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[cormack12]

Source: https://mp1st.com/news/remedy-explains-difference-of-aa-to-aaa-games-to-the-studio


MP1st: Remedy has said FBC: Firebreak is AA. What constitutes a game to be classified as AA? Its launch sale price? Smaller team? I mean, we want to say the development budget, but those are almost always never made public.

Thomas Puha, Communications Director: “Good question. The whole AA and AAA “classifications”, what do those really mean?

For us it means the cost of the game’s development, meaning the budget, the development team size and the amount of content and features we ship on day 1. These are all intricately linked to each other.

Then there’s things like, we aren’t doing a lot of VO localized into lots of different languages, being more economical there, which is easier when you don’t have cut-scenes which are some of the most expensive things to do in video games. The aim as always is put out as great of a game as possible.”

 

[San Dan Glokta]

We need to normalise AA games.

 

[HRK69]

 

[amigastar]

I don't need Voice over in my native language, i'm ok with only English voice over.

 

[Topher]

We need to normalise AA games.

Yes. Not all games need mocap, long cutscenes, desctructible environments, etc.

 

[bender]

Triple B is where it is at.

 

[adamsapple]

For us it means the cost of the game’s development, meaning the budget, the development team size and the amount of content and features we ship on day 1. These are all intricately linked to each other.

Yes, that makes the most sense.

 

[Astray]

I have been talking about voiceover tracks and localization being a major cost that only AAAs can afford to have at scale and a major signifier whether something is AAA or not.

Look at something like Hifi Rush.. It has like 14 languages, 8-9 of them have a full voiceover track. That's a signifier that the game is AAA and was considered as such by Microsoft (hence the closure when that game flopped financially).

I don't need Voice over in my native language, i'm ok with only English voice over.

Native voiceovers can add a lot to a game and make it more relevant to international audiences.

Look at how Sony does full localization to most of their AAA fare, that's a major reason behind their success.

 

[Topher]

i'm ok with only English voice over.

I'm fine with that as well

 

[rabbity-thing]

Native voiceovers can add a lot to a game and make it more relevant to international audiences.

Look at how Sony does full localization to most of their AAA fare, that's a major reason behind their success.

Agreed. It's become common place for games to deliver narrative during gameplay. I can read subtitles just fine when watching a cutscene or a specific dialogue segment, but doing so while actually playing a game is very difficult. I end up just having to sit and wait. It's immersion breaking and annoying.

 

[San Dan Glokta]

Yes. Not all games need mocap, long cutscenes, destructible environments, etc.

I know this a contentious thing to say here in neoGAF since more people here are PC gamers than not:

The graphics chasers with their ego-invested GPUs hold a lot of fault for the industry being as it is.

 

[nowhat]

Triple B is where it is at.

I'm more into double-D games. Like Stellar Blade.

 

[bender]

I'm more into double-D games. Like Stellar Blade.

 

[adamsapple]

I'm more into double-D games. Like Stellar Blade.

Deeply Disappointing ?

 

[nowhat]

Deeply Disappointing ?

If you're seriously asking, no. Tits, of course.

 

[adamsapple]

If you're seriously asking, no. Tits, of course.

I know I know, just joshing

 

[mayham2199]

Good to hear this is AA. I think it’s going to flop and the less damage done the better.

 

[ProtoByte]

Yes. Not all games need mocap, long cutscenes, desctructible environments, etc.

I'm not going to lie: At this point, that's what most of the games I want to be spending my time on are.

I will go out of my way to play some narrative adventures games and the best of the best indies here and there, but I'm mostly not trying to play little league shit. I honestly think the industry was healthier when there were fewer indie devs pushing out games, and I don't think anyone ever cares about so called "AA" projects from AAA studios.

And, btw, Alan Wake 2, Control and Space Marine are all AAA - they just cost less because of where they're developed.

 

[Loboxxx]

We need to normalise AA games.

The press and players should accept and appreciate AA games, adjusting their expectations. The obsession with technology and the pressure from sites like Digital Foundry or hardcore forum players should be toned down and better aligned with the reality of the industry. Nintendo is the only one that thrives with AA games without issues because its "humility" in hardware is forgiven. The reason? No idea.

 

[VolticArchangel]

Yes. Not all games need mocap, long cutscenes, desctructible environments, etc.

Then join the KWO. It's the best of both worlds.

 

[jroc74]

Funny, because when trying to explain this and why Returnal was considered AAA, (budget, etc) some folks had a problem with that game being called AAA.

Some calling it Recore with neon.

 

[awwr999999]

AA gaming is a bad idea and studios with less money need legacy platforms reopened so they can make great AAA games at lower resolutions.
Getting brand new AAA PS1/2 games that take advantage of DualSense would be better than getting more AA PS5 games that don't.

 

[Loomy]

Triple B is where it is at.

 

[Dalbajobas]

Funny, because when trying to explain this and why Returnal was considered AAA, (budget, etc) some folks had a problem with that game being called AAA.

Some calling it Recore with neon.

You're not serious right? Returnal is low tier budget AA game, nothing more. Did you forgot how sony called 500K sales a mega success? The budget for it must have been super low and it showed.

No AAA studio survives, if one of their AAA games perform so poorly.

