but it's not just Pachter's prediction, the term AAA game get's thrown around too often  in my opinion to mean a certain class or perception of what a AAA game is meant to be seen as , Not What a AAA game is.

What this Video is mainly showing is by Some of the people asked about what can be done to fix the decline is the Industry has to change in how the companies invest into development and what kind of idea's will generate income past the purchase point by the consumer.

DLC is one such method, but what many publisher's may be gearing upfor is like an MMO pricing style of sales market for their game's, which may be the case. It's not etched in Stone, but it's quite likely some will no doubt try just that.

but that's the point is it not?

..what determines the status of a game to be AAA?

is is the investment or the outcome of how many peope play your game?

you can put a large investment into a game and yet the game could no way near be considered a AAA game but by those few who do play it it is..!

how many would have to play the game in order to make it a AAA game.

sales and investment are fine, but when you have games like Farmville sporting way more number of gamer's playing the game How is that not an indication of the Game being AAA?

Interesting. This would seem to indicate that the industry is not at all ready for the next-gen unless the consoles progress laterally rather than iterate on current graphics technology. If they are already losing money creating current hi-def detailed games, an even higher graphics standard isn't going to help.

After watching this I REALLY had no idea things were this bad in the games industry.

that's one view but on the same token, what many in that very same video were talking about is the way you as a game company invest into a project and how it will be in the sales market. for instance the market was you could put a game out on a disc and people would buy the game play it an move on, now people are sticking with just one game because it offer's so much choice to continue on line the publisher's are not getting any money.

but let's take a look as a great example of that very situation:

Little Big Planet has over 2 million level's produced by home console user's, the server's are not being charged to play, but on the same token How much content for DLC has been released for LBP, that is paid content?..some would say quite a bit , other's would say not enough..lol

but what it does show that IN THE CASE OF LBP, Now Modnation Racer's, and some more of these type of game's they can make money on their product's.

Companies call their games AAA no matter what these days actually...like the guys who made  Dark Void was recently quoted as saying they are working on their NEXT AAA title :S

it's not as bad, it's just that the way they make games and how the investment into those game's  and how they need other model's to offset gamer's keep playing the same game mre often than switching need's to be addressed.

it's by no mean's the End of AAA game's.

Well, it's expected that in any talk concerning state of play of gaming industry in general Nintendo usually not mentioned, since (quoting some game journalist) "it's easy to ignore 800-pound gorilla in the room" =)

They mostly talk about a shift in a sense of business model shift rather than anything else. Nintendo is very conservative in their approach to business model. In fact, Nintendo is the brightest example of shift in value of games, at the same time showing a remarkable success using traditional and yet sustaining business model (high-priced games in retail chains).

I find it funny that in the video big devs enthusiastically talk how everything is changing and become different, while most of them have almost not track record in 'changing' anything or creating anything 'different' in the industry recently. Quite the opposite in fact, those who were interviewed are creators of your traditional AAA games mostly. Unlike Nintendo devs they seem to have no experience in shifting value of games, so naturally they talk about shifting business models instead.

It's actually the same story when devs are mindlessly jumping on popular trends (while Nintendo lately is anything but like that, rather forming new trend instead those devs have jumped on), so it's expected when they talk about changes in the industry, they talk almost like management suits from EA or ActiBlizz put own words in their mouths. And those are busy in finding new ways to rip off a customer monetize their efforts, like overpriced digital distribution, paid online, game lease, casual games etc, but not a word about new values in games.

In short, the same short-sighted bla-bla-blah. I wonder how many of them will be 'doomed' sooner or later just like the guy from the video predicted.

If you can't make a good game without spending 60 million dollars, hope you go out of business.