The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra's community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. The making of a good game involves the collaboration of a few teams: artists that create look & feel, game designers that come up with mechanics and narrative, programmers & QA that provide bug-free code. Balancing the game is key for the whole thing to work—and ideally, it should be done by a Game Economy Designer, who balances all numerical indicators in the game, ties them to each other, and, if necessary, works on monetization. In spite of the fact that in small companies creation of the game economy often becomes a responsibility of a game designer, economic expertise is extremely important for balancing: it allows to see the big picture, draw parallels with real life utilizing various scientific methodologies.

Thanks to some emergent issues with Planet Zoo's in-game market system, new players are finding themselves trapped in an unending cycle of warthogs.