While I agree, AAA originally comes from the high budget and high quality of the developers. But I prefer the addition of the metacritic or gameranking scores because, just because the budget is high and the quality is supposed to be there doesn't mean a good game will be the result. For example Killzone 1 on PS2 had a large budget and was supposed to be one of the best games on the PS2. As we all know it fell short.
It's all opinion anyway. GTA4 is AAA by both definitions and I wouldn't give this game one A, but that's just my opinion.

This.

People saying 90+ on Metacritic = AAA or anything similar annoy the fuck out of me.

^ i knew that, but i still call a game AAA if it reaches 90 meta...because it has AAA reviews...

and no, i dont think it should change, its fine the way it is

No if it's above 90 on meta then it must be a great title or sub par.

Yes I agree that is were the AAA term started but recently it has been about review scores many even though Final Fantasy XIII is a AAA game in every ones eyes but Final Fantasy XIII has a score on Metacritic of 83 that would not suggest it has AAA status and Dragon Quest VIII has a Metatcritic score of 89 but Dragon Quest VIII like all Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy Games is AAA status.        

This is exactly the mentality of both gamers and reviewers currently. I tend to think along those lines too myself and usually games under 80% are in fact subpar.

So the bottom line is that calling >90% games "triple A" is accurate until the whole inflated reviewing system gets changed (which it won't).

Basically. At this point the review system is so bloated it's broken.  Kind of reminds me of grindy MMOs where they start out with managable stats and by the 5th expasion it's +50,000 to every stat and just a giant fucking mess. Even a 90+ isn't a guarentee of a good game anymore. I don't know anyone personally that thought GTA4 deserved the 98% overall it got. 

Maybe the definition should include some negatives, like "if your game ends up filling up the used game rack 2 weeks after release, or there are more used than new copies 1 month after release, then it doesn't qualify as AAA"

That's definitely something really weird about this generation--all the sales are massively front loaded yet all you have to do is wait 2 weeks and you can get the game used at 1/2 price.

I was listening to this week's OXM podcast, and Ryan M made a pretty elitist comment about how Metacritic desn't do enough to differeniate the "pros" from the joe's basement reviews...which I thought was off-base, since if you look at a site like VGC...these guys started as a "basement" site...and comparatively, look at BoxOfficeMojo...that was also a "basement" site, and are they are a "trusted source" for movie news.

Kids are taught that 70 on a paper is acceptable, while an 80 is good and 90 is excellent.

Your problem isn't the AAA term but how many games get it.

I was under the impression of the budget as well, but it's turned into a different definition this generation and has turned into every game over 90 is triple A. Which once again turns into, as many people have pointed out, we have a bloated system...


Someone earlier said there should be an S rank.....and honestly considering we're all gamers. I approve.