Official AAA games list thread! Classified by year and console.

[ChichiriMuyo]

disolitude said:

nordlead said:

kowenicki said:
itys no good saying i dont like metacritic.... live with it.

good work.

except the concept of AAA = metacritic > 90 is a relatively new concept localized to the press and for some reason this website and possibly a few others. I have plenty of reason to disagree with that concept.

here is a gamedev thread on the topic that is interesting. - http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=489423&forum_id=3&gforum_id=0

and another topic - http://www.troelsfolmann.com/blog/?p=30

and a definition - http://www.gamedev.net/dict/term.asp?TermID=1323

None of them point to critic ratings as the definition of AAA games. In fact, I think I'd be hard pressed to find a definition of AAA = Metacritic > 90 from any respectable dev/publisher.

Oh, and here is a quote from gamespot forums of all places

Typically, there's two different terms in play at the same time:

In the mentality of gamers (especially in system wars), AAA refers to a game that gets a 9 or higher as a score (namely from GS for the purposes of arguments), if I'm not mistaken.

In the terms of the actual pro game community, AAA refers to a game that essentially has a rather large budget behind it. I'll have to find out what the exact numbers are, but most likely a multi-million dollar budget would be a likely candidate to be a AAA game.

I remember reading a 1995 edition of EGM magazine and they had a review of Super Mario RPG saying something like..."As with all Sqaure RPGs these days, MArio RPG is a AAA game" 

This has been used for quite a while...but I agree that there is some fog as to what it actully stands for.

I think my credit rating is AAA...I hope that means its the best possible. :)

 

I'm not exactly an expert on the matter (just taking classes for it right now), but I don't think people are actually given letter ratings like that.  Credit scores for individuals come as a number from all of the major credit agencies.  AAA is more like something that would get associate with either large companies and governments or a financial instrument such as a bond or tranche, and it has very little meaning since the financial crisis we're in now is due to AAA rated investments going very, very bad.  AAA in finance is supposed to mean as good as money (which if you were AAA, that'd mean they believe you're going to pay them back if you say you will) but doesn't necessarily account for all potential risks.

That is, of course, another reason why I have a good deal of distaste for AAA being related to the outcome of the product.  Just like in finance, if your eggs get a high quality rating that doesn't stop them from being rotten when you buy them.  A game can have massive production values and come from a trusted development team but still fall flat.  It's the quality of the source that should really determine the rating, not how the individual product turns out.