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Hey everyone since the update in GTA this newest heist has been the most profitable and easiest way to make money. So I wanted to create a guide to help others master this heist, and to help those who are struggling with it.
Note: This guide is for new players, first timers, and anyone who is struggling to complete this heist. Please use this as reference to deepen your understanding of the heist. If you have a better strat, more power to you. This however is my strat, criticism is welcome.
So to begin, you will have to buy the Kosatka (submarine), which is located on warstock for 2.2mil. It also has upgrades you can buy but the most noteworthy upgrade is definitely the Sparrow upgrade (1.8mil) this upgrade will make traveling back and forth much easier since your sub is located in the sea.
Noteworthy things about sub:

• If you hover above your sub with a sparrow you can instantly enter it.
• You can get free snacks at the cafeteria
• You can fast travel; if you never completed the heist its 10k, after completion its 2k
• Your toreador vehicle can enter through the bottom
• You can call dingy if you can not afford the sparrow

After you get the sub you’ll be introduced to characters and will have to go to LSIA, where you will travel to Cayo Perico, after you arrive everything henceforth is pretty straightforward. After you escape the party you will have to enter the main island through the checkpoint ( Google Boom Gate), PLEASE DO NOT SWIM AROUND THE ISLAND. You will waste so much time doing so, just run through the gated door next to the checkpoint and avoid entering enemy cones, watch for vehicles and watchtower cones. The biggest things to scope out are the infiltration points and exfil points; the airport strip is already marked, the biggest point to scope out after you hack the cameras is the drainage tunnel. This will require swimming, the drainage tunnel is located on the coast of El Rubio’s compound you can dive and find it, Pavel will give you a vocal cue when you find it. When you are looking through cameras after hacking make sure to cycle through every camera, turning to find secondary points, stop until you get back to the Panther Cage. Don’t bother scoping anything else like bolt cutter’s or grappling hooks, because you will not need them. I added a map of Cayo Perico to show where everything is, please note that there are many ways to do this heist this is just my way of doing so. After you found the drainage tunnel and finished your objective, get caught and make your way to the airport strip to leave. Also note there are different Primary targets the first time will always be the files the second will vary, look in the tips for scoping out to see the rankings.
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Credit to Sportskeeda
Tips for Scoping out

• On your second time doing the heist you will start at the air strip. There are 2 dirt bikes located at the strip one by the entrance to the strip and one by the solar panels next to the power station. You can take the bikes and drive up and over the checkpoint to get to the communications tower faster. At the checkpoint to the left there's a little stone wall in front of the guards tower. You can drive the bike up the ledge and get over it, for a quicker way you can also drive the bike up the ledge a little bit in front of the wall to also get over.
• If you solo, scope out any important secondary point. There's a secondary point in the airstrip hangar, at the entrance of the hangar look right to see the box you can climb, use this to get to the second floor to get the secondary point. (To clarify check the targets spawns and only mark coke and weed; do not mark weed at the strip and north dock only coke, mark weed at the main dock)
• When you are heading to the communications tower to hack, pay attention to the guard, if there is a guard, the box is located up the tower, if there is no guard it's on ground level.
• You can kill yourself or get caught to go back to the airstrip.
• You can also poison the guards water supply to weaken them but unless you're going aggressive don’t bother.
• There are boats out in water you can steal but I would only do this to scope out the drainage tunnel the first time.
• You only need to scope infiltration points and exfils points once, secondary targets and tools must be scoped out every time.
• Secondary targets and tools are RNG based so if you're looking for tool and it’s not there it’s because of RNG
• Secondary Targets Rank: Gold>Cocaine>Paintings>Weed>Cash
• These also will fill your bag different
• Gold=66% Cocaine=50% Paintings=50% Weed=37.5% Cash=25%
• The price for secondary targets are RNG based but Gold, cocaine, and Paintings have the most value
• Secondary Targets Values are RNG based.
• Gold=332k, Cocaine=220k, Paintings=189k, Weed=147k, Cash=80k-90kCredit goes to u/FMT_WL1
• Primary Targets Ranked: Panther Statue 1.9M>Pink Diamond 1.4M> Bearer Bonds 1.1M> Ruby necklace 1M> Tequila 900k

