Talk:AAA (video game industry)

This entry confuses a lot of things
The Nintendo seal of quality was always intended to mean that each title had gone through a Quality Assurance (bug testing) process. I.e. the game wouldn't break or glitch out or crash midway through a level. Nowadays it's standard for every platform holder (sony, nintendo, etc.) to have a QA and platform standards process that first and third party developers have to go through each time in order to release a title. The seal of quality didn't necesserily say anything about the game's artistic or creative quality, its budget, or anything else -- just that Nintendo vetted games for technical bugs. The seal of quality is absolutely unrelated to the term "AAA game".

"AAA" is not a mark of quality given by any sort of organisation. It's a game industry buzzword used to denote "blockbuster" titles with huge multi-million budgets, typically publisher-backed, with wide audience reach, and cutting edge production values. Game industry executives might refer to something like Call of Duty as AAA (big team, big budget, big target audience, and high aims for its technical and visual effects) but wouldn't say so of, say, Minecraft (relatively smaller team, low-fi graphics, and while it was obviously hugely succesful it wasn't designed with blockbuster aspirations in mind from the start).

"For a title to remain AAA post-launch, it must be both commercially and critically successful." I don't know where this comes from. It's not true. Take Assassin's Creed Unity for instance: it was a critical failure, and it underperformed commercially, but it's still referred to as AAA due to its clear blockbuster ambitions.

Not to sound too harsh here (this entry seems to have been written by a well-meaning person), but I suggest scrapping this article and starting over. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.225.80 (talk) 23:15, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Who grades these games?
Who on earth is responsible for assigning these "grades" to games? Is there some specific organisation? Is it still active? Who came up with the ratings and how are they made objective? They seem extremely subjective to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jason021388 (talk • contribs) 08:09, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

This is indeed very subjective, but nonetheless part of gaming culture, the existence and usage of this unquantifiable scale is well registered, and although which games are deserving of the title is more a matter of perfoonal opinion, the common qualifying characteritics aren't. --187.64.176.142 (talk) 23:19, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

That said, who on earth thought Minecraft is anywhere near AAA? It's neither high-budget, long development, or large content (randomly generated maps don't count, or would tetris have large content?) --187.64.176.142 (talk) 23:19, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Define "Acronym"
Find the person who wrote this and send him back to third grade. --63.88.62.157 (talk) 14:45, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Examples
The article could include a section with an overview of games that have been called (classified as) AAA. In my opinion, each entry would need at least two reliable, third-party sources. I will list here what I've been able to find. Note that, for various reasons, this is not yet usable for the article. Among other things, some of the quotes are from the creators of the games themselves. But it's a start and maybe if other editors reply with additional (entries and) references, we'll be able to include some examples of triple-A games in the article at some point in the future. So far, only Tomb Raider has two references. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 23:32, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (CBC News; "blockbuster AAA game the likes of Splinter Cell could")
 * BioShock 2 and Deus Ex: Invisible War (NPR; "used to work on AAA games like BioShock 2 and Deus Ex: Invisible War")
 * Assassin's Creed III (Forbes; "Assassin's Creed 3: Are AAA Games Dying Out?")
 * Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (The Escapist; "This is a triple-A game and the top grosser of all time with")
 * Tomb Raider (NowGamer; "Tomb Raider is a AAA game due to launch in 2013") (Grainger Games; "Tomb Raider is a Triple-A game")
 * Dark Souls (Metro; "Dark Souls is a AAA game")
 * The Last of Us (Overland; "Last of Us is special because it is a Triple-A game with")
 * Batman: Arkham Asylum (VentureBeat; "Batman Arkham asylum is a AAA game all the way through")
 * Diablo III and Portal 2 (Forbes; "Surface Pro Can Run Diablo III, Portal 2, Other AAA Games")
 * Journey (Gamasutra; "I think Journey is a triple-A game...")
 * Deus Ex and Thief (GameSpot; "Building AAA games like Deus Ex or Thief was like working in a Ferrari garage")

Usage
While this article addresses the origin and original usage of "AAA" within the industry, in popular usage it merely refers to any big-budget, major-studio game, regardless of quality—in other words an antonym of "indie." Would this be relevant to bring up in the article? 64.85.243.248 (talk) 18:23, 7 July 2015 (UTC)


 * well Nintendo is the largest Independent developer aren't they? 120.21.102.190 (talk) 00:08, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

high scores
Should there be mention of the fact that many old arcade machines had high scores held by a person named aaa because they would just select the first letter when asked to input their name? Benjamin (talk) 05:21, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 23 March 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Don't see general agreement either to rename this article or what to name it instead. As is usual with a no-consensus outcome, editors may strengthen their arguments and make another attempt in a few weeks to garner consensus for the highest and best title/disambiguator for this page. Have a Great Day and Happy Publishing! (closed by page mover)  Paine Ellsworth   put'r there 18:52, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

