What do we mean by AAA games?
The term “AAA games” is a designation used in the video game industry to refer to high-budget, popular games that are typically produced and distributed by large, well-known publishers.
These games are often categorized as "blockbuster movies" due to their extreme popularity, and many are part of successful franchises, with new installments building on the success of previous games.
On this increasing basis, AAA gaming features are being incorporated into more and more mobile gaming platforms so that the performance and efficiency of the CPU and GPU in smartphones becomes paramount.
As such, most AAA games require powerful 3D graphics, high-performance computing, machine learning, and persistent connectivity on mobile devices.
The arm is a major enabler in the mobile gaming industry and has been instrumental in developing technologies that allow AAA games to be played on mobile devices, including providing a series of best practice guides for mobile game development.
Money is the most important factor in determining whether a game is AAA or not, and most importantly for the huge budgets of these games is the expected huge revenue and profits. [1]
The difference between AAA games and other games
Indie titles are almost always developed by individuals or small teams, which rarely get financial support from the publisher, and in fact, many indie developers rely on crowdfunding or personal investment to cover game development costs.
And since in-game developers don't have a huge budget, games will tend to be smaller and shorter in length, which is also why many of them feature stylized art designs.
In general, AAA games are more expensive but offer more content and a realistic graphic style, and due to the size of the budget and development teams, AAA games are usually long, large, and detailed, with realistic graphics, and the term AAA itself is meant to represent expectations that these games are incredibly high quality Among those differences between the AAA game and the rest of the games are the following:
- The style of other games is usually more accessible to a wider audience due to several reasons.
- It's a lot cheaper than AAA games, and indie titles rarely cost more than twenty bucks, too.
- They have a relatively simple gameplay and are easy to pick up and play.
- In other games, the simplistic nature of the game may allow a variety of players to enjoy the game, regardless of their playing skill or experience.
- They tend to be significantly lower taxes on hardware, which means that PC players, they won't need the latest parts to run well.
With that said, AAA seems to be defined by a huge development budget, and a bigger PR budget.
How did the realism affect the game?
In-game realism has also helped drive the growing gap between indie games and AAA titles, where a game's perceived value is increasingly dependent on its ability to appear "real."
Which game content is becoming an increasingly afterthought for many publishers looking to compete in the so-called "more immersive" experience.
But, as Pearson has argued, building a great, innovative, mid-priced game shouldn't rely on this trend at all. The idea of continually increasing the realism of the game is seen a lot with AAA titles and the more realistic it is, the more money it costs.
The empty space between AAA and indie games holds a lot of opportunities and can allow for the innovation and funding needed to make an excellent game, and can lead to the next cycle of growth in the industry.
The most successful AAA games
One of the main reasons why there are no guidelines yet regarding rating a game as AAA or non-AAA is that games are constantly evolving.
Examples include Counter-Strike and Half-Life which were considered AAA during their reign in the late 1990s, and in the first few years of the 2000s, and here are some of the most successful Triple AAA games based on their total earnings:_
- FIFA 18 ، Electronic Arts
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Monster Hunter: World, Capcom
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six
- Red Dead Redemption 2,
There are actually more games that have earned more than these listed games, but they are not considered triple-A games primarily because the developer or publisher didn't have a big budget.
Triple-A games guarantee quality
The developers will always try to ensure the quality of their trilogy titles, they have spent a lot of money, effort, and time to create so they always do what they can to make it work.
However, this is not always the case when the game is shipped to consumers, some first-level games do not end well simply because the users did not like them.
Therefore, it is case-by-case, and players usually base the failure on the overall gameplay and story of the game.
Sometimes the developers focus so much on the graphics quality that they end up giving up on the gameplay and story mechanics, making the game fail in terms of overall quality.
Disadvantages of developing triathlon games
While it's very inspiring to see the profits of the successful first triples titles we're playing, there are actually a lot of drawbacks that can arise when developing one.
This job is more than just a gamble, as you bet not only a huge amount of money but also hard work and valuable time.
As I mentioned above, it takes time, dedication, hard work, and a huge amount of money to develop an AAA title and you can't even be sure if players around the world will like it or not.
Apart from beating the odds through gambling, Triple-A games especially for PC are also difficult to optimize.
This is why some PC game releases will always be delayed because optimizing a game for them is a very difficult task, AAA titles require a lot of hardware, and let's face it, PC components aren't exactly cheap.