Not exactly 3... Damn i want cookies too.

a hollywood style budget which pays to get the best voice actors, best graphics and stuff like that.

I wouldn't put a metacritic score to it at all, as indie games do score 90+ too.

A highly expensive to make video game, even if it ends up sucking

i count 4 as @ the bolded

High production values but inadequate gameplay/challenge.

must have gore, violence, sexually explicit girl characters, guns are optional, must cost 50mill+ to make and the developer must file for bankruptcy if the game doesn't sell 5mill copies combined, also can't be on the ds, 3ds, wii, wii U or be made by Nintendo

big budget.

i'm sure that's also how most developers see it. i read that a few times that developers said aaa = big budget. even a game with a metascore of 50 would be an aaa game if it would have cost 50 million and would get 100 million for marketing.

a game which cost "only" 5 million to make but would get a metascore of 98 is not an aaa game. it's maybe a masterpiece

My definition of a AAA game is completely different from the proper definition.

For me, and high quality, polished game is AAA, so long as the score is above 7/10. The reason why the score doesn't have to be super higher is because I notice that there is a lot of bias in game scores. It's very difficult for a JRPG to get a 9/10 score, but I enjoy 7.5/10 JRPG's just as much, if not more then a 9.5/10 shooter.

So AAA just has to be something decently well recieved, but polished, and it has to have a fanbase. If there is no fanbase, then the game isn't good, regardless of score.

So I consider games like Catherine, Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, Mario Kart, XenoBlade Chronicles, etc all AAA, even if most of them had small small budgets, and many have metascores of 8/10.

"Not the hype or graphics, just the budget"

Selling expectation come in second position, mainstream third next to budget.

A lot of game benefite high budget without being made for a large audience. Budget is not enough.

update!!