AAA (video game industry) → AAA game – Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NATURAL this makes sense as a better title that would not require parenthetical disambiguation. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 06:26, 23 March 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:29, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose as sounds too much like it's referring to a game called "AAA". Maybe AAA game (video game industry), but even then that is unnecessarily expanding the title. Bungle (talk • contribs) 19:37, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, it doesn't sound like that at all, and I don't see why you would think that. If it were about a game called "AAA", then it would be called "AAA (video game)" per Wikipedia policy. There is literally no game on Wikipedia that is called "Title game", so there's no way anyone would get confused.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 23:15, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * AAA rated game or AAA game classification are other alternate names which are less ambiguous than simply "AAA game". I still don't quite get what the issue is with the parentheses, but if they're going to be removed, should it not aim to retain clarity? Bungle (talk • contribs) 08:15, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Bungle here; if the proposed title is not ambiguous with a particular game, it still sounds like a game genre, along the lines of Role-playing game, Board game, Casino game, Online game, Battle royale game, etc. Dekimasu よ! 16:39, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "AAA" isn't a "rating", it's a genre of sorts, generally implying that the game has a massive budget. AAA rated game makes no sense. Just like Blockbuster film is the de facto term for a high budget film, AAA game is the de facto term for a high budget game and that is used commonly in sources.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 13:21, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll remain neutral on the proposal for now. Dekimasu よ! 13:54, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Blockbuster film isn't the primary article for that though. Besides, I made another suggestion of AAA game classification which you didn't poo-poo (so to speak) and one which is less ambiguous. Bungle (talk • contribs) 18:29, 29 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Move to AAA video game to reduce ambiguity. feminist (talk) 16:57, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what the ambiguity is with, as there are no AAA board games or AAA gambling games. AAA game is a redirect there - the term is only used in video games. However, I do still support this version more than the current title.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 19:11, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Support for "AAA game". It meets all of WP:CRITERIA better than the current title or any of the other proposed titles. "AAA rated game" and "AAA game classification" are both very confusing and un-recognizable titles—to me, they both sound like some sort of official label/rating system, when in fact, "AAA" is a fairly informal and arbitrarily-applied label. "AAA video game" fails WP:CONCISE; as User:Zxcvbnm said, there is no other type of game that uses the term "AAA". The title "AAA game" is also really good because it is WP:NATURALDAB—the exact phrase "AAA game" is used all the time in news sources. – Iago Qnsi  (talk) 03:36, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * One more point: User:Dekimasu said he disliked this title because it sounds like a genre, but it sort-of is a genre—at least, in the same way that indie game is sort-of considered a genre (and "Indie game" has the same name pattern as "AAA game"). Poke through some of the articles in the Google search I linked above and you'll see what I mean (for example, here's an article where, in the first sentence, "AAA" is sort-of implied to mean "opposite of indie"). – Iago Qnsi (talk) 03:46, 5 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I still find myself somewhat reluctant to endorse the original proposal. Sources used in the article like this and this use "AAA" without necessarily appending "game": "Pursuit of AAA is"... "that will leave the AAA blockbusters..." "AAA launches are..." "present themselves as common-or-garden AAA titles..." "the AAA market..." "conventional AAA publishing..." "tough climate for AAA launches does not..." This use of "AAA" as a noun by itself indicates to me that the article is probably at the right title where it is now. Leaning oppose. Dekimasu よ! 18:20, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Proposal: It seems like there's a decent amount of opposition to "AAA game", so I'd like to propose a compromise: Why don't we at least shorten the title a bit by making it "AAA (video games)"? The word "industry" isn't particularly necessary in the title, and this would make it a lot more WP:CONCISE. -- Iago Qnsi (User talk:IagoQnsi) 06:21, 7 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The Witcher
The section under AAA+ mentioning "hyperbolic marketing ploy" feels blatantly incorrect. Points:
 * The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was the followup to 2 games that that sold millions of copies.
 * Indie games is not mentioned a single time on the Witcher's page.
 * Indie Games do not have a specific definition but are described as "However, indie games generally share certain common characteristics. Indie games are developed by individuals, small teams, or small independent companies that are often specifically formed for the development of one specific game." To this point CD Projekt spent almost $81m on the development of The Witcher 3, Overwatch's development was estimated to be between $15-25m.
 * CD Projekt has 800 employees. Their game was not developed by an individual or small team.

So in summary, The Witcher 3 being the example probably needs to change. I'm not sure it should be fully eliminated as there are probably good examples of that, but this example feels patently incorrect and somewhat hostile towards CD Projekt Red.


 * Remove, as per WP:OR and failed verification. Xoool (talk) 13:20, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Retail prices
I feel this topic should include retail prices of the bigger successful games per region and or currency as I'm trying to find information regarding the price difference of games in general over the past two decades. 2601:194:827E:6980:201D:A989:F9B1:388C (talk) 06:03, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Among Us being AA generates inconsistency
It just doesn't make sense. It was made by 4 people in 8 months. It's the most indie game ever made. And the 1 source doesn't even justify a reason behind it. Liderangel (talk) 02:23, 5 May 2023 (UTC)


 * There's no way Among Us can be taken seriously as AA. It's indie, flat out. I've taken it out. M asem (t) 03:56, 5 May 2023 (UTC)