We are looking for an experienced Economy & Balancing Game Designer who can design, model, and tune the economies, progression, and reward systems of casual HTML5 games played by millions of people worldwide.
As part of one of our multidisciplinary game development teams, you will design, model, balance, test, and iterate game economies from early concept through live operations. You understand that a great casual game economy is not just โgenerousโ or โtightโ: it paces progression, makes every reward feel earned, gives every purchase a clear purpose, and stays healthy for years.
About CoolGames
At CoolGames, weโre proud to be a leading international HTML5 game studio, working with some of the worldโs biggest โBig Techโ game platforms, such as Netflix, Discord, Facebook and Microsoft Play. We also work with famous games IP such as Battleship, Angry Birds and Monopoly.
CoolGames is part of Keesing, the worldโs largest Braintainment company. Keesing is a financially strong publisher of engaging sudokus, crosswords and many other puzzles & games with a presence in over 20 countries headquartered in The Netherlands.
With the CoolGames HQ in Amsterdam, supported by our global remote teams, we offer market-competitive salaries, the chance to contribute to successful casual games that are played by millions and work directly with some of the biggest brands in the world. We believe in creativity, collaboration and delivering world-class gaming experiences, while giving you the choice to either join our Amsterdam studio or become part of our remote teams.
If you want to grow your career in a profitable, internationally recognized company, work closely with world-famous partners and be part of a highly professional international team, CoolGames is the right place for you.
About the role
As an Economy & Balancing Game Designer at CoolGames, you take ownership of the economies inside our casual games: the sources, sinks, progression, and reward systems that decide how players earn, spend, and advance. You will design systems that are fun, fair, understandable, and commercially effective. And you own the outcome: not just the analysis behind the numbers, but the retention and revenue they produce.
You will be part of a multidisciplinary agile team. Together, you will work on new titles, improve existing live games, and help shape the models, tools, and processes that make good economy design scalable across our portfolio. Because our games run on a range of platforms with different monetization models, you know how to make an economy work whether it is driven by in-app purchases, ads, or a subscription platform.
On new games you are involved from the very first design sessions, so that the economy, its sinks, and its progression are designed in from the start rather than balanced after the game has been built. On live games you take the economy apart per title, in enough depth to say what a change will do before it ships, and you model and simulate that change rather than shipping it and reading the result afterwards.
You are comfortable working both creatively and analytically. You can feel when a progression curve or a reward loop is right, but you also know how to validate that instinct through models, simulations, A/B tests, and player data.
About You
You are proactive and thrive on taking ownership and responsibility. You care deeply about how players feel when they play, and you know that a healthy economy and a great player experience are the same goal, not a trade-off. You know how to design systems that motivate without manipulating, monetize without frustrating, and reward without devaluing progress.
If you are:
- An experienced Economy, Systems or Balancing Game Designer
- Ready to work on long-lasting casual titles, and to move between them when needed
- A strong believer in teamwork
- Are not afraid of innovation and learning new tools on the go
Then you are on the right track to be a great match with Coolgames.
Responsibilities
- Design and balance the economy, progression, and reward systems of our casual games, from the first design sessions of a new title through live operations
- Own the revenue outcome of the economies you design
- Build and maintain the economy models, balancing sheets, and simulations for each title, in enough depth to say what a change will do before it ships.
- Use player data and A/B tests to find friction points, progression bottlenecks, and monetization opportunities, and to show, with data, where balancing proposals from game and level designers will take retention and revenue.
- Design motivation loops and a cohesive ecosystem of LiveOps events that work together rather than compete for player attention
- Communicate design rationale, trade-offs, and recommendations clearly to the team and the studio, and take ownership of a titleโs economy when moving between projects.
- Research how comparable games in our genres structure, pace, and price their economies, and keep that as the reference we balance and price against.
Requirements
- 5+ years designing, balancing, and operating the economies of successful, released free-to-play games on mobile and/or HTML5, including casual or puzzle titles.
- Comfortable being accountable for a titleโs KPIs: you make and defend decisions
- Advanced spreadsheet and modeling skills: balancing, simulation, and forecasting models, and fluent use of AI tools to build and analyze them faster.
- Strong analytical mindset: you design and evaluate data, translating it into concrete design changes.
- Deep understanding of player motivation, retention mechanics, LiveOps, and monetization design, and the empathy to feel what our casual audience will and wonโt accept.
- Independent and proactive, quick to get up to speed on a new game and its audience, with excellent English and experience working in remote, multidisciplinary teams.
- A habit of benchmarking: you know the economies of the leading games in our genres well enough to say where ours sits against them.
What we can offer you
- An international team of 80+ professionals from almost 20 different countries;
- Work closely with some of the biggest upcoming game platforms in the world on high-quality casual games that are played by millions of players;
- Competitive remuneration;
- A flexible remote working environment;
- A very open, informal, and international company culture where everyone can make a difference.
Apply
Do you love building game economies that players find fair, motivating, and worth investing in, and that stay healthy for years?
Then we would love to hear from you. Please include your CV and, where possible, a portfolio, economy models or balancing sheets, shipped games, design documents, or examples that show how you think about progression, monetization, and player experience.