Preps
In order to start the heist you must do preps, for this heist you can do however many you want but for this guide you will only need to do 5. Keep your sub in Los Santos until the fifth prep mission, if you decide to do the longfin prep you can keep your sub at Los Santos.
Prep 1/ The Cutting Torch:
This prep mission is pretty straightforward, head to the construction site and land close enough. Before heading in, try to locate the yellow hard hat and put it on, this will make the enemy non-hostile, which makes for an easy mission. Your job is to locate the torch in a tool box. You can find it by looking in the box, it's a blue torch, search the box and head back to your sub. Also when searching for the box try to avoid staying in the enemy cones for too long and bumping into workers because this will make the enemies hostile if you do these.
Prep 2/ Safe Code or Plasma Cutter
There are two missions. The mission will vary on your primary, if you have the bearer bonds it’s the safe code, anything else it’s the Plasma Torch.
Safe Code Mission: Head to the casino at the entrance, after entering turn left and enter the elevator (if you have a penthouse you can go up without entering the parking garage). You will have to find a car in the parking garage. It's a yellow cheap car, it never changes. After finding it you will get the card which will allow you to head up into the penthouses, after getting up there search for two guards and head shot with a suppressed weapon. If done right you will calmly walk into the apartment, you can then search the penthouse for the target, he will never change. It's a guy with a cowboy hat, kill him and leave the penthouse, you will have to fight your way out. If you slam into the entrance of the penthouse you will have to fight your way in. After getting the code get back to your sub.
Plasma Cutter Mission: This is pretty straightforward, for ease take your oppressor instead of your Sparrow for higher mobility. You will have to head to the office to get the plasma cutter, but it’s not there. Pavel will instruct you to find the board and take a picture of it, the board is easy to find. Afterwards he will locate them and ping it on your map, they usually always spawn near Vinewood hills or the beach. Take them out with your oppressor missiles and fly over the bag and leave cause they will spawn two cars to shoot you.
Prep 3/ Fingerprint Cloner: This mission is simple, you will have to head to a location on your map, outside are two cameras, ignore them and walk into the garage, after entering take cover behind the box forward and blind shot everyone with your shotgun. After the enemies are dead hack the laptop in the back and head to the archives. Outside the archives are cameras, shoot them and go inside. Pavel will tell you that you're looking for a small card, it always spawns in the back in the desk square, grab it and head back.
Prep 4/ Weapon Load out: Always buy the suppressors, as for which load out I suggest the Conspirator due to the sticky bombs (there is a bug where you will get suppressors without buying them, just in case purchase it to be safe). There are two possible missions you can be given. One is in Los Santos in an office, for the other you will have to follow a Valkyrie up North.
Weapons Possible Mission 1: Pavel will send you to an office in Los Santos you can either go through the ground entrance or the roof, I suggest the roof entrance but no matter what you will have to fight inside. Once inside clear the office and head to the back to find the gun safe, it’s always located left of the desk on the wall, hack the laptop on the desk and open the safe. Grab the weapons and leave. If you enter on the roof you can fly back but two chopper’s will spawn, shoot their gunman on the sides and hellies will be useless. Another suggestion is to leave immediately, and snack up to restore health. On ground level the hellies will still spawn again shoot the gunman and head back to the sub.
Weapons Possible Mission 2: You will have to head to Elysian Island to find the Valkyrie you do not need to stay close to it. You can predict it’s direction and head North to clear the camp on foot, also avoid destroying the Avenger and the Valkyrie. Do not destroy the Valkyrie until it becomes a target on your mini map or you will fail the prep. After clearing the camp head into the Avenger and kill the enemies, afterwards parachute out and leave before more Merrywheather show up.
Prep 5/ Kosatka: ( You can also do the Longfin, but I prefer Kosatka as an approach vehicle.)
This is a simple mission, after starting it head into your sub driver seat and fast travel to the nearest location near the ping. After you arrive dive your sub over to the location, once you get near get on your periscope and missile the boats and the helli. You can sink your sub and engage auto-pilot under water giving you better access to the enemies sub. Try to avoid beaching your sub on shallow water and put it in the middle of the yellow circle. Leave the driver seat and exit your sub, dive into the water and look for the other sub with a yellow marker on top. After entering the enemies sub you must locate the jammer. You have two paths, one on the right, this is usually where it spawns, take the ladder down and watch your corners cause enemies are brutal in this mission. After entering the engine room look for a black box with a blue screen at the bottom of the stairs if it's not there head back the way you came. Take the left path and make your way to the control room WATCH THOSE CORNERS. If it's not there head to the back of the control room and take the stairs down, follow the path it will lead you into the torpedo room, that another spawn. Leave and head back to your sub.
Prep 5/ Longfin
This mission is located in Los Santos basically you can take a phantom (Semi-truck) to the police station to pick up a boat of which you can use as an approach for the heist. This mission is simple: you basically go and pick up a phantom, afterwards you drive to impound to pick up the longfin. You will be met with enemies. The one I did was the cop impound, you can enter with your phantom and drive out. It's best to clear the area, and let the cops kill you for an easier delivery (you can't call Lester). You can use your own Phantom wedge to clear vehicles out of the way.
(during the heist you can use this get loot before you enter the drainage tunnel , this can be quicker way if your loot is out the way)
This includes the scope out and the preps
This includes the scope out and the preps
Tips For Preps

• The biggest tip is the Sparrow, this will make prepping a joke, the only time you won’t need it is during the plasma cutter and Kosatka missions, but that's due to mobility.
• You can see the cutting torch it’s blue
• You can blow up the Valkyrie and end the mission to get the office mission to save time, I highly suggest this ( I do this mostly because you have to follow the helli up North and wait for it to land.)
• The preps are the same, they never change
• Save the Kosatka heist for last so you can do all 4 preps in Los Santos

