AAA games are just A games with a sticky keyboard.

Isn't a tripleA title nothing more than a matter of opinion?

I mean if I enjoy a chocolate bar, chances are you enjoy a completely different one. We can debate about peanut content, dark vs milk chocolate, nougat, size, shape bla bla bla bla. It all comes down to what we perceive as an enjoyable chocolate eating experience. However we do have the metric of sales, which tells us where other people fall in the spectrum. And surprise surprise this is extendable to video games.

So if one says one console has more tripleA titles coming in the future, isn't that person simply saying I foresee great sales for those titles?

Some define it with gameplay others with with sales. For this site it's better to talk about sales. An AAA game only leads to confusion. It's better to say: How many million sellers has the PS3/Wii/360 for 2008? Everybody understands the question and there is no confusion.

Define AAA.

Three letters that individually state a fact about a product, and combined signify that a product is of an extraordinary caliber. A title that receives such a label must explicitly have three specific qualities. The first quality is the budget, and thus the resources dedicated to its development. The second is the hype either before or after launch it is possible for a dark horse to become a AAA title. The third quality is excellence of execution. The game must achieve a average rating of 9/10. The reason its been elevated so high is because reviewers are not as stringent with their determinations as they once were.

Things that do not factor into the equation are intellectual properties, series, staff, studio, or exclusivity. Simply being a known commodity does not equate to a game being AAA. While it is bound to have a significant amount of hype, and it might have a huge budget. The requirement still stands that the title must receive high marks from the review crews. Hopefully developers take care of their properties, and do them justice. That said quite often they don't.

The title only has merit as long as people are reluctant to use it. First no game that has not been released should even be associated with the title. Being hyped about a title does not make it worth such a title. You can take your franchise and shove it somewhere else while your at it. I could also care less if its some exclusive game to your console. I fully agree the term is getting abused by many. Simply put its not a fact until it is in your hands.

Most titles that are listed as AAA are not AAA titles. They are usually missing one ingredient, and while they might be exceptional or wonderful games they do not rate the title AAA. You could literally make a perfect puzzle game for under a million dollars, and consumers could be engrossed with it. That doesn't make it a AAA title nor do units sold. Were that the case then a game like Nintendogs or Brain Training would have to be considered AAA.

The only thing worse in ratings then abusing this title is abusing a title like AAAA. Frankly if we agree that there is such a level of gaming. That must be reserved for complete perfection, and to be blunt I have seen only three games perhaps in the last ten years that would even merit consideration, but I have heard it a few times this year.

Anyway thanks to abysmal rating system, and inconsistent review crews. We must have a term that differentiates great and fantastic games. From the game that at the very least should be played, and outright should be purchased. We only see a handful of such games a year.

I can name only five titles from last year off the top of my head that were AAA titles those being Halo 3, Bioshock, Super Mario Galaxy, Mass Effect, Metroid Prime 3. Mass Effect, and Metroid barely making it in. That should be a testament to anyone throwing the title around just how difficult getting such a title is. The acclaim has to be damn near universal just a couple bad reviews can push a game right into AA territory.

Those are my thoughts a lot of people tossing the title around are doing it merely for propaganda purposes, or because they don't respect the title. The thing about a AAA title is in retrospect nobody dares to debate it. Everyone knows for a fact that such a title is whether they like that particular game or not. The facts are undeniable. The ratings, the buzz, the development budget. These things are self evident.

As I've said in the other thread, I completely disagree with the definition of a AAA game being a "score" over 90. I'll copy some of what I said there:

I'd say that a AAA game is a PS3 game that some sony's fans think its going to push PS3 sales to the top, making it the best selling console of this generation within a month after release.... :P joke

Well, I don't like that term either, because now any title can be a AAA.
I think a AAA should:

-Sell extremely well
-Average above 90
-Be from a serie loved by fans, or create a new one

Sell Well
Average above 90
Example: Mario Galaxy

I guess a game should be a commercial and critical success. So anything above a 80% rating and sells over 10% of its current user base.

@DragonLord

Your system is terribly flawed, and poorly conceived. Please don't be offended this is constructive criticism. The first flaw is obvious entry. Within your system your looking at dozens of titles annually. The second problem is over time each successive year thanks to sales requirements the list gets larger. Given enough years its almost exponential.

Personally I wouldn't ever be able to accept any system that would tell me that a Bioshock is not a AAA title, but tells me equally that Madden NFL 08 for the 360 is. I highly doubt anyone else would take it seriously either. Your system would literally pitch very excellent games out of the running, because they are not followed by a numeral. Then on the other hand reward Electronic Arts for polishing a old game engine until it glitters.

Your definition isn't one of excellence, but one of the lowest common denominator. Further more it has logic gaps you could drive a truck through. Games having to be on the market for half a year before they can be considered AAA. The same game on multiple platforms being hit or miss. Hell under your system the next arcade compilation could make the cut. Thanks to it only being a good compilation with little filler.

I suppose what I am saying is this you seriously need to rework your definition. You at the very least need to patch some holes with exceptions otherwise utter crap can slide through the cracks.

I was completely unfamiliar with this term before running into it on the internets (mostly because letters aren't usually used to evaluate stuff in my language), and assumed it meant something like games that had an average review score of 90+ and sold over a million.

Using this logic, I interrupted a discussions of Sony fans by notifying them how the PS3 has no AAA games. As you can imagine, the results weren't pretty. =P

After that I've figured it refers to the very best games of a console, regardless of all other criteria. Probably slightly more to stuff people are really looking forward to and "know" they'll be good, rather than surprise hits nobody saw coming.