Gaming Economy
A reference use case for virtual currencies, rewards, sinks, and player-to-player transfers on Parix.
Gaming economies need the same guarantees as money systems even when the unit is virtual.
The core requirement is conservation of value: currency should only move according to game rules, never appear through race conditions, partial writes, or duplication exploits.
Where this pattern fits
Use this shape when you need to:
- maintain one or more virtual currencies across many players
- make reward grants, purchases, loot box openings, and trades atomic
- guarantee that debits and credits stay paired under concurrency
- investigate disputes with an immutable movement history
Typical flow
- Represent player balances, sinks, reward pools, and platform-controlled accounts in the ledger model.
- Write currency grants, burns, trades, and reward distributions as atomic value movements.
- Keep game-facing inventory or progression data outside the ledger, but anchor the value movement here.
- Use platform observability and backups to operate the economy safely.
Why Parix fits
This use case benefits from database-level value conservation:
- trades should not partially execute
- reward grants should not duplicate under retries
- hot accounts such as sinks, marketplaces, or treasury pools should remain safe under load
The repo's existing positioning already calls out gaming economies as a product shape where TigerBeetle's guarantees matter more than a hand-built relational ledger.