/v/ - Video Games

What even qualifies AA? All I can think of is a 'indie' publishers that come close to it or a rather old studio that used to be published by a huge publisher/developer that's been lobotomized to make mobile games and ports of their former glory

>>14787850

I'd say most semi-niche games with good production value, but not Indie, would fit the bill, such as Falcom games.

>>14787850

>What even qualifies AA?

Vanillaware I guess, but even then they can do more with less money than some kikestarter "indie" shit that gets millions because it's got some big name faggot attached to it.

>>14787872

I usually use the term "Middle market", generally games serving niche interests, produced on a smallish budget, and sold for a budget price.

>>14787840

Most Japanies games are middle market games. Onechanbara, gal gun, Senran kagura, ect. Stuff similar to what Koei Tecmo puts out and that is not exclusive to PC. That said, it sure does seem like the Middle market is dying because of indieshitz are drowning them in mediocrity.

>>14787896

X-blades.

These labels have never meant anything real besides as a way to marginalize all games released outside the publisher giants.

>>14787900

Thanks.

Good to know I've become illiterate after all these years and can't even read the posts I'm replying to.

>>14787900 (checked)

>X-blades

looks more like an indie Devil May Cry 2. I always assumed "middle-market" as often being competent but on a budget. For example, Disgaea and Dragons Crown are middle-market games. Even Demon's Souls was technically a middle-market game. It wasn't until after Dark Souls success did they start treating the franchise as an AAA.

>>14787922

It's more of a puzzle platformer really. Starting with stage 2 all fights require you to figure out how to damage enemies because for the most part your regular attacks won't do shit.

It's one of those game with misleading presentations. People expected cuhrayzee from it got disappointed and mass labeled it as utter shit, while it was actually pretty decent at what it did.

>>14787850

Regular studio game with relatively smaller budget than what we call AAA. It is pretty much the best way I found to classify it, through budget.

Indie games is way worse pile of shit because this label was applied to way too much stuff.

>>14787916

I mean this is exactly what they mean. They mean game is smaller and it is very useful label.

Smaller games can easily afford to take more risks. AAA need to go full mainstream to make profit. If you want any originality nowadays, you need to for ones labeled indie or AA.

>>14787927

doesn't look very fun to be honest.

>>14787932

Wikipedia actually has a sufficient definition in my opinion.

>AAA

>typically having higher development and marketing budgets. Game development is associated with high economic risk and with high levels of sales required to obtain profitability.

>>14787927

I'm downloading it right now, so I guess I'll find out soon enough.

>>14787932

> AAA need to go full mainstream to make profit. If you want any originality nowadays, you need to for ones labeled indie or AA.

I find AAA games nowadays to be a self contradicting loop. In order to be mainstream you have to dump so much money into it for the marketing to start attracting people. In order to dump so much money into it you have to strip away anything interesting about it for the fear of taking any risks. And when you dump so much money into it you have to make a shitton of money back, so it has to be mainstream. What's the fucking point?

>>14787962

Market share combined with attracting investors. That is why EA is shit. They only do what investors want.

>>14787962

>What's the fucking point?

When the formula is successful then make a shit load of pasta fazool!

>>14787840

There are really only two reasons for people not to publish on steam:

>They want to push their own platforms like Origins

>Their project is so small they don't really want money to be involved, thus they publish it on their websites as freeware/pay if you want.

AA is in the middle of those extremes, and thus has no reason to avoid steam. Problem is, Steam having their shit fucked up by a torrent of new titles, they still have to contact games news sites (and I don't mean gamejournos like kotaku, more sites that stick to the news aspect) to get their shit known.

>>14787840

NOTHING comes out anywhere other than Steam anymore. If you're lucky, and I mean really god damn lucky, the dev will begrudgingly release a GoG version after the Steam version is done and then never actually keep it up to date.

>>14787876

>>What even qualifies AA?

>Vanillaware I guess

You guessed wrong, AA is second rate studios on a budget. Blades of Time, Marlow Biggs, Satellite Reign etc.

>>14787940

Puzzle platformers are not fun in general.

And since they're mostly done with kid-friendly mascot characters like mario or hat in time X-blade missed both of its possible target audiences.

>>14787949

Enjoy tanned anime ass and bloom up that ass.

>>14788028

>that installer

Fuck, this takes me back.

Also, I wanted it for the tanned ass alone, but if it's a good game, that's just going to be a bonus.

If it's a decent puzzle platformer like the Prince of Persia games, it's good enough.

I'm hopingg Japanese eShop for Nintendo Switch soon. Switch seems like the ideal middleware platform with mobile portability and potato-PC specs.