The Heist
Time to Start the Heist. Go to screen and tab to Finale and shift over to continue to start the mission. Once you get to the selection process pick your options. It should be Kosatka or Longfin, Drainage, Drainage, Main docks or Kotsatka, and Day Time (there's very little difference between day or night). If you're playing with others you must hurry through the selection screen because if you take too long the cuts will reset due to a bug.
Squad Run
When you begin the mission you will have to make your way to the drainage tunnel, if you chose the Kosatka you will have to swim to the tunnel, but if you chose the Longfin you will have to drive the boat to the tunnel. Once you arrive you will have to cut the bars at the gate, a suggestion to do this is to go in a circle three times and cut whatever remains. Afterwards swim through the tunnel and enter the compound.
Compound
Once you enter the compound you will have two directions to go, the left or the right. My way is to go to the left, up the stairs is a guard next to the storage staring out at the water, head shot him and make your way to the courtyard. If you followed my instructions the two guards at the pool will be to your left. In the courtyard there should be a guard coming, wait for him to stop and head shot him. After that, ready your shot at the two guards at the pool, choose your target. Since you're in a squad, ready your shot, as a suggestion one person can count down from three to one to shoot at the same time to eliminate any mistakes ( these two guards usually drop the gate keys). The next is to eliminate the juggernaut, the way to identify him is by his red cone and red skull icon. He can be killed by a single headshot, if you and your squad were quick with the guards at the pool he should be arriving, take him out. In front of the pool there are two separate guards, one will be in front of the office building to identify him, the camera is facing the pool, if you time it correctly he will be to the right of the camera making for an easy elimination. The other guard is North East of the front of the pool, or to the right of the guard you just killed. You can eliminate him if you want too, the reason I do so is because me and my mates can all access the storages without worry. Next are three guards at the office, to identify them they will have red cones. One of the guards will be moving North towards the main gate and then will move South towards the pool. You have two options, one is to wait for him to head North and take him out, or you can head shot him when he’s coming South. To achieve this there are stairs directly in front of the pool, if you take the stairs up to the right you now have enough elevation to see the guards head ( this is tricky to explain which is why I will also have a video example for visual clarification.) After taking the guard out you can head up the stairs into the office area, once up the stairs head to the right, for clarification the pool will be to the left and main gate to your right. Head down the corridor if you have done this correctly the guards back will be facing you, take him out. To your left are stairs that leads to the office, take them up, at this point the guard at the top will start to move. You have two options, one you can wait behind a corner and hit the guard or if you are quick enough the guard will stop for a brief moment, giving a chance for an easy headshot. At this point you can enter the office, where you can grab the second keycard, the first keycard is dropped by any guard you have killed ( it usually drops on the first kill, but this is RNG based). In the office there are three things you can do, one is you can hack the elevator which leads to the basement, ignore this hack. The other things are either a painting that can randomly spawn in the office, and a safe on the right wall in the back of the office. Open the safe to get anywhere between 50k to 100k, THIS DOES NOT TAKE SPACE. When you have everything, start to loot up and fill your bag by going to the storages located around the compound, to open the storages you will need the two keycards and two people. You and your squad mates will have to swipe your card at the same time to open the door, another suggestion is to use the three to one countdown to sync swipes. The South Storage will have a guard moving, the guard is located to the left of the two guards you killed at the pool, take him out and watch for the camera. After you are done, please make sure to save space for the basement storage, make your way to the basement gates, they are located beneath the office building to the left and right, it does not matter which gate you choose. Once you are in the basement you will be presented with a hack, it may look daunting but in fact it is rather simple, I suggest matching the top first and making your way down. Afterwards loot up and grab the Primary Target, it is really straightforward to do so. At this time Pavel will tell the players that more guards have arrived, if you have followed thus far, you do not have to worry. Exit the basement, and head North to the main gate there should two guards, one will be moving the other stationary. You can take the stationary guard, you can also take the guard moving but if you and your squad can make it to the gate without doing so, go ahead. The host will be prompted to select the escape route, select it and a cutscene will begin. After you will be located outside the compound.
Kill in this order
Outside The Compound
You and your squad will be outside, if you are satisfied with your loot head left to the coast, you can jump off the cliff into the water. Once in the water you can swim off the island ,just keep heading straight and eventually you will have escaped. You can also try to steal a boat; note that some have claimed that boats may not spawn but if you manage to grab a boat this can make getting to and from much quicker. If you are missing loot head forward and take the guard next to the bike out, one person will have to head left toward a guard near a helli take him out and plant four stickies on the chopper. At the same time the other members will turn right towards the checkpoint, there should be three guards two together and one separate, and a camera behind the two guards. Take the one separate out, then the two guards, and the camera. Around the checkpoint are three bikes plus the bike with the very first guard killed. One of the bikes is hidden to the left of the checkpoint booth the other is directly in front. Start making your way towards the main docks, turn right into the jungle the moment you leave the stopping checkpoint. Pay attention to the guard tower to your right and avoid his cone, at this time Pavel will tell the squad that El Rubio’s helli is on the move, activate the stickies and he will retreat away from the island. Once you are close enough to the docks go on foot, your objective is to loot and take the boat off the island. There are two secondary loot locations, one is a warehouse with a guard and camera outside, take them out and loot. The other is located to the right with two separate guards, please refer to Sportskeeda map to see the location. Take them out and loot. Afterwards there are 3-4 guards you have to take out at the docks, to leave without alerting the guard. Two guards standing next to the boat, and one or two stationary guards looking out at the water. After clearing the guards, grab the boat and escape Cayo Perico. Congrats you have now completed the heist.
