shikamaru317 said:
I typically use the following terms:
AAAA or Quadruple A- A relatively recent term that I use for games with the highest budgets and dev team sizes. Only a handful of games fall into this category so far like GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last of Us 2, Halo Infinite, and Cyberpunk 2077. Generally speaking you see dev team sizes over 400 devs and budgets over $150m on these games. The most expensive game to date is believed to be RDR2, which has an estimated budget between $370 and 540m based on sales figures at launch, how long it took to turn a profit according to Take-Two, and estimates for the amount of profit a publisher earns per full priced $60 sale at launch. The game with the highest dev team size so far seems to be The Last of Us 2, which apparently was worked on by over 2,100 devs across 14 studios at one point in time or another during development, with a core team of over 400 devs at Naughty Dog, while Rockstar's RDR2 was worked on by about 2,000 devs at one point in time or another during development.
AAA or Triple A- Games that used to be the biggest budget games in the industry until Rockstar decided to trounce the typical AAA budget with the $265m GTA V back in 2013. AAA dev team sizes typically range from 100 to 400 devs. AAA budgets typically range from $50-150m in recent years, though a few have been made for less. Some examples would be games like Gears 5, Forza Horizon 4, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, Hitman 3, Resident Evil 8, Skyrim, and Witcher 3.
AA or Double A- Dev team sizes typically in the range of 40 to 100 devs, budgets typically in the range of $10-50m. Some examples would be games like We Happy Few, State of Decay 1 and 2, Returnal, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Bravely Default 2, Shadow Warrior 1 and 2, A Way Out, and most Telltale games.
A or Single A- I use this term mainly to refer to indie tier games that aren't made by indie developers, but rather by larger studios or publishers. Examples would be games like Rayman, Child of Light, and Valiant Hearts from Ubisoft, Grounded from Obsidian, and Sonic Mania from Sega. I will also use the term to apply to actual indie games with higher budgets sometimes, games like Yooka Laylee and Bloodstained. Team sizes for these projects typically range from 10-40 devs, budgets from $2-10m.
Indie- Typically low budget games made by small independent studios. Budgets for indies typically range from as low as a few thousand, on small solo projects made in free time, to several million dollars, some go even higher than that, but I will typically refer to those as single A, as noted above. Team sizes on indies have been known to range from single person solo projects all the way up to 30 or 40 devs, a few even higher, but those I also typically refer to as Single A.
|
