Game becomes AAA or truly AAA when
Poll started by feillyne with 1,613 votes and 61 comments. Browse the poll archive.
The game is of high quality and received a lot of polish (794 votes)
Its developers received a big publisher's funding to continue development (165 votes)
Receives highly positive reviews and positive critical reception everywhere (267 votes)
Developers themselves spent loads of money and time for the game development (90 votes)
It has loads of features and is large enough to call it an "AAA" game (146 votes)
Many copies of it were sold or shipped (63 votes)
It is made by a famous and widely known developer (88 votes)
Post a Comment
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free) and do things you never thought possible.
Poll
Hot Polls
Your aims in 2012
with 12,200 votes
Would you mod console games if the platform was open like the PC?
with 10,607 votes
Do you own a smartphone?
with 9,591 votes
How do you set your resolution for PC gaming?
with 7,567 votes
Why do you pirate games?
with 7,085 votes
What do you game on mostly?
with 6,724 votes
Did you take action and protest SOPA / PIPA
with 5,700 votes
Voted in the Top 100 mods?
with 5,590 votes
IndieDB has been up for a bit now... thoughts?
with 5,579 votes
v4 is here. Your opinion is:
with 5,540 votes
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
Blog | About | Contact | Advertise | Join Mod DB | Site Map | Media Kit | Desura | RSS 
© 2002 - 2012 DesuraNET Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Friends: gamrReview. 2252 modders.
© 2002 - 2012 DesuraNET Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Friends: gamrReview. 2252 modders.
Quality of the game and the content in the game is what matters!
It actually has to do with advertizing budgets, but there is also more to it.
I hear that. My choice was (2), getting a truckload of funds. This means that you can have AAA titles of low quality, and that sold poorly. Just like in real life.
psst. have a look at Darkspore, no one plays it and it was apparently AAA?
Yes and that's just sad. Just because you have money you can release crap game ask big bucks for it and call it AAA.
If you look triple A up on wikipedia, it says what I was thinking:
"...something that is high-quality, premier, or excellent."
So that's my vote. Although, like others have said, most don't count it as AAA unless it was made by a big company.
Everyone might say that it's the quality and polish of the game, yet many indie games with that level of quality don't get the title of "AAA". We know that mainly big company games are given the title of "AAA". I know a lot of people hate CoD because of its lack originality each game but we know that it's a "AAA" title, Why? Because it's made by a known company (Activision>Treyarch>Hammerstudios or w.e). So when people say it's the quality and content they contradict themselves by referring CoD as triple a. In reality gaming companies use AAA to attract buyer and really it has no meaning to me. Dead Island for one, is known as a triple a title yet it seems utterly rushed and incomplete (My opinion, don't freak).
The term "AAA" is 99% of the time about the amount of funds applied on the game's marketing section.
"Triple A" games are only made by big publishers and not always present a decent amount of polish, or even a decent amount of quality. Many, many times independent titles surpass both aspects and are not considered "AAA" games because they're not heavily advertised.
So No, Wikipedia is wrong (like most of the time) and so are the statistics this "poll" gives.
Yes, that's how people use it, but it's not what it really means.
Exactly GarynDakari is right, there is a difference between what it means to be an AAA title and what game company's put on the market as beïng an AAA title. The question is about what you think is worthy to be called an AAA title as far as I understand. AAA is and will always be an opinion not a fact, it can't be proven, only discussed.
If everyone uses it the wrong way, the original meaning will change. It has already happened, it is now used as an antonym to the "indie" label.
AAA is like Premium. It's a marketing term who's meaning isn't technical. It's just a buzz word. Premium beer is no different from regular beer, but it's used to pull people into buying something.
If the game is High quality to who ever is playing and is well Polished then it is AAA...
AAA should be a classification of games of high quality and polish, however many indie games that meet this criteria wont ever be considered AAA because they do not appear technically sophisticated enough.
You can make a rock-solid, highly polished, 2D platform game but no-one is going to classify it as a AAA title in this day and age.
I cynically associate AAA status more closely with the size of the marketing budget than the actual quality of the game. Since big marketing budgets come from big publishers, the assumption is that any game from a big publisher will be a AAA game.
AAA is a stigma of the commercial sell outs, not a badge of honor for the best games that it should be.
Unfortunately thats exactly what AAA games stand for today.
But a game isn't AAA just because someone, a website, a review etc. says so.
I might like Barbie Princess Adventure (or whatever) and I would consider it a AAA game.
It's all relative, but sadly the majority has the final say.
AAA games just means you make a game with a big publisher behind you. Indie games are independent developers meaning you fund the project yourself or have a smallish investment.