Note: You can approach the compound in any way you choose, my way is a bit complicated but with practice you can clear the compound at the same time as other routes. Feel free to adjust the route in anyway, my route is just a reference to get an idea as to how to approach the compound.
Note: I do it the same exact way when I solo, but since I’m solo I can skip guards and head to my objective. For the Solo run I go for cocaine, you NOT have to do this. I do this to maximize my profit, and since I am competent in my abilities I can clear the mission without many mistakes.
Solo Run
The strat is the same except it will be harder to take out the two guards by the pool, the major difference is you can not open the storage's to get gold or loot, you might be lucky to get painting in the office but that's RNG. A good tip when taking on double guards is to find a good angle, after killing one the other will flinch, he will prop his head up giving you the shot. You can scope the rest of island to find the most profitable loot which is cocaine, if there is none then get weed and cash (by scoping out I’m referring to checking the spawns for coke, if there is none at North docks and the Air Strip I ignore them, I do not mark every item only Coke and any profitable items at Main Docks). After leaving the compound there will be a guard in front of you next to a bike, kill him. Turn left and head to the next guy next to a helli, kill him and plant four stickies on the heli, do not activate them yet. Go back the way you came, there will be three guards at a checkpoint two together, one standing away. Kill the one standing away and then prepare to kill the two guards, after their dead shoot the camera and jump over the stop rail. You will have to be quick because a car will drive towards the checkpoint so make sure to do all that quickly. You have two options: you can swim off the island and finish the heist, or you can head to Main Docks to fill your bag. If you chose the latter run North East into the jungle towards the guards tower, but far enough away so he can’t see you. On your way to Main Dock Pave El Rubio helli will show up on the map, wait for Pavels vocal cue when he tells you that Rubio is in his helli, and then activate your stickies, boom Rubio will retreat. Now you can make it to your objective in peace. You can loot at the Marijuana fields but you may have to take out three guard towers and a single camera, as well as two guards near the fields. I’ll leave this to your gut if you think you can make it to the warehouse without messing up please do so. If you want to head to North Dock and the Airstrip you either can swim there which will eat a lot of time or you can take the boat at the docks to get there faster. Trade off is that if you swim it will take up time, but if you take the boat you will have to clear out guards to safely remove the boat from the dock. If you are satisfied with anything you get then just clear the area with loot and swim or steal the boat. This is for the Airstrip if you do not plan on going here IGNORE this. The Airstrip is an easy place to navigate since a lot of the guards are far from each other so you can clear the airstrip easily. There are two loot spawns one at the hangar with one guard, and a warehouse with two separate guards. There's guard outside the hangar kill him, and go inside, if your loot is on the second floor, look for a forklift and pick up a box lift and it up then press the box against the back of the hangar below a blue tarp you can then climb the lift and the box to get access to the loot. The other airstrip loot spawn is an easy place to clear, one guard will be moving you can head shot him from the hangar, at the warehouse there’s a camera shoot it and inside the warehouse is a guard questioning his career choice, kill him. If you need to head to North Dock head there by bike or by foot, you can loot without killing any guard. After you're done just swim off the Island, or take the boat. Congrats, you have just completed the heist solo.
Note: I will be adding a second strat to clear the compound, the reason for this is because a Redditor provided the strat. I do not mind adding his strat, but I must remind everyone that you can tackle the heist in any way you feel comfortable with.
I missed that gate keys, so I killed more than I should have.
Solo Run Second Strat:
Essentially, it is the same as the other one, except for going left you go right. Your first target are the two guards at the pool. They should be to the right of you, find a good angle and head shot the first one, wait for the second guard to finish flinching and kill him. The juggernaut should be making his way towards you, wait for him to exit the camera’s view and kill him. If the gate key drops pick it up and kill the guard in front of the pool he should be past the camera. Take out the camera and wait for the moving red cone guard to turn his direction North, once he turns around go up the stairs and kill him. Move towards the second red cone guard his back should be facing you, hit him and ascend the stairs. The last guard on top should be moving. You can either wait behind the corner and hit him or speed around the corner to head shot him, it’s up to you. Loot the office safe and make your way to the basement. Finally, use the gate keys to open the basement, hack and grab the primary target. Afterwards head up towards the main gate, a new guard will spawn, you can wait for the moving guard to move out of range, and kill the stationary guard. From there you can run to the gate and exit the compound.
I had brain fart at the hacking lmao
Heist Tips

