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Define "AAA"

TalentedMrJ

TalentedMrJ

Member
Imo, what makes a AAA game is focus on narrative, characters, story. Immersion. How invested am I in the game world?

Sony does this best for me. I like to think of their exclusives as interactive movies

All the Uncharted games felt like Indian Jones: The Videogame to me

Love anything made my Quantic Dreams. Heavy Rain and Detroit being their best work. Any game that has me playing multiple times after completion is a good thing. And the heavy focus on story, CHOICE, and characters. One of the few games to make me emotional

TLOU. Once again, heavy emphasis on story, world, and characters. Loved it and played it multiple times on PS3 and PS4. Just looking at the gameplay by itself, it's pretty average TBH. Never understood how Joel had so much weapon sway when he was a seasoned survivor. The man couldn't aim straight to save his life. But I overlooked this because of the amazing story.

Infamous Second Son. Open world game done right. Just the right amount of collectables. Perfect length at 10-12 hours. Encouraged 2 playthroughs. And again, the focus on story and characters. Plus the gameplay felt so good.

So... how do you define AAA???
 
GreyHorace

GreyHorace

Member
I define AAA as the videogames industry's version of big budget Hollywood tentpole movies. Huge sums of money has been spent on the production and marketing of these games and it shows.

Rockstar Games open world titles like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption are definitely AAA. As is Sony's massive single player games like God of War and Ghost of Tsushima.

Personally I'd like it if there were more midlevel budget games around to provide more variety in the market. Titles A Plague Tale: Innocence and Greedfall were perfect in this regard.
 
TalentedMrJ

TalentedMrJ

Member
CeeJay said:
IMO AAA relates to budget and development effort.

In your definition op there is no room for racing, sports, fps, sims etc.
Click to expand...

I hear you. Not the biggest racing guy in the world.
FPS can have good stories as well but I can't remember the last time one blew my away
I have almost zero experience with sim games. Not my cup of tea.

If we're just talking budget that puts Assassins Creed and COD in the discussion
But those games are stale as hell to me
The same formula. Very minor changes to gameplay

EDIT: Like Rockstar's work. GTA is always good in terms of story. Although I feel the original Watchdogs outclassed them with controls and gameplay.
Red Dead 2 was solid but was WAY too long
 
Last edited:
01011001

01011001

Banned
90% terrible games designed for casuals and custom tailored for game critics that get easily excited by B-tier wannabe hollywood storytelling and polished graphics.

10% actually good games made by developers that still care about interesting Gamedesign
 
01011001

01011001

Banned
cormack12 said:
AAA is cutscene, arena, interactive QTE, expositon, arena, interactive QTE, cutscene, arena, exposition.

Still high quality though.
Click to expand...

you forgot the 5 minutes of holding the left stick forward while a questionably animated AI talks to you because they couldn't be bothered to actually animate another cutscene
 
Last edited:
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
A lot of good answers already, but to sum up

tenor.gif
 
B

Bladed Thesis

Member
TalentedMrJ said:
Imo, what makes a AAA game is focus on narrative, characters, story. Immersion. How invested am I in the game world?

Sony does this best for me. I like to think of their exclusives as interactive movies

All the Uncharted games felt like Indian Jones: The Videogame to me

Love anything made my Quantic Dreams. Heavy Rain and Detroit being their best work. Any game that has me playing multiple times after completion is a good thing. And the heavy focus on story, CHOICE, and characters. One of the few games to make me emotional

TLOU. Once again, heavy emphasis on story, world, and characters. Loved it and played it multiple times on PS3 and PS4. Just looking at the gameplay by itself, it's pretty average TBH. Never understood how Joel had so much weapon sway when he was a seasoned survivor. The man couldn't aim straight to save his life. But I overlooked this because of the amazing story.

Infamous Second Son. Open world game done right. Just the right amount of collectables. Perfect length at 10-12 hours. Encouraged 2 playthroughs. And again, the focus on story and characters. Plus the gameplay felt so good.

So... how do you define AAA???
Click to expand...
Quoting for posterity so I can come back and read again and again.
 
Guilty_AI

Guilty_AI

Member
GreyHorace said:
I define AAA as the videogames industry's version of big budget Hollywood tentpole movies. Huge sums of money has been spent on the production and marketing of these games and it shows.

Rockstar Games open world titles like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption are definitely AAA. As is Sony's massive single player games like God of War and Ghost of Tsushima.

Personally I'd like it if there were more midlevel budget games around to provide more variety in the market. Titles A Plague Tale: Innocence and Greedfall were perfect in this regard.
Click to expand...
This is a pretty good definition.
I'd also like to add that the publishers of AAA games try to develop a "social event" of sorts surrounding the launch of a new title, similar to what we see in the release of big movies in cinema.
 
Guilty_AI

Guilty_AI

Member
TalentedMrJ said:
Imo, what makes a AAA game is focus on narrative, characters, story. Immersion. How invested am I in the game world?
Click to expand...
i don't think this is a good way to put it. We still have titles like COD with multiplayer focus, as well as the FIFA's, Gran Turismo's, Forza's, NBA's...
 