AAA doesn't really have anything to do with the quality of the game really it's all about the publishers.
I agree.
Second that! Just proves that games don't have to cost millions of dollars to make, just imagination (millions of brain cells?).
But millions of pounds does help.
Quality and the developers love for the game. When you make a game of love it goes Halo: Reach/BF3. When you make for money, it goes CoD.
Nobody really likes CoD.
Sorry, but I do not see how you can compare "Halo" Reach to BF3 in any slightest way.
I like CoD.
It's all about what the players think.
I have voted for the second option, but I wanted to go for a combination of the first and the second option. The definition of AAA games I know is "A high quality game that has received a lot of funding from a publisher".
According to that definition there aren't that many AAA games left nowadays. (And no, don't go yelling YAY INDIES because indie <> small and/or good games).
You have a nice blog post about indie and not indie, very interesting.
Quality and polish makes AAA games? Don't make me laugh.
Nowadays games of big companies are considered AAA games. Even if they lack polish, content, and quality. A few eye-candy visuals are just enough. And it should cost at least $49.99, but preferably $59.99. That makes a game an AAA game.
I'd say just a name of previous games from some series are making the sequels sell well. No matter how good/bad is the game.
Polish is overrated. A game can have bugs and it doesn't bother me that much. For example i love STALKER and Red Orchestra 2 and those games are buggy as hell... over polishing a product does nothing for me and the price tag for most companies to do so is too much.
what does AAA mean? -__-
Advertisement. Advertisement. Advertisement. = AAA
Go Tetris, go!
imho, AAA games are the ones which are the most entertaining, have well made back story, using the new technologies or just genius in their simpleness
quality is everything! and i belive it also includes polish, right ?
Err, what does AAA mean? Please do explain what the shortings means in the polls!
Well part of the poll question is what YOU think AAA means. I think. Anyway, this is the internet. Google is your friend, remember?
I think if a game is very well made so that it's still fun and exciting 5 or ten years down the line because those who made the game though outside the box that earns it something. I think the test of time is a big part. If your game is the best seller for opening day but fails to keep people interested it's not so great.
I voted for "The game is of high quality and received a lot of polish," because for the most part, that's what I believe a AAA game should be.
On a more down note, it really is ending up being more like "It is made by a famous and widely known developer."
High quality and as little problems as possible is important to me.
I had to vote something just to find out what AAA even means :S
I honestly don't care what any of you say about a Triple A game requiring a huge budget. There are many indie games I have seen that I would actually consider AAA. There are also many mods that I would consider AAA. There are also many engine-modded games that I would considered AAA. However, many of these games and mods, no one else would consider AAA. I believe more it IS on the polish and how great the game itself is.
If a game sells at more expensive than $49.99; then it is AAA. Nothing else makes a game AAA.
I'd say it has the most to do with being fun to play, which usually means that the game is of high quality and received a lot of polish.
Quality and content!
I personally don't like to think of games as AAA or Indie or whatever. Games are games no matter how you cut it.
First you need ..."The game is of high quality and received a lot of polish" which then creates this ... "Receives highly positive reviews and positive critical reception everywhere" which almost always results in this "Many copies of it were sold or shipped". lol... its funny cuz its true.
This question is a little subjective.
My personal view of what a AAA game to be is all about it being a high quality game with a lot of polish.
However in the gaming industry in general it seems more as if it is determined by the amount of money thrown at it and who is developing it. In essence a major company can take a dump in a box, mark it as AAA+ title, advertise it as such, and it is somehow still a AAA+ title, despite it in reality being a tud in a box. According to the gaming industry today. ( This is a reference to a Chris Farley movie )
(buried)
of couse the answer is The game is of high quality and received a lot of polish only dumb people choose something else
Thanks, so that's why I'm at uni right now, because I'm dumb. Always wondered how I made it this far.
what AAA actually means is "Its developers received a big publisher's funding to continue development", i find this poll a bit silly. AAA is just a classification, not a rating.
*Edit- Well i be **, aaa is a synonym for excelent, i really thought what i said first, since that what most people think aaa means. Thx wikipedia!
AAA games are those which developers choose to fund and market as such. Everything that happens post-release, the reception, quality and content of the experience is irrelevant. The unit was sold and that's where the publishers cease to care, unless they want additional money in the form of online passes and dlc.
Please, if you try to apply the wikipedia's definition to the AAA in gaming then please review the list of AAA titles released.
AAA means, if anything, 'mediocre overall'.
AAA is not indicative of quality for the game anymore, it is mainly funding. A lot of games considered to be "AAA" titles (for some reason, Call of Duty keeps getting called this) are absolute crap.
Society itself, the industry, and the media are changing the definition on us.