• You can swim off the island from any direction
• You can steal boats for faster escape but that's up you
• You can sticky El Rubio’s helli for to get him to retreat
• In the compound you can jump ledges after clearing the enemies
• For double guards, get a good angle after you head shot one guy the other will flinch, you can get the shot slightly after, or you can risk shooting him until he’s dead.
• Guards do not react to dead bodies, in day time their visibility is the same as night, an Isolated guard can’t alert if everyone is dead. You can run, guards will only react if you're close, if you miss a shot and it gets near a guard or makes noise this will alert.
• You can jump into the ocean to die quickly if you alert inside the compound
• If you find a key you can open the desk to get a golden gun
• If your underwater and a patrol boats cone is on you, they can’t see you
• Cones can be obstructed by objects
• ? Civilians may be able to alert guard?
• Solo is more profitable than playing with friends due to not sharing a cut
• If you don’t have to kill don’t, less interaction is good
• Being stealthy is the best way, if you alert restart
• You can aim in and hold the sprint button to walk faster
• To activate hard mode, you have to start the heist when it becomes available
• Try to avoid killing guards near the camera cones, the reason being is because this can alert the guards if the camera sees the dead body. Ironically, guards do not alert they seem one.

Game Over>
That's it ladies and gentleman, I hope this guide has helped anyone. I’m aware I’ve definitely went too in depth in this guide but I enjoy making it, Happy Grinding -Leaus

Game currencies are the pillar of any in-game economy. But which kinds exist and which ones you should add to your game? On this article, we analyze the different types of in-game currencies that exist and their usage.
You can read the article here on Reddit, but you will be helping me a lot if you read it at my blog instead: https://jb-dev.net/2021/01/13/game-currencies-types-and-usage/
https://preview.redd.it/km7sq8zed4b61.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=30160958b79705d56aec825bfe19e9b2ccabd4a6
Currencies are the pillar on any real world modern economy, since exchanges are done through them. Their objective is to be as universal and frictionless as possible, to make the system more efficient at allowing transactions.
Contrary to that, F2P games feature specialized currencies that have strict rules and limitations. Each ingame currency has been designed with a purpose: Be it to push the player towards specific activities that will foster the fun, generate monetizable scarcity, provide a reason to come back later, or other.
This article aims to list the main types of ingame currencies, their uses and general characteristics. The idea is that it helps you decide which ones would be appropriate for your game, or which extra rules you should add to them. Or think of new hybrid mutations!
This is a follow-up of my article about IAP packs balance and design, which covers the relationship of in-game currencies with real world money. You may want to check that one out if you haven’t already!

TYPES OF CURRENCIES AND THEIR PURPOSE

First of all: What’s a currency?
I’m defining ‘currency’ as an element that has no use value on itself, but rather it’s main purpose and value comes from its ability to be exchanged for something else which has an actual use value.
So in accordance to this, I’m not considering currencies the following things:

• Score metrics like Clash Royale’s Trophies. Even though trophies grant rewards when reaching certain milestones or at the end of a competition period, we could argue that the main purpose of Trophies is not to be exchanged, but to represent the player’s competitive prowess and progression.
• Progression metrics like Experience Points or Player Level, which similarly are oriented towards representing (or gating) player progression within the game, not serve as a means to be exchanged.

But I will be considering currencies any resources or items whose purpose is accumulation to buy upgrades (like Clash Royale‘s cards… the first card of each type is to unlock the unit in gameplay, but after that point they’re a currency).
Also, note that the types are not mutually exclusive and some of the categories may in fact be subcategories of each other. For example, an event currency can be a hard currency, within the context of an event.
Based on those assumptions, I’m classifying currencies in 11 different categories. (Though I’m sure the list is missing several so it may grow. If you spot what’s missing, let me know in the comments!). They are:
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https://preview.redd.it/a9ucwxlcf4b61.png?width=1001&format=png&auto=webp&s=048dcd661268ed1f155b7fb27c2859caa2acfb38

