March 27, 2026 will see the release of Playing with Balance: Game Economy Design, a major new work by veteran designer Oscar Clark, published by CRC Press. The book is already generating buzz across the industry for its deep, systems‑driven approach to one of game development’s most misunderstood disciplines: economy design.Clark argues that games are fundamentally different from every other medium because they are built on verbs, not nouns. Players don’t just consume—they act. Every decision, every interaction, every moment of friction or reward feeds into a living system that shapes how players feel, behave, and stay engaged.
