Grow the game without growing the overhead
Limited engagements: senior craft for the weeks that matter — without a permanent seat on the org chart.
Blog · clustered
Notes on live games
Written for people who ship — not as a brochure. Notes are grouped into clusters. Colour labels are collapsed: one short journey colours note and one combination colours note — not separate green / orange / red essays.
Suggested reading paths
- New to Yardstick. Grow without overhead → Partnership on a live title → Measure · Retain · Monetise
- Player value language. AFITMRR™ primer → Early journey hub → Journey colours → Combination hub → Combination colours → Contribution weight
- Live room / D0–D3. Scroll the hub, then the journey chapters in order (time → housings → colours → design).
- Numbers with conscience. Truth Mirror · Data conscientiousness · How we select segments
Public notes teach worldview and language. Event definitions, weights, thresholds, and live roadmaps on your title are partnership work — not a free ops kit.
Cluster 1
Partnership & craft
How we show up on a live title — and why game product is not generic SaaS PM.
Partnership on a live title — not extra tickets
What good product partnership looks like while the game is live: product, live ops, analytics, talent — and capability left behind.
Why game product is different
Generic PM playbooks break under seasons, soft currency, and multi-year retention. What loop ownership actually means.
Cluster 2
AFITMRR™ · player value library
Seven lenses, principle populations, and the operating questions that sit under Measure · Retain · Monetise. Start with the primer; go deeper when the room needs language.
Path: MRM → Primer → Grouping → journey & combinations below
AFITMRR™: seven lenses on player value
Why “active” hides trade-offs — and how Attention through Resilience changes the product conversation.
Measure. Retain. Monetise.
Three questions that cut through dashboard noise — and keep product and finance in the same conversation.
How AFITMRR™ grouping happened
Why we work populations by principle — and how deep you take that understanding is your choice.
Cluster 3
Early-population journey · D0–D3
Hub first. Then time, early buckets, one short colours note (protect · opportunity · learn), and the room question.
Order: Hub → D0–D3 & time → Housings → Colours → Design meets needs
Early metrics: reading populations before day 30
Plain summary, practice contrast, composite examples — optional scroll. Colour labels stay short on the colours note.
D0–D3 and time
Why early signals stick — and what lights when.
Four housings & weighted types
Content, difficulty?, tech?, not their game — four early buckets with weight.
Colours: protect · opportunity · learn
Green / orange / red in one breath — protect, act, learn. Trails and neighbours without the long split.
Design meets needs
Product tested against populations — and the question the room takes home.
Cluster 4
Combinations · contribution · roadmap talk
Hub first. One short colours note (protect · opportunity · learn), then genre honesty, multi-membership, and contribution weight.
Path: Hub → Colours → Genres · Multi-membership → Contribution weight
Combination hub: pairs of behaviours
How to read a pair and the seven lenses — start here; colours stay short on their own note.
Combination colours: protect · opportunity · learn
Green / orange / red for principle pairs in one breath — examples without the long triple split.
Genre makeups & radars
Strategy · social puzzle · shooter — same health, different peaks.
Multi-membership & paths
Soft weights, week trails, what the population wants to consume.
Contribution weight: when a small box carries the game
Volume vs KPI load — problem shape, quantification, lever directions.
Cluster 5
Method & data care
Segments that force a decision, causation discipline, and privacy-first handling of the meat of the data.
How we select segments
Principle-led populations that force a decision — from shared language to live operating cadence.
Truth Mirror and causation
From events to health: mapping principles, shared language, and not fooling yourself with correlation.
Data conscientiousness
Privacy-first by design: work the meat of the data with principles — populations, signal, dynamic systems.
Cluster 6
Tools that teach
Free craft samples that pressure-test a year, an economy, or a population story — companions to the notes above.
Honesty-check your F2P year
DAU, ARPDAU, retention, burn — when the year only works with miracles, you have a product plan problem.
Sources, sinks, and fair tension
Soft currency is product design. Pressure-test the loop before live does it for you.
Practice populations before the warehouse is ready
Synthetic lifecycle data for AFITMRR™-led population thinking — rehearse before live data is clean.
If this is how you want to work
Feel the lenses on the free scorecard. For event maps, contribution cuts, and a live roadmap on your title — partner up. Public notes teach the worldview; operational depth is confidential partnership work.