate not just game-level RTP, but Session-level Effective RTP. Model "Whale" behavior and "Heater" scenarios to ensure the economy survives extreme volatility. Cross-Functional Technical Writing: Collaborate with Lead Game Designers and Product Managers to translate economic theories into technical specs. Produce robust documentation (Jupyter/PDF) that explains the "Why" behind the numbers for developers, investors, and regulators. Core Tech Stack Python/Jupyter: Primary for economic simulations, Monte Carlo modeling, and resource flow analysis. Excel/Google Sheets: For rapid economy balancing, pricing scales, and sensitivity "what-if" analysis. Data Visualization: Tools like Tableau, Looker, or Matplotlib to track real-time economic health and player spend patterns. Modern Workflow: Git for versioning math specs and LLM-assisted workflows for drafting economic logic and test cases. Required Skills & Experience 4+ Years in Quantitative Design: Background in game economy design, mathematical modeling, or tokenomics (ideally in iGaming, Free-to-Play, or Crypto-gaming). Systems Thinking: Ability to visualize and model how changing one variable (e.g., a 2% increase in a VIP rebate) ripples through the entire multi-game ecosystem. Statistical Mastery: Deep expertise in probability, stochastic processes, and heavy-tailed distributions. Market Fluency: Strong understanding of current gaming trends, player preferences, and the psychological drivers of "high-stakes" engagement. Communication: Proven ability to explain abstract economic trade-offs (e.g., "Player Value vs. Operator Margin") to non-technical stakeholders. Nice to Have Advanced Degree in Economics, Game Design, or Mathematics. Experience with Sportsbook Risk or market-making mechanics. Familiarity with Live-Ops—tuning a game economy in real-time based on live data. Pacifica Continental