The game industry relies on software reuse in the form of game engines to enable the efficient development of increasingly engaging digital games. However, these general-purpose solutions cannot provide reuse in all aspects of any given game, specially in the implementation of economy mechanics, which are intrinsically game-specific. To fill in the gap left by game engines in that regard, the described doctoral dissertation proposes a software reference architecture approach aimed at the implementation of economy mechanics, re-purposing patterns instead of punctual implementations, thus affording greater flexibility while still promoting efficient development. The proposal will be based on literature reviews, industry expertise, and actual game implementations. Then, we will validate it through a case study game development and a quasi-experiment performed within a game programming course.