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Inflation in a game economy is the same idea as inflation in the real world: the amount of currency it takes to buy “a standard thing” goes up over time. Qyren measures this continuously and flags it when it crosses your comfort threshold.

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Definition

Inflation rate = percentage change in the effective price of a reference basket of items over a window. The “basket” is assembled automatically from your shop: a weighted mix of your most-purchased non-cosmetic items. You don’t configure it. It re-weights monthly. We report inflation as a monthly rate (annualized on the dashboard if you prefer).

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Healthy: under 5% per month

  • 0–2% per month. Stable. Players’ purchasing power is preserved; long-term planning feels meaningful.
  • 2–5% per month. Mild. Usually comes from content updates adding new high-tier items. Normal and not a problem.
  • 5–10% per month. Elevated. Something — a balance patch, a new faucet, a popular exploit — is leaking currency. Investigate.
  • Over 10% per month. High. At this rate, a player’s saved currency loses half its value every 7 months. Long-term players notice, and they resent it.

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What causes inflation

  1. Ratio below 1.0. The most common cause. More currency entering than leaving. See Sink-to-Source Ratio.
  2. Power creep. Each new tier of gear costs more than the last. If you always raise the ceiling but never the floor, the effective price of “a good item” rises.
  3. Duplication bugs or exploits. Rare but brutal. A currency duplication bug can push inflation past 50% in a week.
  4. Over-generous events. A double-XP + double-gold weekend done monthly becomes a baseline expectation. Players stop paying for what they can reliably farm.

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Consequences

  • Whale dissatisfaction. Whales are the first to notice when their stockpile loses meaning. They feel their past spending was “wasted.” Some churn, some just stop topping up.
  • Lower IAP conversion. Why buy 1,000 gems when gems are everywhere?
  • Balance pressure. You start having to price new items higher and higher just to keep them meaningful, which accelerates the problem.

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How Qyren reports it

On the Economy dashboard you’ll see:
  • Current rate (last 30 days).
  • Trend line over the last 6 months.
  • Contributors. A breakdown of which items/currencies are driving the change.
If inflation crosses 5%/month, a yellow alert fires. If it crosses 10%, a red alert fires and a recommendation appears in the Recommendations panel.

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What to do about it

Short answer: fix your sink-to-source ratio first. Inflation is almost always a downstream symptom of too much faucet. See Sink-to-Source Ratio → If your ratio is out of range. If the ratio is healthy but inflation is still rising, the culprit is usually power creep — you’re adding new high-tier items faster than old items leave circulation. Remedies:
  • Rotate out old content (time-limited vaulting).
  • Add consumables that permanently remove mid-tier items from player inventories.
  • Price new tiers at a multiple of the old top tier, not just “a bit more.”