What Means "aaa" Game?

[steak]

AAA supposedly means high production values - a lot of money going into the actual production of the game, not marketing, merch, special silly things like a standalone soundtrack, etc. How high are we talking? Hard to say, as most gaming industry companies are not sharing their budgets publicly. In theory a Kickstarted game could be AAA by achiveing high production values.

 

Yeah. Cool story bro.

 

The reality is that AAA became a very sordid expression that PR peeps and the specialized media use to say that a certain heavilly marketed game is better than the rest. The rest being self published, freewares, F2P, mobile, older gen, mods, simulators, etc. Anything that is not the latest "hit" from a big name company is not AAA.

 

TL;DR: its a buzzword

[Archistopheles]

It can simply be thought of as the opposite of "Indie" games.

Indie is short for Independant, or a game without a publisher behind it. Example: Warframe used to be an indie game.

[Wiegraf]

AAA games are usually developped by well known studios which have a portfolio of successful titles under their belt and backed by a publisher while having an ample budget.

 

It doesn't always mean that the games will be good or successful in the end however but that they are expected to be. Which is why franchises are expected to deliver constantly once they become well known enough and that any new release for one such franchise is usually very heavily critiqued (either positively or negatively) by its playerbase.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Wiegraf

[Shehriazad]

Everything EA does is "Triple A"


But does that actually mean that their games are WORTHY of that title? At least half of them...hell nawwwwww. 


A lot of companies like Ubisoft and EA claim to only deliver triple A games...but seriously recently they aren't really doing much with that claim. A lot of companies are also openly boasting how much money went into their development to make people think that this is the real deal. 

Like a certain online shooter on consoles that cost 500 million to make.

[Livid_Jack]

AAA game = a bunch of fat cat corporations who are completely disconnected from players, funding expensive game production with talented development studios who then proceed to rip off said developers and disappoint said players by providing a product completely different than advertised when it ships and removing intended content so they can sell it back to you later with dlc

 

as other have said it only refers to budget not quality 

I have a feeling you played Destiny.

[(PSN)IkariWarrior83]

As has been said previously, AAA refers to big budget games, which usually results in (objectively speaking) higher-quality games.  "Higher-quality" meaning, shinier graphics, stable (not-crashing) gameplay, bigger/longer games.  There are exceptions to this: Battlefield 4 is a AAA game despite the horrid problems it had at launch.

 

Even though Dark Sector had a publisher, I wouldn't say D3 Publishing is well-known (unless you're a fan of Earth Defense Force), and I can't speak to Dark Sector's budget, but I'm going to assume Digital Extremes didn't get Call of Duty money to put that game out.

 

Warframe for all intents and purposes is an indie game.  Their publisher is...themselves? And while they had a recent investment deal, $60M is still a drop in the bucket compared to GTA5's $300M budget, or Destiny's $500M budget.

Edit: Also a good majority of that budget goes into marketing, not necessarily development.  I think $166M was the dev costs for Destiny, the remaining $344M went into marketing.

Edited November 4, 2014 by (PS4)IkariWarrior83

[Naqel]

IMO the designation is now days more about the production values than anything else, regardless of the actual budget.

In that sense, Warframe is an AAA title.

 

It also happens to fall into the many pitfalls of a typical AAA title(being too big for it's own good and having questionable design decisions).

[Cemges]

AAA is literally nothing. In internet language, it refers to big budget games.

[Llyssa]

"AAA" is an acronym.

 

The first "A" stands for "Advertising", the most important feature of a big game.

 

The second "A" stands for "Advertising", the part of the game that really matters most to the gaming community.

 

The third "A" stands for "Advertising", the thing that really guarantees that a game will both find a large audience and sell well.

 

When you combine these three letters, you get "AAA", which explains, in a nutshell, the truest goal the gaming industry has with you in mind, and the deepest promise you'll get from all big name game studios.

 

Always remember, if it fails the "AAA" test, you shouldn't play it, ever, at all, for it has failed to deliver what you, the gamer, truly desire from a game.

[Xylia]

Basically, the "Triple A title" refers to a game released by some big mainstream publisher who owns multiple developers.

 

Publishers like Activision, EA, Ubisoft, etc. The big names everybody knows and loves to hate (for understandable reasons!).

 

These "Triple A" titles almost always sell for ~$40-60.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, you got Indies. These are Independent Developers who Develop and Publish the game themselves; they are not owned by large corporations or publishers, and they tend to go straight to Steam with a few exceptions. Sometimes an Indie developer is successful enough that they become a publisher themselves (Chucklefish for example).

 

These titles are usually cheaper, they can go anywhere from $5 all the way up to $30 or more.

 

And, somewhere in the middle, are the "bigger" names that not everybody has heard of but not necessarily "indie" level. These are the games you usually see selling for $25-30. Perhaps games like King's Bounty, the Divinity series, etc are those "middle-level" games that are made by developers who are backed by publishers, but are not one of the huge "mainstream" names like EA, Activision, or Ubisoft.

 

Also like to point out I somewhat disagree with the DE who posted in this thread as to the origins of "Triple A".

