College Ultimate Team -Game Economist
ROLE
2026
YEAR
GENRE
Sports Simulation
PLATFORMS
Xbox, PlayStation, PC, Mac, Switch
DESCRIPTION
College Football 27 is the premier collegiate sports simulation game, where you return to the field to master an ever-evolving, high-stakes gridiron economy. With refined reward gauntlets and heavily optimized game modes, you must continuously adapt your strategy to build a dynasty of legendary players and crush the competition.
EVOS: DYNAMIC UPGRADE ECONOMY
My Role: As an Economy Designer for CFB27 Ultimate Team, I was instrumental in establishing the economic foundation and balancing the gameplay loops for "Evos," a brand-new dynamic player upgrade system.
Problem: Introducing a system that allows players to permanently upgrade their items poses a massive risk to the macro-economy. If upgrades are too cheap or too powerful, they accelerate power creep and devalue the storefront. The challenge was to make Evos highly desirable while strictly controlling their economic impact and pricing structure.
My Solution: I balanced the Evos system by intricately tying asset valuation to gameplay friction and economic sinks:
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Asset Valuation & Strength Balancing: I evaluated and established the precise power curves for Evo upgrades. By projecting the long-term meta, I determined exactly how much statistical strength an upgrade should provide, ensuring the new cards felt incredibly impactful without instantly rendering previous content obsolete.
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Strategic Pricing & Resource Sinks: I developed the overarching pricing strategy for unlocking Evo tiers. I calculated exact resource costs to ensure the system acted as a healthy, sustainable economic sink that successfully drained excess currency from the market while still feeling fair to the player.
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Designing Progression Objectives: I determined the specific gameplay objectives required to advance an Evo card. By balancing the time-to-completion against the economic value of the upgrade, I created satisfying progression hooks that drove deep, continuous engagement across various game modes.
Outcome: The Evos system launched as a massive success, introducing a highly engaging new "chase" mechanic to the ecosystem. By meticulously balancing the upgrade strength, objective friction, and unlock pricing, we created a powerful new resource sink that stabilized the market while giving players a deeply rewarding way to invest in their favorite items.
ECONOMY OVERHAUL & REBALANCING
My Role: As an Economy Designer for CFB27 Ultimate Team, my primary directive was to audit the predecessor's macro-economy, identify systemic inflation points, and execute a comprehensive rebalance of the entire game.
Problem: During the lifecycle of CFB26, certain game modes inadvertently yielded "coins per hour" (CPH) earn rates that were significantly higher than intended. These economy leaks accelerated inflation and devalued the broader market. The challenge for 27 was to plug these leaks and establish a sustainable baseline without making the new game feel unrewarding to returning players.
My Solution: I executed a top-to-bottom audit and rebalance of the game's reward payouts and economy sinks:
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Plugging Economy Leaks: I targeted the specific modes that caused inflation in the previous title, strictly reigning in their CPH metrics. By adjusting the payout formulas and tweaking reward distributions, I brought these outlier modes back in line with the intended macroeconomic baseline.
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Standardizing Earn Rates: I established a rigorous, mathematically sound "Coins Per Hour" target across the entire gamemode and reward ecosystem. I ensured that whether a player was grinding solo challenges or competing in head-to-head events, their time was rewarded equitably, preventing any single mode from cannibalizing the rest of the game.
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Rebuilding the Macro-Economy: Beyond just mitigating overperforming modes, I rebalanced the overarching cost of assets, pack pricing, and reward tables to match the newly stabilized earn rates, ensuring the entire economy felt cohesive and properly scaled from day one.
Outcome: The comprehensive rebalance successfully eliminated the inflationary leaks of the previous title. By strictly managing CPH metrics and standardizing earn rates across all game modes, we launched CFB27 with a highly stable, tightly controlled macro-economy that preserved the value of player time and storefront assets alike.
TWITCH DROPS & VIEWERSHIP INCENTIVES
My Role: As an Economy Designer for CFB27 Ultimate Team, I structured and balanced the overarching reward tracks for our Twitch Drops campaigns to drive community viewership and cross-platform engagement.
Problem: Promotional livestreams require high, sustained viewership to be successful, which means the in-game rewards tied to them must be highly desirable. However, injecting hundreds of thousands of highly desirable free assets into the game at the exact same time poses a massive risk of crashing the Ultimate Team market. The challenge was to maximize stream engagement without cannibalizing the in-game economy.
My Solution: I designed the Twitch Drop architecture to act as a powerful marketing funnel while implementing strict macroeconomic safeguards:
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Watch-Time Reward Pacing: I structured the reward tracks to escalate in value alongside viewer retention metrics. By placing the most coveted packs and items at specific watch-time milestones, I ensured the campaign sustained peak viewership for the entire duration of the broadcast.
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Market Protection & Valuation: To prevent a massive market crash from the sudden influx of free items, I meticulously balanced the secondary value of the drop rewards. By utilizing account-bound (BND) structures or strictly controlling quicksell values, I ensured the drops felt incredibly rewarding to the player without diluting the premium storefront or inflating the auction house.
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The Cross-Platform Funnel: I designed the contents of the drops to directly synergize with live in-game programs. Rather than just giving out random assets, the drops served as immediate progression hooks, heavily incentivizing viewers to log directly into the game to use their new items as soon as the stream ended.
Outcome: The Twitch Drops reward structure successfully incentivized massive, sustained community viewership for our promotional broadcasts. By carefully controlling asset valuation and pacing, we converted passive viewers into highly active players while completely protecting the stability of the overarching in-game market.
LIVE-OPS MONETIZATION & KPI TRACKING
My Role: As an Economy Designer for CFB27 Ultimate Team, I managed the day-to-day live-ops storefront, utilizing custom tools and continuous KPI analysis to optimize spend conversion and targeted offer engagement.
Problem: In a fast-paced live service, the storefront must constantly adapt to player behavior and the shifting meta. If premium offers are deployed blindly, they risk fatiguing the player base or failing to convert. The challenge was to utilize real-time telemetry to execute precise monetization strategies that felt valuable to the player at exact moments in their journey.
My Solution: I utilized data-driven experiments and rigorous KPI monitoring to optimize the live storefront architecture:
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Targeted Spend Conversion Experiments: I designed and analyzed highly specific monetization experiments (such as testing Standard versus Platinum configurations for Level 50 milestone packs) to isolate and optimize player spend habits at major progression moments.
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Precision KPI Tracking: By utilizing our suite of custom analytics tools, I continuously monitored daily engagement and spend conversion. This allowed us to target and consistently achieve highly specific performance benchmarks to forecast future revenue.
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Agile Storefront Operations: I synthesized this daily KPI data to continuously adapt the live store. By understanding exactly which reward structures and pack configurations drove the highest engagement, I was able to rapidly pivot our daily storefront offerings to maximize both player satisfaction and financial performance.
Outcome: This highly analytical approach to live-ops monetization ensured the storefront remained responsive, profitable, and aligned with player desires. By conducting precise, targeted experiments and rigorously tracking our conversion KPIs, we established a deeply optimized, data-driven daily commerce operation.