First of all, Metacritic has absolutely nothing to do with it. AAA status is assigned months before a game is ever reviewed.
This is from a post I made in another thread--
"No, AAA rank is just a projection of how well a game is expected to sell. Things like production and marketing budget can certainly factor into the analysis but that certainly isn't the whole of it. Retailers don't care how much a game cost to make, they care about what kind of profit it will generate. It's a system designed to tell them what to invest in. When I used to order for my store, looking for AAA beside the name of a game was a fantastic way to separate it from the clutter--and there was a LOT of clutter, especially for the Wii.
People put too much emphasis on AAA status. It's basically just an educated guess about how well a title will perform. A game can cost 5 million but they'll give it AAA rank if the experts believe it will make a lot of money for retailers.
It never was intended to be a way for fans to rank games."
and--
"This is an example of the order form I used to get from Engram Entertainment -- http://www.docstoc.com/docs/58754489/Where-to-Purchase-Money-Orders-in-Phx
Look at some of the "AAA" titles, like Kirby: Squeak Squad, Eragon, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, a Dragon Ball Z game, a Gundam game, and Red Steel--not to mention the game Cars. Not really what most people would think of as AAA."
In short, it's NOT Metacritic and it's NOT budget; it's really just a projection by some analysts somewhere. It might even be different based on where you order--I'm not sure about that, though, as I've never ordered games from anywhere but Engram.
