Its easy to underestimate the scale of AAA titles today. Even a few millions dollars with a team of twenty isn't nearly enough to cut it. If that wasn't enough,

Its easy to underestimate the scale of AAA titles today. Even a few millions dollars with a team of twenty isn't nearly enough to cut it. If that wasn't enough, they also go for the top talent and expertise the industry has to offer in order to manage the massive complexity of these projects. Its also easy to underestimate how much a difference it makes to have experienced developers for projects of such scale. This has to be by far the most important factor when determining the success of these projects. This is both good and bad news for indie developers. Bad in the sense they'll never reach that scale and level of graphics without serious investments. Good in the sense the triple-A giants are anything but flexible and indie developers can therefore differentiate themselves through innovative gameplay and storytelling, which is very much lacking in the AAA scene nowadays.