It only implies a rating of quality because a large budget tends to imply high quality. To give an example, no one calls Pillars of Eternity a AAA game despite

It only implies a rating of quality because a large budget tends to imply high quality. To give an example, no one calls Pillars of Eternity a AAA game despite it being raved over by gamers. The reason is simple. It didn't have an overly large budget, it had just a single artist. People expect high quality to come from a big budget and that's completely reasonable (not duplicitous in any way). But the term still means a large budget. No one with much familiarity with the industry would argue otherwise. I think the misunderstanding comes about from those who don't pay too much attention to the gaming industry as a whole misunderstanding the meaning because they guess at it via context and get it wrong. There is absolutely an implication of quality, but it is not a part of the definition of the term.