5 ms·

Just as with movies, it seems like we’re witnessing the death of mid-budget (AA) games.

iLoveOncall 2y ago
Honestly I think it might make sense. I can't remember a single AA game that was great. Actually, I can't remember a single AA game other than the ones I remember because of how bad they were. I think AA in games has, for a long time, meant "We want to do a AAA but don't have the money or time" and this can only end in disaster.
- failuser 2y ago
  How many As does Psychonauts have?
- ryanmcbride 2y ago
  Is Yakuza AA or AAA? Because every Yakuza game is great and I don't think they have that big of a budget.
  - ClimaxGravely 2y ago
    I've worked on some titles very similar to Yakuza and I keep espousing the way they develop their titles. I don't know for sure because I haven't worked at the studio but it really seems like they've streamlined their development to keep costs down and allow them to develop quickly via asset reuse and resisting major engine upgrades across titles in favor of a slower, more focused pace. Often in my experience in the west we tend to re-author assets, do major engine upgrades or re-implement gameplay systems across sequels when we could have iterated on existing systems and use the time we saved to work on new stuff.
- lelandbatey 2y ago
  I think many of my most favorite games have been AA games. Though "what counts as AA" is probably a big question. Hi-Fi Rush, was a delightful game that earned every $ I spent, but didn't feel like a AAA title. Hades is a delightful game that earned every penny but which wasn't a "AAA" title. I wouldn't call either games "indie", as they both had dozens of people on the teams that made them. But I'd also guess that both games were still made by very different size teams (e.g. 2 dozen vs 5 dozen).
  - aaomidi 2y ago
    Deep rock galactic Dave the diver Spiritfairer Frostpunk Should i keep going?
    - masklinn 2y ago
      Dave the diver is definitely not an "AA" game. It's so indie looking it was nominated for multiple indie awards (even if it's not an actual indie game). DRG is not AA either, according to its homepage GhostShip has 32 people 4 years after launching it. Same for Spiritfairer, it was built by a team of 16.
      - wlesieutre 2y ago
        Wasn’t the case earlier in development since they didn’t have big financial backing, Ghost Ship only grew after DRG had sales > Deep Rock Galactic aired a trailer at E3 2017, then the game had a huge bump after its Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview launch in February 2018. Its Early Access didn't skyrocket the game "insanely high" like titles such as Valheim, but Pedersen said it was solid enough to know they had a success. At that time there were only 12 employees, and everyone was contracted "because we didn't know if we'd have money the next month." https://gamerant.com/deep-rock-galactic-interview-ghost-ship-history-player-growth-3-million/ https://gamerant.com/deep-rock-galactic-interview-ghost-ship...
        masklinn 2y ago
        > Ghost Ship only grew after DRG had sales Well yes that's what I said, I didn't find what numbers they had at the time but I indicated that they had 32 people (which generally falls short of AA in the first place) 4 years after launching a successful game, so they'd most likely have had even less before then.
      - ClimaxGravely 2y ago
        I personally would consider 10-40 person teams to potentially qualify as AA. Often we also outsource code/art so the team size can sometimes be misleading. I suppose I would go by the budget. Maybe 5-10million+ IMO. It also kind of depends how they spend the money. EDIT : After some further reflection, From personal experience I'd consider a AA game one where everyone on the dev team knows each other fairly well. AAA games get so large that you don't end up knowing everyone super well by the end of the project.
- jicea 2y ago
  Housemarque hadn't released any AAA games before launching Returnal on PS5, which is, in my opinion, still one of the best games on this platform. Smaller studios can innovate on gameplay and stories before creating a hit. Another example is FromSoftware. They kept iterating on their games going from KingFields to Demon Souls, Dark Souls, etc...You can't have Elden Ring without all this earned experience.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    Elden ring was the shitty mainstream version of dark souls. The open world was just a big forgettable grind of annoying mini dungeons that you probably had to look up and then didn’t enjoy, collectible items that you were never going to use 95% of the time, shitty quests that were difficult to engage in without external guides, and powerful buffs that were very useful but guarded by enemies that don’t scale; leading most players to follow the main quest to the first boss and then just run around the entire map exploring for the warp points/permanent buffs ignoring every enemy possible and then basically forgetting it was an open world game and just hitting the highlights. The memorable parts of the game are the bosses which are generally cool but very gimmicky, and the legacy dungeons. Which is… the dark souls bits. The open world was stinky garbage that made the game much worse.
  - gcr 2y ago
    FromSoft is putting out some really interesting experimental bangers too. If you haven't tried the new Armored Core, I highly recommend it -- it's a great bridge from a beloved-but-niche genre (mech games) toward the mainstream. It's small, focused to a point, tells the story it wants to tell and gets out of your way. I'm still thinking about it 9 months later... Sounds like this sort of risky niche title would earn a studio closure if it came from Microsoft's corner.
  - iLoveOncall 2y ago
    > Housemarque hadn't released any AAA games before launching Returnal on PS5, which is, in my opinion, still one of the best games on this platform. Smaller studios can innovate on gameplay and stories before creating a hit. Yeah I never said the contrary. Actually you see this quite commonly with small unknown studios that release stuff like educative or mobile games and suddenly are handed a big project. > Another example is FromSoftware. Please, they've been releasing AAA since Demon Souls. They're definitely not AA games.
- glenstein 2y ago
