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What does AAA mean?

WW4BWWW4BW Member UncommonPosts: 501

Could someone please explain to me what the hell AAA means and why its being put infront of mmorpg half the time.

I assume it means its top of the line or some such but it bugs the hell out of me not knowing what the letters represent and even more the nagging feeling that half the people using it dont have the slightest clue what it means either.

So, what does AAA mean?

Comments

  • SomeOldBlokeSomeOldBloke Member UncommonPosts: 2,167

    I think it's a baseball reference... you have Major League (red sox, white sox, etc.) then the Minor Leagues... Minor Leagues are split into several division AAA, AA, A, etc.   AAA being the best of the minor league divisions.

  • WW4BWWW4BW Member UncommonPosts: 501

    yeah minor league baseball is so far the best explanation.

    If that is what it means I think I wont use it myself.

  • BigdavoBigdavo Member UncommonPosts: 1,863

    It means it's a top shelf MMO usually made a by a big developer, such as WoW, LotRO, WAR, etc.

    Upcoming AAA titles for example would be Aion, SW:TOR, big devs, big bucks involved. Doesn't exactly mean the game is great, but usually it's one of the bigger/better ones around.

    O_o o_O

  • mhskmhsk Member Posts: 4

    It's just a game lingo (ie noob). basically means high quality game.

  • LynxJSALynxJSA Member RarePosts: 3,332

     

    Basically, it means the top ranking titles.

     

    "IDGA defines AAA titles as those ranking among the top 5 titles based on unit sales of the year." - Video Game Basics

     

    "We are developing Earthrise with the idea to make it comparable to the top MMO titles nowadays, which in your words means AAA MMO" - Ostiak, Earthrise Team

     

    Lately, a lot of marketing teams, especially for F2P games, have been pulling the term out of their ass.

    -- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG 
    RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? 
    FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?  
  • LobotomistLobotomist Member EpicPosts: 5,965

    AAA means the game was developed by major game developer (fe Mythic,Bioware,SOE,Blizzard) and development budget was substantial ( 20+ million dollars )

    It doesnt mean the game is or was any good. But it means that developers had all means to make it good.



  • LynxJSALynxJSA Member RarePosts: 3,332
    Originally posted by Lobotomist


    AAA means the game was developed by major game developer (fe Mythic,Bioware,SOE,Blizzard) and development budget was substantial ( 20+ million dollars )
    It doesnt mean the game is or was any good. But it means that developers had all means to make it good.

     

    That's a very good point. :)

    -- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG 
    RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? 
    FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?  
  • brostynbrostyn Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 3,092

    AAA is the highest bond credit rating a corporation can have. That is where it comes.

    A game developed by a AAA company has a lot of integrity and history behind it, therefore, would be a "safe bet" to say the company will not make a flop. As we've seen lately, that is why investing is so risky. Sometimes theses don't come through, and are downgraded.

  • fmnch35fmnch35 Member Posts: 79

    It's a really small type of battery.

  • MrbloodworthMrbloodworth Member Posts: 5,615

    Budget and production value.

    ----------
    "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me

    "No, your wrong.." - Random user #123

    "Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.

    How are you?" -Me

  • WW4BWWW4BW Member UncommonPosts: 501

    Thank you for these very good answers.

    I feel much better, now, about not being able to come up with 3 words beginning with A that would make any sense in this context.

     

  • TorakTorak Member Posts: 4,905

    In the MMO market it generally means that a big publisher spent a ton of money on it and a lot of advertising and you can expect the game to not work at launch and about a 12-24 month recovery in which time the population will dwindle to hardly enough people to fill a gymhall.

    I am always very leery of the big "AAA's" like SOE, Funcom, and Turbine for example.

  • x_rast_xx_rast_x Member Posts: 745

    AAA means a big expensive well-advertised game published by a big name publisher.

    AAA MMOs have a pretty bad track record - they seem to spend buckets of money on trying to gain a broad, mass-market audiance and usually mess it up one way or another and this causes everyone to go back to WoW.  WoW is the only AAA MMO that's achieved the level of success such a game needs in order to be considered a 'success'

    This is why there's so many people clamoring for indie games, they cost less and have a much narrower appeal, but the audiances they do appeal to they tend to appeal to very strongly and they don't need anywhere near as many subscribers to be considered 'successful'

  • steamtanksteamtank Member UncommonPosts: 391

    sadly it doesnt mean a well polished working game.

  • drbaltazardrbaltazar Member UncommonPosts: 7,856

     a game that stay in the top 20 of xfire.com is on average a aaa title,but there are rare exeption

  • SnarlingWolfSnarlingWolf Member Posts: 2,697

    Just relate it to XXX porn. It's just supposed to mean it's the best out there but it doesn't always deliver. It's just as over-used.

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