1. Hard Currency (aka Cash)

A hard Currency is a high value, generalistic purpose currency which is primarily obtained through IAP and is closely related to monetization. Often it allows the access to exclusive premium content. Examples would be the Gems on Brawl Stars, or the Gold Bars in Candy Crush Saga.
Hard Currency the closest thing to an universal medium of exchange, since not only allows to purchase content, but also generally it can be exchanged for most of the other currencies, or indirectly allows to obtain the means to get what the player wants:
Gems in Brawl Stars allow players to buy content directly or exchange them for coins. And while trophies aren’t purchasable, the player can buy boxes which accelerate the acquisition of more brawlers and upgrades, that ultimately allow the player to move forward on the trophy count.
As a consequence, overflowing the economy with it will diminish a game’s ability to generate situations of scarcity where the player needs to spend real money. Because of this, sources of hard currency tend to be few and are under strict control, and is a resource that generally doesn’t suffer inflation over the progression of the game.
A good way to check the health of an ingame economy is to check the sources of hard currency, and the amounts stored by paying and non-paying users. Increments on the player currency savings may indicate an unbalance on rewards, or perhaps the lack of valuable content to buy, or sinks.
Nevertheless, if used wisely and with measure , hard currency is an excellent reward because it’s extremely valuable for all the players, regardless of their progression or amount spent.
This may not necessarily be true for other types of rewards (i.e. like heroes, which may already be owned by the player, not valuable for competition or below the level of the characters already owned by the player)

2. Soft Currency (aka Coins)

A soft currency is a low value, generalistic purpose currency which is primarily obtained for free, either by playing or just waiting time. Examples of this would be Credits in Call of Duty Mobile (the main reward for completing matches), or coins in Idle Miner Tycoon (which are automatically generated over time).
We all know about this one because it’s part of the dual-currency mechanism that has ruled the F2P model since before the times of Facebook games. The benefit of this dual model being that it’s a simple way to separate the content for non-paying users from the one that is premium and exclusive.
Playrix ‘scapes series and Matchington Mansion feature a single currency, which is used on almost anything purchasable. So they only have soft currency.
This requires a more strict control of incomes and outcomes to avoid devaluation, which would harm the need for players to monetize.

3. Medium Currency

So what happens when you want a currency that players can grind with relatively ease without destroying your overall economy, but your soft currency is too soft to generate monetization around it? You create a mix, of course!
The medium currency is a currency obtainable through grinding, but which has some kind of limitation to their usage or accumulation.
This makes it more resilient to the devaluation that soft currencies tend to suffer due to their nature, while creating additional monetization opportunities around their limitations (storage expansions, refills, etc…).
Some games incorporate several of these gating mechanics to their soft currencies, in order to keep the game economy more under control.
This is a great idea to have a game economy that’s easy to manage, but incorporates clear friction points versus a standard model, which users may find unfair or frustrating.
Our friends at Supercell are fond of adding limits to their soft currencies: In Clash of Clans the storage level determines the max amount of gold coins that can be owned. And both Clash Royale and Brawl Stars, have time-based caps to the amount of soft currency obtainable by playing.
Some examples of the gatings that medium currencies may incorporate are:

CAPPED ACCUMULATION

This may range between a hard limit on how much currency can be stored (like Gold in Clash of Clans), or making harder the accumulation beyond a certain point (like the protection capacity of storages in Rise of Kingdoms).
In Rise of Kingdoms, the accumulation of resources beyond the protection capacities of the Storehouse will be increasingly difficult due to the constant pressure of enemies raiding. This makes upgrading it extremely appealing, totally worth paying real money.
In most cases, this cap can be increased through successive upgrades or other purchases, which generates an additional (and highly valuable, in player’s eyes) monetization point.

CAPPED ACQUISITION

On the other hand, the limitation can be on how much the player can obtain within a specific period of time, rather than on how much it can be stored. The hard limits on currency acquisition on Clash Royale and Brawl Stars are good examples.
Contrary to the usage of energy, in those examples the player can still play after reaching the limit, but that won’t generate currency rewards.
This is well suited for multiplayer games, where there’s an interest in allowing long sessions so that the players keep on being content for the rest, but it lacks the monetization aggressiveness of energy.
Additional applications of this concept may include boosting the ratio of acquisition up until reaching a certain amount (which some items do in Brawl Stars and Wild Rift) or stopping the resource generation when reaching a certain point (like happens with energy in most games).

LIMITED USAGE

Another point where gates can be added is on the capacity of the currency to be exchanged into the game element that has the actual value.
For example, this can be because the player has to accumulate specific amounts before the currency can be used, or multiple resources or additional requirements are required in order to allow the exchange, or because the points where the currency can be spent are few and limited.
In Hay Day, lacking some of the upgrade materials means that the ones that are in surplus are useless. This is a strong incentive to pay for the missing resources in order to use the owned ones.
And in Township, population requirements act as a progression bottleneck, forcing the player to develop all the layers of the tycoon and progress, instead of focusing exclusively on accumulating coins by completing orders.

4. Energy Currency

Energy is a type medium hardness currency whose definitory characteristic is that it’s exchanged exclusively for playing time. Either because it’s a price to be paid on every attempt or action (Monster Legends‘ Dungeons), or because it has to be paid on a retry (Candy Crush, Homescapes).
Either if it’s a strict cost per action like in Monster Legends, or a payment upon failure (to create the illusion that the player can extend its play time through skill and luck), the objective of energy currencies is to gate the time that the player can spend in the game for free.

