LiveOps Economy Checklist

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A live game's economy is never "done" — every content release quietly adds new currencies, sinks, rewards, and events, and each of those additions nudges the balance in some direction. Unlike a pre-launch checklist that gets worked through once, this one is built to be run again and again, ideally as a standing step in your release process. It pairs well with the wider set of checklists and worksheets if you want a deeper one-time audit alongside the recurring habit.

Pre-Release Economy Check

• Every new currency, material, or reward added in this release has at least one matching sink identified
• New faucets have been checked against existing sink capacity, not assumed to "balance out eventually"
• Any new reward's power level has been checked against power creep risk before it ships, not after players report it feels mandatory
• Reward pacing for this release has been compared against the previous two or three releases, not evaluated in isolation
• Anyone who missed the previous release can still catch up without the new content making that gap unbridgeable

Seasonal / Event Currency Isolation

• Every event currency has an explicit decision on whether it resets, expires, or persists after the event ends
• Event currencies that are meant to be temporary can't be converted into permanent economy value at a favorable rate
• Leftover event currency at expiration has a defined, documented fate — spent, converted, or forfeited
• Event currency exchange rates have been checked so they can't be used to bypass the permanent economy's intended pacing
• Players who skip the event entirely aren't left holding stranded currency from a partial run

Recurring Balance Cadence

• Currency inflow and outflow have been reviewed on a fixed schedule this cycle, not only because something looked broken
• A quick directional check has been run through the game economy health score as a lighter-weight pulse check between full audits
• Sink utilization is tracked release over release, so a sink quietly going unused gets caught early
• Any currency with a growing average player balance has been flagged for review, since accumulation usually means a missing or weak sink
• Balance changes from this release have an owner and a date for the next scheduled follow-up check

Event Fatigue Check

• A player can skip any single event without falling meaningfully behind peers who participated
• Event frequency for this quarter has been reviewed against player feedback and participation trends, not just the content calendar
• Back-to-back events don't require near-daily logins to avoid a hard progression penalty
• Rewards exclusive to one event don't create permanent power gaps for players who miss it
• Participation rates for recent events have been compared over time to catch early signs of fatigue before they show up in retention

Illustrative example A game adds a new seasonal currency for a two-week event and lets leftover currency convert into the permanent premium currency at a generous rate. Players stockpile it across several events, and by the third season the conversion has quietly inflated the permanent economy far more than any single release intended. Isolating the seasonal currency — or capping the conversion — is the kind of fix this checklist is meant to catch before it compounds.