>>14787850

I never figured out why people called "AAA" those titles that have high budgets behind them. It's especially funny considering AAA is just a fast way to input your own name onto the highschores, meaning it could be read both as being proficient and being lazy and uninspired.

Anyhow "AA" titles are supposed to be those third/second party developed games that have an adequate budget behind them and despite performing just okay are still well remembered by their fans and may even have some time in the spotlight when a good iteration comes out. Shit like No More Heroes or Deadly Premonitions or de Blob could be considered "AA".

>>14788132

I think it's likened to the AAA rating bonds have, it's supposed to be "of the highest quality". At this point I think it just stuck and no news outlet wants to start calling their masters "overpriced and overmarketed shit".

Unrelated but is de Blob any good?

>>14787749

AA is oftentimes second party but more often than not its 3rd party

Just think of it as that space between indie and AAA, its simpler

>middle-tier, or "AA"

>implying AAA games are automatically high-tier

dubs

>inb4 fuck off autist

Keep your shit language manipulation tactics to your shitlib humanities courses.

>>14788522

triple AAA is not nesisaraly the publisher, its how much money the development and marketing team the publisher spent on a particular production. Capcom can theoretically produce a middle market game (and they probably have but I cant think of one off the top of my head).

>>14788505

I think it was also supposed to be another cinema comparison. You would have your A titles, lesser-grade/budgeted B flicks, maybe descend down into grindhouse/exploitation/indie schlock past that. AAA was meant for only THE huge blockbusters, basically the big tentpole experience. The problem is that games fall on an upside-down bell curve, where majority of titles are either the hyper-expensive "experiences" or cheap indie shit.

>>14788541

Delete your post please.

>>14788522

>>14788583

Actually, I just thought of an example. Square Enix will produce both AAA and middle market. In fact, I think most publishers are now spending there "middle market" budgets on remakes and remasters.

>>14787850

Used to be small studios working with a small budget from a publisher. Thanks to underhanded dealings, such as the publisher arbitrarily rejecting development milestones to put a financial squeeze on the studio and facilitate a buyout, most of them got consolidated by the likes of EA and Zenimax. And then developers learned to stop making deals with the devil because they wanted to keep their own IPs, and AA development died.

It also coincided with the rise of "indie games" as a marketable term, so what scant remains there are of AA development are either found under that label (e.g. Devolver Digital-tier), or they're being hyped on stage by Sony or Microsoft to become blockbusters.

I'm looking forward to what THQ Nordic puts out. The only other place than Steam for games would be GoG, I think, but it's nowhere near as popular. You could encourage devs to put them on both though.

>>14788899

I'd put shit like Konami up there with AAA

>>14787896

EYE didn't have a proper budget tbh, it was basically made by a bunch of modders in their spare time. Superb results but it's more of an "indie" game but without the "indie" cancer. Holy fuck I hate that term.

>>14788899

This.

And it is the only good one.

>>14787850

Something that can make back its budget with only a few hundred thousand copies.

>>14787850

An AA studio is somewhere between indie(A studio) and AAA studios(duh), they can have a publisher, however this pusblisher isn't EA or Ubisoft, but a smaller one, they have smaller budgets, smaller teams and usually base themselves on a niche market, since they can't really compete with AAA studios. Some of them, end up making the same game over and over, to satisfy this niche market, so in this regard they are no different from Ubisoft.

I guess studio Spiders is a good example of AA studios, besides two Sherlock games, they are known for being a budget-Bioware studio, in that they do RPGs akin to Bioware, but with lower production costs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiders_%28company%29

Other examples, could be Pirahna Bytes(Gothic and Risen) or Akella(Sea Dogs and Age of Pirates).

>>14789344

Also should add, that AA studios can become AAA studios, if they have a massive success with a game/franchise, like with CD Project Red, which up until this point have only made Witcher games.

That new vampire game coming out looks like a AA game to me

>>14789344

"Triple A" dosen't have anything to do with the studio. It has to do with the budget.

>>14789344

Spiders could be so much better if they weren't so intent on aping Bioware. They don't have the budget for it and they're better off doing their own thing.

I'm hoping to break into middleware by making a game studio outside of Silicon Valley. Yes I know the majority of code monkeys need their degenerate Hollywood lifestyles. That said ISPs in mid-west are monopolies so we may have to export business servers closer to the coast or on the coast. Wish I can go more into detail on operating cost of a "multimedia studio."

>>14787840

They do come out here and there. In Japan they seems to have a bigger market for games like that.