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Japan Studio closed because the double-A market has ‘disappeared’, says Shuhei Yoshida
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
- Start date
- News
James Sawyer Ford
Member
AA is just another word for garbage, it has no meaning.
If you mean low budget, Sony supports a lot of those games in Asia, just not with their own studios.
Gravity Rush sold like shit, Stellar Blade did far better
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Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
Yeah, better to focus on those AAA live services instead, that's been going great.
Astray
Member
More than half of this list you mentioned is indie.
People are going all around this thread confusing AAs with AAAs and indies then acting shocked the AA market is non-existent.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Punished Miku
Human Rights Subscription Service
You can like whatever you want man. Gravity Rush is possibly my all time favorite Sony game. We clearly have very different taste in games.
Muddy
Member
Gamepass is a big reason Xbox makes AA games.
Nintendo make them cause gamers will still buy them.
Sony on the other hand? I mean just look at Astro Bot. A low budget GOTY made by Sony and it hasn’t sold as well as their AAA games.
Not even close.
Gamer_By_Proxy
Member
I love AA games, but this gen they're charging $60-70 for them no matter what the budget/quality is like.
VR games get it more right and have a wider range of prices depending on the games.
VR games get it more right and have a wider range of prices depending on the games.
James Sawyer Ford
Member
My point is that Sony has AA games, they are done through partnership studios, most are not in-house any more.
Where do you get this notion that they aren’t on PlayStation but are on Xbox?
RedC
Member
Please list the AA game's standard versions being sold when released at $69.99 this gen.
There's a huge library of AA games' standard versions being sold in the range of $30 to 60 dollars.
Punished Miku
Human Rights Subscription Service
Right. Just refer to the OP if you have any further questions.
fart town usa
Member
Makes sense. Why fund smaller games when you can just buy studios, lay people off, cancel games, and fund stuff like Concord?
Money well spent!
Money well spent!
Gamer_By_Proxy
Member
Outcast a new beginning was the main one I liked last year at $70. I believe slitterhead was $60. etc.
fart town usa
Member
Pathetic. Slitterhead is a cool game with a shoestring budget and tiny team. To act like it would have been the same with Sony's funding is quite dumb.
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Guilty_AI
Member
You're just arguing semantics then. If what you're calling "indie" has a millionaire budget and is worked on by teams numbering the dozens, what's even the fucking difference?
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Every single one of those are on the PS5 though. So it does support them.
James Sawyer Ford
Member
Japanese studio closed….
Yet Sony also has Housemarque, Asobi, Bluepoint, Bend….smaller studios that could possibly fall under the AA tier
Sony also helped support studios that made Kena, Stray, SIFU, Stellar Blade, Helldivers 2, and now projects like Lost Soul Aside, Tides of Annihilation, etc
If you think they’re gone you just aren’t looking close enough
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
This is Indie. not AA.
or of it has a publisher... it's still A.
Shuhei is right but not really. AA is dead. you know what was AA? perfect example.. dark messiah of might and magic, spec ops the line, Singularity. 6-10h long games with somewhat high produciton quality but not really.
Nobody is making these games anymore. Games are too big, too expensive. Nobody wants to buy 10h long game for 60-70$ and we end up with these behemoths that take 50-100 hours to beat for no reason.
I would love to have shorter games again. Fully priced ones.
Blackage
Member
Lot of posters seem confused about what Indie, AA, and AAA games are. It's not an exact formula but something like this:
Indie = Independent developer(s), smaller budget from anywhere of $50-000-$5 million. Usually need help to publish, little to no advertising unless again they get help/exposure.
AA games are usually green lit or backed by publishers with a ton of money to expand their library of offerings, $5-40 million budget, need to sell like 1-2 million to break even. Get moderate advertising.
AAA are supposed to be blockbuster movies in videogame form north of $100 million budget, take 3+ years just to get made nowadays. High risk/High Reward for publisher. Massive advertising campaigns. Need to sell 4-5 million+, micro transactions, season passes, loot boxes, everything!
This isn't an exact science but that's the general gist of it.
Indie = Independent developer(s), smaller budget from anywhere of $50-000-$5 million. Usually need help to publish, little to no advertising unless again they get help/exposure.
AA games are usually green lit or backed by publishers with a ton of money to expand their library of offerings, $5-40 million budget, need to sell like 1-2 million to break even. Get moderate advertising.
AAA are supposed to be blockbuster movies in videogame form north of $100 million budget, take 3+ years just to get made nowadays. High risk/High Reward for publisher. Massive advertising campaigns. Need to sell 4-5 million+, micro transactions, season passes, loot boxes, everything!
This isn't an exact science but that's the general gist of it.
