A progression curve looks fine in a spreadsheet and feels wrong in the hands of a player. The gap between those two is where games lose people, so we try to close it before an update ships.
Players are not one player
We model a handful of personas: someone who plays a few minutes a day, someone who plays most evenings, someone who goes all-in. Each persona behaves differently: how often they play, how fast they earn, what they choose to spend on.
What a simulation tells us
Running the same economy and progression through each persona shows things a single average hides:
- where the casual curve flattens, and a player may stop feeling progress,
- where the hardcore curve runs out of things to do,
- where a reward arrives too early or too late for anyone.
We keep the runs, label them, and compare the latest against the previous. A change that helps one persona and hurts another is visible before it reaches a phone.
What it does not do
A simulation is a guess about behaviour, not proof. It cannot tell us whether something is fun. It tells us where to look, and where to ask players. Real feedback, from reviews and from our community, always has the last word.
The principle
Progress should feel earned and fair for every kind of player, not only the average one. Simulating first is how we check that before we ask anyone to trust us with their time.
