The term 'AAA' has nothing to do with production values or budgets

[Shiken]

On a consumer level, it is/should be about quality. Octopath Traveller, Mario Kart, Splatoon, etc all fall into this category.

On a development level it is about cost and Production. God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4, etc all fall into this category.

However what also would fall into that category is all the crappy "AAA" products as well. Battlefront 2, Sea of Thieves, The Order 1886, etc all fall into this category.

If one looks at AAA as a measure of quality, production and cost are not a factor. As a consumer, we should care more about quality than anything else. Just because a game is expensive to make, does not make it a quality game.

This is why Tomb Raider on PS360 was called a failure with several millions of units sold. It was good, but needed to sell an insane amount of money. Breath of the Wild was also a AAA game, but only needed to sell 2 mil to break even. They are both AAA games, but one cost way more than the other.

And there lies the problem with using AAA as anything other than a measure of Quality. If cost was the only factor, Zelda would be AAA and Tomb Raider would be AAAAAAA. It does just does not make any sense.

So for that reason, I look at things on a consumer level, as I am a consumer. Quality and content mean more to the term AAA to me than how much a game costs to produce. Development teams look at it differently, and they should, as they need to deliver a AAA quality experience to justify those costs. However, that does mean that level of quality will be met in the end depending on a number of factors involved.