  >I can't remember a single AA game that was great I'm always skeptical of "I can't remember ____" as an assessment of any given historical record because, well, the average person just doesn't remember anything. Which is all well and good, you have no obligation to be ready for a pop-quiz, but snapshot moment of free-association is just not a reliable stand in for the actual record. I actually couldn't think of any AA titles off the top of my head either, but after Googling and GPT'ing a bit I came up with: Hellblade, Plague Tale, Hades, Outer Wilds, Control, Metro, Outer Worlds, Shadow Warrior 2, etc. plus the numerous others listed by other commenters. My point though is that it's fine not to remember, but that should never be our acid test for what does or doesn't exist in the historical record.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    As an aside of this discussion: I do not get people who like Outer Worlds. I am a huge fan of New Vegas, I was so pumped for that game, and it was so, so bland. The combat damn near put me to sleep, the writing was atrociously heavy-handed and made me think the authors thought I was a complete fucking idiot (and I agree with them!), and the moment-to-moment gameplay was just thoroughly, thoroughly unsatisfying. I know it has a loving if smaller community and man, I wanted to love it, but I just could not. I have hope for the sequel and will definitely play it if not day one, close to it, but yeah. Outer Worlds was one of my most disappointing games of all time.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Dystakruul 2y ago
      just a note for inattentive readers: Outer Wilds from GP's comment is a very different game compared to Outer Worlds which the parent comment mentions. (it doesn't help that they were both released in the same year, 2019) Outer Wilds: action-adventure, open world mystery game with puzzles Outer Worlds: action role-playing game, open world first-person-shooter (similar to the Fallout games)
      - 2y ago
- jonhohle 2y ago
  It depends what type of game you like. There are a million AA RPGs, Metroidvanias, etc. that are enjoyable. Both RoboCop: Rogue City and Terminator: Resistance are good, budget games. Looking through recent games: Dead Cells, Bloodstained, anything from Bitmap Bureau, a lot of Way Forward titles, Altus, etc.
  - aamoyg 2y ago
    Robocop Rogue City was amazing. If you max out the psychology, you start giving back sassy replies to everyone and become sass cop it's great. They really built on the Terminator Engine they used earlier.
- beeboobaa3 2y ago
  "I don't like this so it should stop existing"
  - iLoveOncall 2y ago
    That's absolutely not what I said though, just that it makes sense. Personally I wish for as many games as possible to exist, the more options the better, even if some are bad.
- mrangle 2y ago
  The list of great non AAA games would be so long, here, as to be obnoxious. A lot of game greatness is found in the explicit avoidance of AAA conventions, like extended cut scenes. Many AAA games are masterpieces, and yet few to no no AAA games are 2D platformers for example. Which is one of the all time great formats for pure fun.
- phone8675309 2y ago
  Were you gaming back in the PlayStation 2 / original Xbox days? There were a TON of AA games in that era. Most of those studios have been bought up by the big studios that peddle AAA (and in some cases, claim to peddle AAAA) garbage.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Standards change and game development standards have skyrocketed. the best AAA titles in 2005 would barely be AA in 2015, and by 2025 it gets to a point where a small (but very talented) team can achieve the same scope with better graphics. That's part of the reason I don't particularly like "AAA" as a nominer. It's a moving target with budget levels we usually have no clue of. >I think AA in games has, for a long time, meant "We want to do a AAA but don't have the money or time" and this can only end in disaster. I don't know, because we have even less idea what "AA" means. Would Demons' Souls 2009 be AA? That the thing, a lot of the biggest AAA titles didn't knock it out of the park day one. Overwatch in 2016 may have been the last new IP that was AAA from the get go and truly nailed it in one. IDK why companies keep trying to do it that way.
m12k 2y ago
Conversely, the recently released surprise hit Helldivers 2 is a very prominent AA game has sold millions of copies and seems well poised to win a bunch of game of the year awards (recently concluded PSN account linking controversy notwithstanding).
- ryanmcbride 2y ago
  That's been reversed this time but it won't be next time. Next time sony does this the outcry won't be as bad. It's the ratcheting effect of corporate greed.
- sharkweek 2y ago
  Sidebar: Helldivers II is not a genre I’d normally enjoy but I have absolutely fallen in love with the very rewarding gameplay loop and grind. I have never enjoyed spreading democracy more with my friends than dropping a perfectly targeted orbital strike on a bunch of unpatriotic bugs.
  - danielbln 2y ago
    Same here, third person coop extraction shooter? Bleh, not my cup of tea. Helldivers 2 though? 70+ hours and counting, it's just so much damn fun, with friend or with randoms. It really is the sum of it parts, and every match is different in its own ways. An amazing game, is what it is.
  - highwaylights 2y ago
    Remember: If an existing inhabitant attempts diplomacy we mustn't believe their lies.
  - philipov 2y ago
    Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me to refund that game, since I can't run it on geforce now, and it has denuvo so I won't install it on my own computer.
  - phone8675309 2y ago
    Helldivers II is one of the few games of its type that it feels good to mess around in. Lately my friend group has been playing on mid level difficulty to grind out common and rare samples, and there's nothing funnier than cracking a joke about something and then that person hitting you with a 500 kg bomb and making your body ragdoll across the map. There's just something about messing around in it and being goofy that feels good that doesn't in, say, Vermintide or Darktide.
rdedev 2y ago
A regression to the mean where mean is just whatever makes most money. I can understand if they are at the risk of going bankrupt but this seems so premature