CeeJay

CeeJay

Member
TalentedMrJ said:
I hear you. Not the biggest racing guy in the world.
FPS can have good stories as well but I can't remember the last time one blew my away
I have almost zero experience with sim games. Not my cup of tea.

If we're just talking budget that puts Assassins Creed and COD in the discussion
But those games are stale as hell to me
The same formula. Very minor changes to gameplay

EDIT: Like Rockstar's work. GTA is always good in terms of story. Although I feel the original Watchdogs outclassed them with controls and gameplay.
Red Dead 2 was solid but was WAY too long
Click to expand...
You can have bad AAA games though such as Anthem or Fallout 76. Or do you only class a game as AAA if it's great?

Racing games such as GT or Forza Motorsport have very little in the way of story but surely are AAA. Games such as Titanfall (especially the first) and Apex may have some lore around the world but again have very little in the way of story or narrative to speak of and are AAA. Flight Simulator has got to be about as AAA as you can get with what it achieves but has none of the qualities that you talk about.

Are saying that games which don't appeal to your quite frankly narrow taste cannot be AAA in your book?
 
GreyHorace

GreyHorace

Member
Guilty_AI said:
i don't think this is a good way to put it. We still have titles like COD with multiplayer focus, as well as the FIFA's, Gran Turismo's, Forza's, NBA's...
Click to expand...

Exactly this. EA's Star Wars Battlefront games are pretty much AAA despite being light on story; a fact I'm pissed off about since Raven Software's Battlefront games had great single player campaigns. Star Wars is a huge license and has to make back the money Disney and EA invested in it.
 
TalentedMrJ

TalentedMrJ

Member
Guilty_AI said:
i don't think this is a good way to put it. We still have titles like COD with multiplayer focus, as well as the FIFA's, Gran Turismo's, Forza's, NBA's...
Click to expand...

I can longer play the yearly reskin EA calls Madden
2k may be different, I wouldn't know
COD is also a yearly reskin imo but as long as people continue to buy, they'll keep churning them out.

The most recent multiplayer reveal is about the same as every other year
A catchy song with some sweet kills thrown in
In reality we all know it will be a claymore setting, camp fest
 
TalentedMrJ

TalentedMrJ

Member
CeeJay said:
Are saying that games which don't appeal to your quite frankly narrow taste cannot be AAA in your book?
Click to expand...

I am guilty of this. I admit it.
Like Forza
Glad you mentioned Titanfall because that did some things we've never seen before in online multiplayer

I should add innovation to my list. Nintendo is still pumping out Zelda and Mario but manage to keep their games fresh and interesting.
 
gradient

gradient

Resident Cheap Arse
A baseless marketing term created to sell games released by large publishers by implying quality and value are assured by budget and project scale.
 
LarknThe4th

LarknThe4th

Member
It's just a way of saying your game is around the 100 mill or above mark, it isn't linked to any genre or style of game
 
Guilty_AI

Guilty_AI

Member
TalentedMrJ said:
I can longer play the yearly reskin EA calls Madden
2k may be different, I wouldn't know
COD is also a yearly reskin imo but as long as people continue to buy, they'll keep churning them out.

The most recent multiplayer reveal is about the same as every other year
A catchy song with some sweet kills thrown in
In reality we all know it will be a claymore setting, camp fest
Click to expand...
its still aaa tho
 
Aion002

Aion002

Member
Budget.

How much money did they spend on it:

A shit ton: AAA.

A reasonable quantity: AA.

Polish, type (of game) and quality has nothing to do with it.

For example: Anthem is AAA trash.
 
Last edited:
Nico_D

Nico_D

Member
Imo AAA has nothing to do with narrative focus or immersion. It is mostly just visuals and what big name actor there is doing the voice and the (open world) bloat.

There are a lot of small budget games having better story, characters and immersion than your regular AAA game.

Personally it feels like the story in AAAs can be an afterthought.
 
vaibhavpisal

vaibhavpisal

Member
AAA for me is more of a derogatory term. Anything that is big budget but compromised in gameplay to ensure everyone is able to finish it.

I dont consider Souls games or Monster hunter games AAA despite huge budgets.
 
Humdinger

Humdinger

Member
The only definition that really works (in the sense of being more or less objective) is one that is based on the budget of a game. AAA games have big budgets. They don't necessarily have good stories or immersive worlds. They just have big budgets.

Trying to define "AAA" in terms of quality never works, because quality is a subjective term.
 
LittleBusters

LittleBusters

Banned
Basically anything Sony studios are doing these days. Single-player, narrative-driven, cinematic, lots of lighting effects, 60 hour campaign and 95/100 on Metacritic and 10 million sales. Also Nintendo Zelda, Mario Kart and Animal Crossing.

AAA is not just budget, but super successful sales.

That's why nobody considers Ryse to be a AAA.
 
Last edited:
Perrott

Perrott

Gold Member
GreyHorace said:
Exactly this. EA's Star Wars Battlefront games are pretty much AAA despite being light on story; a fact I'm pissed off about since Raven Software's Battlefront games had great single player campaigns. Star Wars is a huge license and has to make back the money Disney and EA invested in it.
Click to expand...
The originals were made by Pandemic, not Raven.
 
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