5. Feature Currency

If your game features multiple activities which reward the same thing, players will naturally tend to orbit towards those that are more efficient granting rewards. For example, they’ll do Daily Dungeons instead of grinding the single player mode, because Dungeons grant more gold.
This is an issue, because each of those activities may ask the player different inventory requirements and styles of playing, which will make the game more interesting but also incentivize players to spend more on it.
What you need is a way to make players have to play a specific game activity. And what better way to achieve it than to create a currency that can only be obtained on that mode?
Feature currencies have a very specific ingame usage, and are linked exclusively to a specific game activity. Some of the objectives may be:

• To force the user to play a specific section of the game in order to be able to access a set of rewards, progression or upgrade axis.
• To isolate an entire system from the rest of the ingame economy, in order to make it easier to manage, balance and analyze.
• Limit the access to a specific feature, whose free over usage might be detrimental for the economy.

In War Dragons, making your dragons mate costs Breeding Tokens (and since every time you only have a chance to get the breed you wanted, those lusty lizards will cost you millions).Since this resource is the exclusive gate to a key game mechanic, devs can use it as a reward to direct the player to any activity they want (missions, events, specific features…).
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Feature currencies are great to isolate the economy loop of entire features, therefore making them easier to analyze and maintain.
Idle RPGs like Idle Heroes feature many examples of features which introduce new, single-use currencies that force the player to go through specific activities to gather them.
For example, playing the Brave Trial is the only way to obtain Dragon Scales, the only currency accepted at the Trial Shop, which has some cool exclusive content.
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In Clash Royale, unrestricted trade among clanmates could severely monetization (i.e. players optimizing their drop rates, whales or hackers gifting everyone else…).
The solution is trade tokens, which are asked as an additional cost on the trades. Since access to them is heavily gated (a reward on special events, clan wars and offers), they make sure that this feature never gets out of control.

6. Social Currency (aka Virality currency)

Social Currency is a feature currency which aims to foster a specific game behavior of incentivizing virality, social interaction and connectivity inside the game.
It’s important to note that virality can actually have two meanings:

• Bringing new users from those that are already on the game (classic, K-factor virality).This is the one that most of us think the most with the word virality: players extending the contagion among people they already know outside of the game.
• Incentivizing interaction and connection between players that are already un the game, with the objective of boosting their engagement and retention (the neighboring or network effect).Usually, this is oriented towards players that are not related or friends outside of the game.

In general, social currencies in games are oriented towards the second sense, since players bringing new players is not something that happens often enough to sustain a currency.
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In Puzzle & Dragons dungeons, your team is reinforced with a monster from another player. Doing so, as well as being selected by others, generates Pal Points (social currency), which grant monster egg rolls. And if you use players from your friend list, you get many more points.
This makes players look to add as many friends as possible and constantly delete inactive low-level ones (because the friend list is limited), as well as post their ID in fan pages, in the hope of being added by active players that will help them farm Pal Points.
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Summoners War grants Social Points that allow players to summon more creatures. They are primarily obtained by gifting to friends, and being gifted by them on a daily basis.
This encourages users to add active players as friends (through an ‘friends suggestion’ list), and discard those that are inactive (and therefore occupy space on the friend list but don’t generate social currency).

7. Guild Currency

Guild currency is intrinsically related to a clans/alliances/guilds feature. What makes it stand out from other feature currencies is the fact that it usually has unique mechanics related to being generated by a group.
This often means that additional balancing measures need to be deployed (calculating the distribution of costs among all members, limiting the benefits that some can provide to freebooters, etc…).
Examples of unique mechanics potentially in guild currencies would be:

• The currency is shared and generated by all the guild members, but can only be spent by the high members of its hierarchy (i.e. Shop Titans‘ Renown, which guild leaders can spend in Boosts or Perks to the entire clan).
• The currency it’s entirely individual, but all team members may contribute to the payment, and the benefits are shared (i.e. gold priced City Upgrades in Shop Titans).
• The currency it’s entire individual, but it’s generated by the shared collective effort (i.e. Guild Points in Summoners Wars).

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Games may incorporate multiple guild-based currencies, to provide different incentives. Shop Titans feature Guild Coins which provide an individual and immediate reward for completing guild activities, but also Renown which grants long termed, collective benefits.
It’s also important to note that guild currency may also have additional social dynamics beyond its direct exchange usefulness: For example, clans may use it as an indicator of contribution of each teammate to establish group hierarchy, or set periodic quotas as a requirement for membership.

8. Event Currency

One of the reasons why time limited events are so positive to monetization and engagement is the fact that they can introduce entire layers of game economy which are completely independent from the main game.
Of course, that objective would be defeated if players which have accumulated tons of currency can use it to smash the requirements presented there, or to buy the rewards without engaging on the event activities. This could force the devs to balance the event multiple times for several user profiles.
Many games avoid these issues entirely by using event currencies, which are feature currencies that exist temporarily and are entirely focused around a time limited event. They may allow to purchase an actual set of rewards, or perhaps are part of a system which exists exclusively within an event.
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In Family Guy: Quest for stuff‘s Star Trek event, its related activities generate a series of currencies (that will disappear after the event expires), which allow to craft several exclusive rewards.
This makes the event more self-contained and easier to manage, and introduces additional spending depth (buy the currency, currency generators, skips on production, etc).