Honestly I think it might make sense. I can't remember a single AA game that was great. Actually, I can't remember a single AA game other than the ones I remember because of how bad they were. I think AA in games has, for a long time, meant "We want to do a AAA but don't have the money or time" and this can only end in disaster.

failuser 2y ago
How many As does Psychonauts have?
ryanmcbride 2y ago
Is Yakuza AA or AAA? Because every Yakuza game is great and I don't think they have that big of a budget.
- ClimaxGravely 2y ago
  I've worked on some titles very similar to Yakuza and I keep espousing the way they develop their titles. I don't know for sure because I haven't worked at the studio but it really seems like they've streamlined their development to keep costs down and allow them to develop quickly via asset reuse and resisting major engine upgrades across titles in favor of a slower, more focused pace. Often in my experience in the west we tend to re-author assets, do major engine upgrades or re-implement gameplay systems across sequels when we could have iterated on existing systems and use the time we saved to work on new stuff.
lelandbatey 2y ago
I think many of my most favorite games have been AA games. Though "what counts as AA" is probably a big question. Hi-Fi Rush, was a delightful game that earned every $ I spent, but didn't feel like a AAA title. Hades is a delightful game that earned every penny but which wasn't a "AAA" title. I wouldn't call either games "indie", as they both had dozens of people on the teams that made them. But I'd also guess that both games were still made by very different size teams (e.g. 2 dozen vs 5 dozen).
- aaomidi 2y ago
  Deep rock galactic Dave the diver Spiritfairer Frostpunk Should i keep going?
  - masklinn 2y ago
    Dave the diver is definitely not an "AA" game. It's so indie looking it was nominated for multiple indie awards (even if it's not an actual indie game). DRG is not AA either, according to its homepage GhostShip has 32 people 4 years after launching it. Same for Spiritfairer, it was built by a team of 16.
    - wlesieutre 2y ago
      Wasn’t the case earlier in development since they didn’t have big financial backing, Ghost Ship only grew after DRG had sales > Deep Rock Galactic aired a trailer at E3 2017, then the game had a huge bump after its Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview launch in February 2018. Its Early Access didn't skyrocket the game "insanely high" like titles such as Valheim, but Pedersen said it was solid enough to know they had a success. At that time there were only 12 employees, and everyone was contracted "because we didn't know if we'd have money the next month." https://gamerant.com/deep-rock-galactic-interview-ghost-ship-history-player-growth-3-million/ https://gamerant.com/deep-rock-galactic-interview-ghost-ship...
      - masklinn 2y ago
        > Ghost Ship only grew after DRG had sales Well yes that's what I said, I didn't find what numbers they had at the time but I indicated that they had 32 people (which generally falls short of AA in the first place) 4 years after launching a successful game, so they'd most likely have had even less before then.
    - ClimaxGravely 2y ago
      I personally would consider 10-40 person teams to potentially qualify as AA. Often we also outsource code/art so the team size can sometimes be misleading. I suppose I would go by the budget. Maybe 5-10million+ IMO. It also kind of depends how they spend the money. EDIT : After some further reflection, From personal experience I'd consider a AA game one where everyone on the dev team knows each other fairly well. AAA games get so large that you don't end up knowing everyone super well by the end of the project.
jicea 2y ago
Housemarque hadn't released any AAA games before launching Returnal on PS5, which is, in my opinion, still one of the best games on this platform. Smaller studios can innovate on gameplay and stories before creating a hit. Another example is FromSoftware. They kept iterating on their games going from KingFields to Demon Souls, Dark Souls, etc...You can't have Elden Ring without all this earned experience.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  Elden ring was the shitty mainstream version of dark souls. The open world was just a big forgettable grind of annoying mini dungeons that you probably had to look up and then didn’t enjoy, collectible items that you were never going to use 95% of the time, shitty quests that were difficult to engage in without external guides, and powerful buffs that were very useful but guarded by enemies that don’t scale; leading most players to follow the main quest to the first boss and then just run around the entire map exploring for the warp points/permanent buffs ignoring every enemy possible and then basically forgetting it was an open world game and just hitting the highlights. The memorable parts of the game are the bosses which are generally cool but very gimmicky, and the legacy dungeons. Which is… the dark souls bits. The open world was stinky garbage that made the game much worse.
- gcr 2y ago