RedC
Member
Yes Slitterhead was 60 dollars and not released at $69.99 which I believe is a very good indicator of it not being a AAA game.
However, Outcast - A New Beginning is a good example of a game being released at $69.99 and is held to AAA expectations but being perceived as AA in execution regardless of how big or small the budget was
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Guilty_AI
Member
Now you're just shrinking the definition of "AA".
The point is we have games with budgets of 1-20 million worked on by teams of 10 to 50 doing great (or less than 500 if you want to be pedantic and include every single participant, contractor and mother being thanked in the credits), its perfectly possible to invest in those and get good ROI. It doesn't matter if you want to claim "oh but tobe AA its need to be X hours long and and it need goowd gwarphics", the scale of development to sales is all that matters.
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LordOcidax
Member
*the double-A market has ‘disappeared’ for Sony
RedC
Member
It's the result of mega-successful game sales.
If you have a formula that consistently works, why would an executive aim low for modest returns?
MMaRsu
Member
Gamer_By_Proxy
Member
I have almost all those games. I guess I support AA.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
As one should, that's often the area where you see the most creative, quirky experiences.
Killjoy-NL
Member
What are the unreasonable high sales projections?
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Hypereides
Member
I have feeling we're going to see a resurgence in the AA space. There's progress going on there, but its relatively slow and steady.
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Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
They should have put the Gravity Rush 2 Trailer at E3 and not the shit from No Mans Sky and Days Gone.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
People just love to make shit up.
GAF convinced itself that AA was more marketable than live service... Stop and think about that...
Gamer_By_Proxy
Member
The one's I don't have are wanted dead, scorn and the sinking city. Not interested in scorn. I'm gonna get wanted dead now. Not sold on sinking city yet.
Killjoy-NL
Member
Even going just by Gaf, the recent SoP rating poll shows that most voters don't like AA.
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Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
One of the best games in the video game industry...
and there are people who support this garbage.
The people are also to blame.
and there are people who support this garbage.
The people are also to blame.
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Hypereides
Member
Sawyer, my man, it time to lay down the crackpipe and bong. The trip isn't worth it.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
That's the thing about GAF... It's not about consistency.
The same people begging for AA games will also shit on AA games. The people praising remakes will also shit on remakes.
The best part of GAF is that it's a hub for gaming news and discussion, but it comes with a lot that isn't great, but it's all a symptom of online discourse in general. Hopefully there is a reset on the horizon, no pun intended. It'll probably take a generation post-console war for people to get over hard feelings related to console warring, but at the same time the PC console divide will probably grow, but with video card prices skyrocketing we'll see how long that narrative lasts.
Gaming needs a unifying moment. Hopefully, GTA6 helps with that or maybe the Switch 2.
James Sawyer Ford
Member
You’re misinterpreting my comment completely. I think Miku confuses “AA” with mid tier quality games.
I’m saying there’s games that aren’t mid, have lower budgets but much better quality than a typical AA game
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Shubh_C63
Member
Yup. I think the entire MS strategy for GamePass is relying on AA market to make it look close to a AAA title.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
AA space marines 2 did great. And so did ultra indie game balatro selling 3M copies which looked like 5 people made it.
The problem with big studios is they need or want to focus on big projects only. Or they splinter it off into a mobile division or something.
But for them (ego or cost structure or both) don’t want to make a profitable quality 3 or 5M selling game. They’d rather go balls deep hoping for a 10-20M seller.
The problem with big studios is they need or want to focus on big projects only. Or they splinter it off into a mobile division or something.
But for them (ego or cost structure or both) don’t want to make a profitable quality 3 or 5M selling game. They’d rather go balls deep hoping for a 10-20M seller.
Fabieter
Member
It was sonys decision all in all. The problem is when you big games are basically all the same and you kill all the smaller games.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Neither of those are AA.
The unfortunate truth is that AA games in this generation requires a similar budget to AAA from the PS3/PS4 era.
AA back when it was an actual practicality was the Playstation1/2 era when you could turn around a title that could be sold at standard RRP in a couple of years with a headcount of less than 50.
That's not happening anymore.
Modern AA is something like Avowed or most of the other cannon fodder MS is dumping onto Game Pass, where most of the cost saving is coming from them basically doing minimal marketing and getting expectedly mediocre sales and interest as a result.
It is end of an era of over budget games. I think that is why relying on ML AI upscaling with frame generation, and image upscaling will be a big thing due to it will make game development cheaper. But the negative side is developer might become lazy to fully optimize there game, and always rely on fake frames and image upscaling. I just hope game engines like Decima or Unreal engine can make game development easier without sacrificing quality and creativity. .