 

[SimTourist]

AA gaming is a bad idea and studios with less money need legacy platforms reopened so they can make great AAA games at lower resolutions.
Getting brand new AAA PS1/2 games that take advantage of DualSense would be better than getting more AA PS5 games that don't.

Modern AA cost more than AAA in PS2 days. GTA San Andreas had a budget of 10 million dollars, today that would be barely enough to pay the janitors

 

[Bulletbrain]

Funny, because when trying to explain this and why Returnal was considered AAA, (budget, etc) some folks had a problem with that game being called AAA.

Some calling it Recore with neon.

The line between AAA and AA will always be contentious. Why? There is no industry standard! Unless the industry can agree on a standard (for example, a game costing 100m USD or more is AAA, anything below is AA) the terms will be applied differently to each company/studio.

From a gamers perspective, all we need to do is treat the terms for what it is. It's just a RELATIVE measure of how expensive a project is, and not necessarily an indicator of quality.

More AAs please!

 

[awwr999999]

Modern AA cost more than AAA in PS2 days. GTA San Andreas had a budget of 10 million dollars, today that would be barely enough to pay the janitors

It'd be interesting to see what a AAA PS2 game actually costs to develop today with modern development HW and an updated SDK.
The increased cost of making games on newer consoles doesn't come with any increase in profits.
Flip side of that is that great games are great games regardless of what they cost to make.
Nintendo could bring back SNES and most of us would gladly drop $50 on new SNES Zelda games.
PS could bring back PS2 and most of us would gladly drop $50 on new PS2 GTA games.
In both cases game development costs would be significantly lower than they'd be for new 4k x86 games.
When Nintendo and PS arrive at that fact PC will take a back seat to the console war of the future between new exclusive games on proprietary legacy HW.
Switch/SNES and PS5/PS2/PS1 consoles would be able to play x86 ports but x86 wouldn't get any new SNES or PS2/PS1 ports.

 

[SimTourist]

It'd be interesting to see what a AAA PS2 game actually costs to develop today with modern development HW and an updated SDK.
The increased cost of making games on newer consoles doesn't come with any increase in profits.
Flip side of that is that great games are great games regardless of what they cost to make.
Nintendo could bring back SNES and most of us would gladly drop $50 on new SNES Zelda games.
PS could bring back PS2 and most of us would gladly drop $50 on new PS2 GTA games.
In both cases game development costs would be significantly lower than they'd be for new 4k x86 games.
When Nintendo and PS arrive at that fact PC will take a back seat to the console war of the future between new exclusive games on proprietary legacy HW.
Switch/SNES and PS5/PS2/PS1 consoles would be able to play x86 ports but x86 wouldn't get any new SNES or PS2/PS1 ports.

I think devs would find it very hard to go back to those old hardware limitations, the skills to write super optimized code and maximise obscure architectures is not there anymore, same for creating simple assets. I think you're overestimating how many people would wanna play in 480i on modern tv sets. Also the costs to restart ps2 hardware production, controllers, memory cards, DVDs, etc. would be very expensive, bringing back obsolete tech is not easy. But really the market for this thing is not there to justify the costs.

 

[T-0800]

I don't need Voice over in my native language, i'm ok with only English voice over.

Then we a machine for you. It's called the Xbox.

 

[Thief1987]

So the difference is budget. Thanks, never would've thought

 

[dgrdsv]

We need to normalise AA games.

What does that even mean?
AA games are here since forever and are as "normalized" as humanly possible.
Smaller budget means less content and less expensive features like mocap and voices, it does not mean worse tech since tech is arguably the cheapest part of any game - and you can just license it in the form of UE5.
Smaller budget also means less promotion and coupled with less and worse content less chance of making a lot of sales. All in all it evens out - you earn as much as you invest, the only "good" part about AA is that the investment is smaller so the risks associated with losing it are lower.
But it wouldn't "save" anyone, it won't help to sell anything better and it certainly won't help the industry as moving everything from AAA to AA means less money which means less jobs will be needed.

 

[SHAKEZ]

I'd say companies need to tone down cutscenes heavily in AAA games. It would really help the budget and focus on gameplay.

 

[awwr999999]

I think devs would find it very hard to go back to those old hardware limitations, the skills to write super optimized code and maximise obscure architectures is not there anymore, same for creating simple assets. I think you're overestimating how many people would wanna play in 480i on modern tv sets. Also the costs to restart ps2 hardware production, controllers, memory cards, DVDs, etc. would be very expensive, bringing back obsolete tech is not easy. But really the market for this thing is not there to justify the costs.

Sony can easily make a new line of TVs and monitors (to take the place of expensive CRTs) that work perfectly with 480i/480p-1080p and sell them to Switch users, PS1/2 users and retro gamers across platforms.
All of PS and Nintendo's legacy consoles would work with the Sony TV.
All of Sony's legacy consoles have been obsoleted by virtue of lacking DualSense functionality.
DualSense feedback not working with PS1/2 games means that every PS1/2 game needs a "reformat" to add DualSense functionality and update controls/UI.
The entire catalog of PS1/2 games having a legitimate reason to be reissued means PlayStation could easily justify any costs involved.
The proprietary HW, across the board, will cost less to make now than it did in the 2000s.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

So basically
AAAA - A
AAA - B
AA - C
A - D

dumb system