9. Discard Currency (aka Dust)

Discard currencies are obtained through the destruction of game items. These currencies pursue several objectives aimed to extend the usefulness of items beyond gameplay itself, or decrease the friction or randomized drops and meta rotations:

• Transform those items in rewards that can be given recurrently (i.e. fusion systems).
• Grant a use to obsolete items that no longer have gameplay value. For example, repeated items of a type that has been already maxed out.
• Decrease the friction generated by loot boxes, by allowing players to transform unwanted items into the desired ones, so the bad drops aren’t that frustrating.
• Help complete a collection, by removing items already owned and allow to craft the missing ones. Completing collections without this would be extremely hard.
• Helping players to update their inventory to a new set of items, therefore decreasing the friction of having a rotative meta or power creep.It also grants more confidence for the player to spend, knowing that even if the dominance of the purchased items is limited, they’ll generate some long term return too.

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‘Fusion systems’ like the one featured in RAID: Shadow Legends, requires players to sacrifice units in order to level up another. This allows the game to regularly reward lesser units, they’re just another type of resource to be consumed (so they can feed the constant drops in grinding modes, loot boxes, etc…).
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‘Dusting systems’ like the one in Hearthstone allow the player to transform into discard currency unwanted items, and use that to craft missing ones. This allows players to build their desired decks (which otherwise would be extremely hard, due to the difficulty to find specific cards on the drops).
It also decreases the friction when introducing a new card set, because players with a big inventory can dust it to get the new cards faster, which provides a ‘long term value’ sense on any investment. Of course, since the tradeoff is not perfect, this still means having to spend extra money to get it completely.

10. VIP Currency (aka Prestige…)

A VIP Currency is generated as a by-product of performing an IAP spending, as a side-incentive for monetization and customer reward***.***
Note that most games tend to do this not through a currency but rather through a permanent score, which is a greater incentive.
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Purchases in Steam (that famous game where you spend real money to buy tons of games which then you lack time to play) grant Steam Points, which can then be used to buy chat customizations and stickers.

11. Informal Currency

There’s a saying that goes that money always finds a way, and that if people has a need which can’t be fulfilled by normal means, shadier ones will appear to do it. In many games, that need is the ability for players to trade stuff without resorting to bartering.
Informal currencies are game elements which players effectively use as medium of exchange, even though the intended purpose of the devs for that element was different.
This can happen on games that allow item gifting and trading, but don’t allow sending currency, which is a common setup to avoid exploits such as creating fake accounts for to share the starter rewards, or alternative sellers of currency (like the infamous World of Warcraft‘s gold farmers…) or hackers breaking the economy (like in GTA Online…).
Or it can happen if the main currency method of the game has been heavily devalued or has another problem which makes that another game item is better suited to act as currency.
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In Ultima Online, gold was strongly devalued because new gold was constantly being generated. Also, there was a limit on how much gold could be stacked together on a single pile on the map, which made storage of big amounts quite impractical.
On the contrary, the item ‘horse dung’ was much better suited to act as storage of value since the game horses didn’t poop so the amount of dungs in the world was strictly limited. So it had collector value, was a sign of status (like owning a diamond) and was funny as well. So ‘horse dung’ became a currency on high value exchanges and it even generated especulation with real money.
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Party In My Dorm is even a clearer example: Players can’t trade currency, but they can exchange any other Game item, allowing them to barter.
The problem is that bartering is inefficient (a player doesn’t know the actual value of an item, has to consider if each deal is good, may have to do multiple exchanges until getting the wanted item…).
So players created their own universal exchanger: chibis and bentos (shards and loot boxes). They have generated an alternative, user generated game economy that self-regulates prices, allows conventions and facilitates trade.

THANKS FOR READING!

I hope that this list helps you to expand your views on in-game currencies or inspires you to improve the ones you’re already considering on your game.
This article took me quite a bit of time to finish, but thanks to that it’s the first post of 2021, yay! I’ve a bunch of articles on the oven, so stay tuned for more content.
And meanwhile, I’m looking forward to hearing your comments on which currencies I’ve missed out!
Special thanks to Mathew Baker, Marc Llobet, David Andrusiak, Philipp J. Karstaedt, Risto. D Holmström, Hippolyte Babinet, Tj’ièn Twijnstra, Alexandre Besenval, Paul West, Luke Stapley and ‘el designer de la plata’ Francisco Andrada, which gave me their feedback and suggestions on the topic.
Extra thanks to Tayber Voyer who pointed out to me the informal currency and sent me the screenshots of Party in my Dorm.