 

I think "Triple A" or "AAA" in gaming was inspired by Music and Music Charts, where you'd have Platinum, Triple Platinum, etc in terms of how good something sold and/or how popular the artist(s) are.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Xylia

[Cemges]

It's also a battery size

[(PSN)konamidude]

CoD is not a AAA game. Using the same S#&$ over and over and over and over again for the last 4 years is a waist of money. The last 3 CoD should have been DLC and not a whole new $60 worth of the same S#&$ over and over and over and over again. Halo, Warframe and Elder Scrolls are the perfect example of AAA games. They all offer unique gameplay, a level of art. While 2 of them offer Cooperative play with friends and PvP. While WArframe soul purpose was PvE. Evolving the game to meat a level of need by a different group of player base brings diversity and further enjoyment to gameplay experience. And Halo and all Elder Scrolls have an enriched story and vast lore but offer different gameplay values and evolve to better optimize and increase player experience.

 

Well just my 2 Cents on a AAA game. Graphics may not matter. Back in the day Phantom Crash a Japanese imported game and very rare and unheard of was and is a very fun game.

Warframe is not even a triple A game it's indie..If your going to talk about COD or any other triple A games DLC COD,BL etc  I think you should really pay some attention to warframe side of things from how much they charge just to update your weapons,inventory or to get platinum if what not..I've seen warframe prime DLC access packs cost way more than a triple A game itself alone.

Edited November 9, 2014 by (PS4)konamidude

[adarazrad]

I think that Warframe would be in between double A and triple A... DE is somewhat known... 

Warframe is a leauge of its own. quad A? AAAA.... sounds good

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

AAA games are your Destiny's, or your CoD's, Halo's and all of that fun jazz.

I don't know what Warframe would be considered.

Premium indie

AAA game = a bunch of fat cat corporations who are completely disconnected from players, funding expensive game production with talented development studios who then proceed to rip off said developers and disappoint said players by providing a product completely different than advertised when it ships and removing intended content so they can sell it back to you later with dlc

as other have said it only refers to budget not quality

Problem being that they are the best games around. Edited November 9, 2014 by (XB1)ShapelessHorr0r

[Llyssa]

Problem being that they are the best games around.

hehehehehe.Good to know their strict adherence to the meaning of those "A"s has fleeced you thoroughly. Spend enough money and people will believe anything you tell them!

[-skimmer-]

Problem being that they are the best games around.

 

Usually not. There are exceptions, but those happen to be rare.

[elele]

AAA speaks for quality of production. This refers to the quality of the game engine, textures, models, shaders, animations, bug polish, etc. These are not to be confused with the "artistic" value of a game. However, the "AAA" quality is an objective standard. 

 

For example, you may complain that artistically speaking, COD is the worst game on the planet but you cannot objectively claim that the textures of COD Advanced Warfare are "bad" as compared to an "indie" game like, say, Dark Raid (http://store.steampowered.com/app/293720/) (look at those textures!). Maybe you consider Dark Raid is more fun or better than COD AW but to objectively say Dark Raid has better textures than COD AW would be crazy. 

 

So in this regard, Warframe has top-quality game engine (both graphic engine and netcode), textures and animations. A large selection of maps and game modes (comparable to "AAA" co-op TPS like Mass Effect 3). And what few cinematics Warframe had, they are well directed and animated. So in these departments, Warframe is AAA. 

 

But Warframe has subpar voice acting (even though I like DE_Rebecca, she's no professional voice actress), little-to-no story/plot (not to be confused with background lore), tons of bugs. In these department, Warframe is more like an "indie" game. 

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

hehehehehe.Good to know their strict adherence to the meaning of those "A"s has fleeced you thoroughly. Spend enough money and people will believe anything you tell them!

It's the truth of the matter.

I've played many of them, and all the devs/publishers have done crapoy things.

Edit: Let me revise my statement. They TEND to be the best games around.

Also, my definition if a AAA is a game that is backed by a significantly large publisher, dev, and amount if money. Good or bad has nothing to do with it.

Edit edit: @above: I define DE as a "premium indie."

Edited November 9, 2014 by (XB1)ShapelessHorr0r

[fishworshipper]

A = Indie/very small studio.

AA = Medium studio. We don't see very much of these anymore, but I'd classify Warframe as a AA game.

AAA = Big time studio. Activision, Bethesda, Bungie, etc.

[Llyssa]

It's the truth of the matter.

I've played many of them, and all the devs/publishers have done crapoy things.

Edit: Let me revise my statement. They TEND to be the best games around.

Also, my definition if a AAA is a game that is backed by a significantly large publisher, dev, and amount if money. Good or bad has nothing to do with it.

Edit edit: @above: I define DE as a "premium indie."

It's not the truth of the matter. Go out, find all of the non-big-name-backed games. There's tons!

 

Observe the quality. Some are bad. Some are good. There's a wide variety.

 

Then compare it to the big-name-backed games. You'll realize that "AAA" are middle of the pack, rather than "the best" or even close to "the best".

 

You only *think* BNB games are "the best" because you haven't played that many non-BNB games.

 

If you've only played 3 shooters, and all 3 are BNB, then a BNB shooter is "the best" shooter you ever played. When you've played over 500, some BNB, some not, then evaluate. Chances are pretty good that BNB won't make your top 10.

[Draciusen]

Walk into a high school and listen to discussions on new video games, all those titles you hear are most likely AAA.

Unless you're in some very gaming-affluent high school.