  FromSoft is putting out some really interesting experimental bangers too. If you haven't tried the new Armored Core, I highly recommend it -- it's a great bridge from a beloved-but-niche genre (mech games) toward the mainstream. It's small, focused to a point, tells the story it wants to tell and gets out of your way. I'm still thinking about it 9 months later... Sounds like this sort of risky niche title would earn a studio closure if it came from Microsoft's corner.
- iLoveOncall 2y ago
  > Housemarque hadn't released any AAA games before launching Returnal on PS5, which is, in my opinion, still one of the best games on this platform. Smaller studios can innovate on gameplay and stories before creating a hit. Yeah I never said the contrary. Actually you see this quite commonly with small unknown studios that release stuff like educative or mobile games and suddenly are handed a big project. > Another example is FromSoftware. Please, they've been releasing AAA since Demon Souls. They're definitely not AA games.
glenstein 2y ago
>I can't remember a single AA game that was great I'm always skeptical of "I can't remember ____" as an assessment of any given historical record because, well, the average person just doesn't remember anything. Which is all well and good, you have no obligation to be ready for a pop-quiz, but snapshot moment of free-association is just not a reliable stand in for the actual record. I actually couldn't think of any AA titles off the top of my head either, but after Googling and GPT'ing a bit I came up with: Hellblade, Plague Tale, Hades, Outer Wilds, Control, Metro, Outer Worlds, Shadow Warrior 2, etc. plus the numerous others listed by other commenters. My point though is that it's fine not to remember, but that should never be our acid test for what does or doesn't exist in the historical record.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  As an aside of this discussion: I do not get people who like Outer Worlds. I am a huge fan of New Vegas, I was so pumped for that game, and it was so, so bland. The combat damn near put me to sleep, the writing was atrociously heavy-handed and made me think the authors thought I was a complete fucking idiot (and I agree with them!), and the moment-to-moment gameplay was just thoroughly, thoroughly unsatisfying. I know it has a loving if smaller community and man, I wanted to love it, but I just could not. I have hope for the sequel and will definitely play it if not day one, close to it, but yeah. Outer Worlds was one of my most disappointing games of all time.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Dystakruul 2y ago
    just a note for inattentive readers: Outer Wilds from GP's comment is a very different game compared to Outer Worlds which the parent comment mentions. (it doesn't help that they were both released in the same year, 2019) Outer Wilds: action-adventure, open world mystery game with puzzles Outer Worlds: action role-playing game, open world first-person-shooter (similar to the Fallout games)
    - 2y ago
jonhohle 2y ago
It depends what type of game you like. There are a million AA RPGs, Metroidvanias, etc. that are enjoyable. Both RoboCop: Rogue City and Terminator: Resistance are good, budget games. Looking through recent games: Dead Cells, Bloodstained, anything from Bitmap Bureau, a lot of Way Forward titles, Altus, etc.
- aamoyg 2y ago
  Robocop Rogue City was amazing. If you max out the psychology, you start giving back sassy replies to everyone and become sass cop it's great. They really built on the Terminator Engine they used earlier.
beeboobaa3 2y ago
"I don't like this so it should stop existing"
- iLoveOncall 2y ago
  That's absolutely not what I said though, just that it makes sense. Personally I wish for as many games as possible to exist, the more options the better, even if some are bad.
mrangle 2y ago
The list of great non AAA games would be so long, here, as to be obnoxious. A lot of game greatness is found in the explicit avoidance of AAA conventions, like extended cut scenes. Many AAA games are masterpieces, and yet few to no no AAA games are 2D platformers for example. Which is one of the all time great formats for pure fun.
phone8675309 2y ago
Were you gaming back in the PlayStation 2 / original Xbox days? There were a TON of AA games in that era. Most of those studios have been bought up by the big studios that peddle AAA (and in some cases, claim to peddle AAAA) garbage.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
Standards change and game development standards have skyrocketed. the best AAA titles in 2005 would barely be AA in 2015, and by 2025 it gets to a point where a small (but very talented) team can achieve the same scope with better graphics. That's part of the reason I don't particularly like "AAA" as a nominer. It's a moving target with budget levels we usually have no clue of. >I think AA in games has, for a long time, meant "We want to do a AAA but don't have the money or time" and this can only end in disaster. I don't know, because we have even less idea what "AA" means. Would Demons' Souls 2009 be AA? That the thing, a lot of the biggest AAA titles didn't knock it out of the park day one. Overwatch in 2016 may have been the last new IP that was AAA from the get go and truly nailed it in one. IDK why companies keep trying to do it that way.

