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Ryuu96 on 27 March 2023
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Machiavellian said:
Ryuu96 said:

AAA only means budget, it doesn't mean anything else, studio size is irrelevant. Yes, usually a studio making an AAA title has a large amount of employees but it isn't a hard rule, a AAA title could come from a studio of 30. Studio size also doesn't take into account outsourcing partners.

Typically all these studios calling themselves AAA are doing so because they have the budget and investment ready.

You can betcha that the Co-Founder of PlayGround Games has investors lined up.

I disagree, size does matter and budget.  Usually the budget is relation to the size because you need the people to produce a game at that level.  There is no way a 30 man crew is going to pump out a game on the same level as a 100 man crew.  There just so much hours within the day that 30 people can accomplish.  If they are doing 7 12 hour days for 3 years, the product will be a mess.

Even if the Co-Founder of playground games has the investor, he still would need to get to market sell the game and at least break even.  I think we are just kinda loose with the AAA studio title.  I would agree its more marking than anything else from any startup that doesn't already have the man power to make it a reality.  Hell, I wouldn't even call the Initiative a AAA studio since they basically just outsource the whole project.

The Initiative is literally a ~50 man studio working with an outsourced studio (Crystal Dynamics) on an AAA title.

Now I'm not saying this is what this new studio is doing and I do agree that often size is linked to budget but that isn't a hard rule. AAA literally only means what budget a title has, if a 30-man studio spent 4-6 years working on a title which exceeded whatever is considered an AAA budget by the gaming industry, it would be an AAA title. It literally doesn't matter at all if the game is good or not, it doesn't matter if they make money on it or not, it's still an AAA title.

And with how much outsourcing is done nowadays, an internal headcount is not an accurate look of manpower on a project. There's AAA's from studios with only 100-200 employees internally but they outsource like mad...

When someone says they're an AAA studio, they simply mean they're working on an AAA IP.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 27 March 2023