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EaglesEye379 on 17 November 2008
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Groucho said:
EaglesEye379 said:
Groucho said:

Man, I really find the stock definition of "AAA" on this site (90+ critic ratings) distasteful. Its completely meaningless, except from the perspective of a gamer, and often does not correlate with sales, profits, etc.

In the games industry, from the developer and publisher perspective, a title's "AAA" status is defined by its budget.

As far as sales (and IMO this site) should be concerned, "AAA" should be related to profit, profit margins, or at the very least gross income.

Review scores... that's just silly, although as a gamer, I appreciate a scores relevance with regards to artistic impact on the gaming community... but that's pretty subjective, and this is a sales site...

 

 I really find your stock definition of what VGChartz posters should talk about distasteful.

It would truly be a dark day indeed if margins are the ONLY metric for developers and publishers. I find it more and more comforting after reading your post that MS constantly quotes Metacritic scores in their PR now.

I said nothing regarding what posters should talk about.  I have trouble with the label "AAA", since it has several different meanings across the games industry, and "review scores" isn't typically one of them.  I just think trying to guess what games will be rated, this long before their release... is ridiculous.  That, or assuming that games are rated better or worse based upon their genre... ridiculous.

Don't be so defensive -- I'm not trying to police the discussion.  I'm just trying to point it toward something more productive, and less flame-inducing and meaningless.  The topic of upcoming big games has merit, after all.  It would be a shame to turn it into a "this game, which I've never played, and that isn't coming out for a long while, will be better than that one" discussion.

 


I just took your sparing use of the word meaningless too literally I guess. After all, its obviously clear that the posters on this thread are thinking of AAA as in critical game reviews and not AAA in terms of budget. There are a myriad of threads outside here which have discussions on sales/budget and a different meaning of AAA status so Im not sure why you think every discussion would be more productive if its based on that.

I for one think there should be more talk about the quality of games on this site, regardless of whether this is a sales site as it wont exist without them.

And also, I think its even harder to guess how much upcoming games will sell and its developers/publishers rarely divulge what their 'AAA' titles are in terms of budget. But that doesnt stop us from discussing it does it? Talks about sales/budgets can easily end up as 'this game, which Ive never played, and that isnt coming out for a long time, and I wont make a penny out of or have any clue what the real budget is, will sell 5 million minimum' discussions.