m12k 2y ago

Conversely, the recently released surprise hit Helldivers 2 is a very prominent AA game has sold millions of copies and seems well poised to win a bunch of game of the year awards (recently concluded PSN account linking controversy notwithstanding).

ryanmcbride 2y ago
That's been reversed this time but it won't be next time. Next time sony does this the outcry won't be as bad. It's the ratcheting effect of corporate greed.
sharkweek 2y ago
Sidebar: Helldivers II is not a genre I’d normally enjoy but I have absolutely fallen in love with the very rewarding gameplay loop and grind. I have never enjoyed spreading democracy more with my friends than dropping a perfectly targeted orbital strike on a bunch of unpatriotic bugs.
- danielbln 2y ago
  Same here, third person coop extraction shooter? Bleh, not my cup of tea. Helldivers 2 though? 70+ hours and counting, it's just so much damn fun, with friend or with randoms. It really is the sum of it parts, and every match is different in its own ways. An amazing game, is what it is.
- highwaylights 2y ago
  Remember: If an existing inhabitant attempts diplomacy we mustn't believe their lies.
- philipov 2y ago
  Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me to refund that game, since I can't run it on geforce now, and it has denuvo so I won't install it on my own computer.
- phone8675309 2y ago
  Helldivers II is one of the few games of its type that it feels good to mess around in. Lately my friend group has been playing on mid level difficulty to grind out common and rare samples, and there's nothing funnier than cracking a joke about something and then that person hitting you with a 500 kg bomb and making your body ragdoll across the map. There's just something about messing around in it and being goofy that feels good that doesn't in, say, Vermintide or Darktide.

rdedev 2y ago

A regression to the mean where mean is just whatever makes most money. I can understand if they are at the risk of going bankrupt but this seems so premature