Player value · combination series · hub

Combination hub: pairs of behaviours, not one score

Combination hub · AFITMRR™ primer · Contribution weight · All notes

By Paul Dutta, Founder, Yardstick Games.

One “engagement” number can hide two different lives: someone who focuses deeply once a week, and someone who returns every day for five minutes. Both can look “active.” Product decisions get sharper when you name pairs of behaviours — focus and return, depth and recovery, spend and trust after friction — instead of a single score.

This hub frames the idea. Colour labels sit in one short note; then genre honesty, multi-membership, and contribution. We use AFITMRR™ labels (Attention · Frequency · Intensity · Tenure · Monetary · Referral · Resilience) after the plain meaning — not instead of it.

Path: Colours · Genres · Multi-membership · Contribution weight

What this changes in practice

How to read a pair (at a glance)

1. 1 Both strong Behaviours compound — usually protect and feed. Green · ↑ × ↑
2. 2 Mixed One strong, one weak — opportunity if you act; not automatic failure. Orange · ↑ × ↓
3. 3 Both weak or harmful drop Challenge / regret — learn the path that got them there. Red
4. 4 Direction Moving into healthier pairs is opportunity; sliding out of strength is the hard challenge. Paths, not only snapshots
5. 5 Genre honesty Strategy and social puzzle can both be healthy with different strength peaks. Radars below · optional
6. 6 Do not chase all 42 Name the pairs that are large, movable, and honest for the game you shipped. 7×7 with self×self blank

The seven lenses (quick)

Crossing two different lenses (not a lens with itself) gives combination cells. You name the few that matter for your title — not a universal scoreboard of all cells.

What to read next

Colours are collapsed into one note. Then genre, paths, and load.

1. 1 Colours Protect · opportunity · learn — green / orange / red in one breath. Examples without the triple essay
2. 2 Genre makeups Same business health, different strength peaks. Strategy · social puzzle · shooter
3. 3 Multi-membership Soft weights, paths, appetite. People sit in more than one box
4. 4 Contribution weight Volume vs KPI load on a named box. Teaching case · A×F

Volume is not weightage · contribution

A combination cell can be large in volume and still light on the value the business actually funds — retention, revenue, referral, recovery after friction. Another cell can be small in volume and carry a disproportionate share of spend, tenure, or social pull. Volume is not weightage — value is weightage. Treat them as two axes on every box you care about.

That is why it is useful to know the contribution of each box, not only who sits in it:

• Volume — how many players (or sessions) land in this combination right now — size, not staffing.
• Value weightage — how much of the outcomes you fund the product on this box carries (e.g. share of D30 retained, share of revenue, share of invites, share of recoveries after dry spells). Value is the weightage.
• Contribution — the product of those stories: a modest high-value box can outrank a crowded low-value mass; a huge low-value mass can still matter if it is the on-ramp into green.

What to do next

1. Name a few pairs that are large or load-bearing — not all 42 cells.
2. Colour them for your stage — protect / opportunity / learn (green / orange / red).
3. Watch movement — into healthier pairs vs out of strength; soft multi-membership is normal.
4. Read volume and weightage — how many, and how much value they carry.
5. Pick one lever class on a named pair — then re-read after you ship.

Early journey: hub. Contribution: volume vs value weightage. Primer: seven lenses.

Authorship. This page is original writing of Yardstick Games Private Limited (Paul Dutta, Founder). AFITMRR™ is a trade mark and framework of Yardstick Games Private Limited, originated by Paul Dutta. © Yardstick Games Private Limited. All rights reserved.