Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
What is AAA?
Destai
Member Posts: 574
I've noticed an increasing usage of this word, and lack any clear understanding of what AAA actually entails and why it is so widely used.
What exactly is AAA? Is it a set of features? The publisher or their reputation? Exactly, and objectively, what is it? Furthermore, is there is a delineation of lower ratings, like AA or lower?
I'd like to see industry standards for games, so exactly what is AAA?
Comments
Some people consider it a game you can buy in most gamestores, other think it means that it have a good budget and are compently made.
If you think of it as a high budget high profile game you probably get it right.
Well AAA from my understanding is the best but think we can all agree in the case of MMO's AAA means very little.
Simply put it is gaming industries rating system that they made for themselves to try to improve sales of a game. It means nothing to real gamers.
If its AAA its a qualty description based on money spent on the game, people think certain companys make better games becoause they spend more.
IMO more money does not equal a good game in most cases
Heres a good description I found for this.
(insert)
The press and marketing wants you to believe it means quality, and they're succeeding quite well. In reality it just means budget and production values, how much "manpower" went in it and how marketable it is. A game that has sold, or is predicted/targetted to sell, over one million (give or take) copies.
It's not indie or from an upstart developer.
My theme song.
The letters 'AAA' when placed together would often allow companies, who placed advertisements, a first place listing in a group of common services or companies...
AAA also means Automobile Association of America - A real company with a first listing acronym.
There are AAA Schools and sport divisions... to signify quality or to a rating of quality.
Try googling AAA and see where you land.
Then try A1A
Then try 1A, 1AA or even A1A.
With computers, characters have a order or operation or a way that they alpha-numerically appear:
1
a
All of those listed are 1st display characters.... where + is higher than 1 and Z (for example) here is a short version of that order, which ties into how lists are kept organized (insomuchas 'AAA')
~!@#$%^&;*()_+{}|
1234567890
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
@ is higher (will display in a list above) than AAA.
<shrug> I hope that drove the point home... AAA is a fake rating of quality.
Aren't there medium-budget developers too, though? Like CD Projekt, the creators of The Witcher. They've got around 300 employees. I wouldn't call that indie nor upstart but at the same time they're not an AAA studio either.
<childish, provocative and highly speculative banner about your favorite game goes here>
Yeah there's a pretty big grey area.
My theme song.
Thats a very subjective example. I played morrowind on PC and Xbox and absolutly hated it compared to Oblivion (and what I've seen from skyrim). I got probably 10 hours out of morrowwind to my 100+ hours of oblivion. And a game being a AAA game doesnt really have much to do with how "good" it is. It has more to do with how big the budget for the game is. When someone says "all these AAA mmos coming out soon!" its refering to all the money being spent on those MMO's not the quality of them (as usually its hard to completly tell how good an MMO is until its released).
It's what the US credit used to be before we now borrow 50 cent for every dollar spend...and now we are going to bail out Europe!!!! (no lie, read cnn)
O and game wise it's a big budget title like Hello Kitty and Vanguard
This is my theory on this, correct me if i'm wrong. I'm using examples, these may differ between products.
Triple A or AAA stands (or is meant to stand) for a grade.
an 'A' being the highest you can score in the UK.
There are three 'A's each representing a certain aspect of games these would differ for say, movies and books.
At the core of every review/preview the three points below are the main focus:
- Gameplay
- Graphics
- Story
So if a game would be (/score) a triple A, it should mean it has the best in (atleast) these three areas.
STOOPID
When someone does something so utterly moronic that it kills your brain cells at the very thought of it.
Global economy. Last time the US went into recession the rest of the world got dragged down. Its bound to happen and has to happen.
But sorry to drag off topic a bit there.
I love your choice of AAA mmo's though
AAA is a risk rating borrowed from the international securities market. It means extremely low risk.
When applied to a game developer, it means that developer has a well proven track record of consistently producing games that are commercial hits. Think Blizzard, Bioware, Id Software.
When applied to games, it gets really fuzzy and the meaning really depends on context. "AAA production values" basically means the game looks pretty, works, and usually does not have large areas of it with virtual "Under Construction" signs.
There is some question about whether or not a game can be called AAA at all before release. A really well selling game (examples Doom, Quake, WoW, Command and Conquer, Tetris, Bejeweled, etc) could be considered AAA, at least by stockholders.
Just as with bonds though, the rating is no guarantee of satisfaction, it is just a measure of performance in the marketplace.