Don't say nobody noticed that licensed games are leaving consoles in favor for mobile.. iron Man 3, the dark knight, spongebob, the simpsons, after earth, pacific rim, dexter etc.. We used to have a lot of them on consoles but they are leaving them quickly.. The market has changed so the demand changed which leads to a different supply shifting those games from consoles to mobile

To call these "B" games are a blasphemy in my opinion, but, oh, well, whatever...

Maybe, I was curious because he said his favorite games were "B" ones, I thought that was a little unusual and wanted to know about it, maybe he was into some hidden gems, who know?

Anything big enough to get a full retail release, but not big enough to get a huge $20m+ budget and a $20m+ marketing push is a good rule of thumb IMO. And as AAA games get ever more expensive to make that bar is raising lol, what used to be a B game last gen is a C tier downloadable title these days. Most real AAA games CoD, GTA, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed, Destiny etc are pushing $100m total budgets these days.

Things like Brink, Binary Domain, Fuse, Catherine, Metro 2033, Lost Planet 3, Remember Me, The Witcher 2, Dark Souls, Tales of... , Space Marine, Company of Heroes 2, Rayman Legends, Prototype etc etc

None of them are really AAA franchises either, though.  Certainly WipEout & SSX struggled to sell into the millions even in their peak; and Jak & Ratchet seem to be a long way from selling multi-millions too.

I was always of the impression that tiering of things was done on budget, though.  And I don't think any of those games, bar the two I pointed out (Final Fantasy & Metal Gear Solid) receive anything like a big budget.  If Gears of War is an entry-level AAA game with a $20 million budget (without marketing costs), do you think something like WipEout 2048 or Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus receive anything like that?  I'd have thought not.

Zarx's post explains it in more detail.

Now I get it, well if Catherine and Demon´s souls are B, them I love B games.

A shame, since the average B game is vastly better than the average indie game.

That doesn't make them B games however. Those games have top developers behind them and are polished quality material. Nintendo games are being made on a tight budget as well but nobody would call them B games. What the arrticle means with B games are licensed games like Terminator and Iron Man and original titles like Nier and Earth Defense Force.

What would you call those games, then? 

Maybe I just misunderstood this article.  Something killed the middle of gaming (i.e. these kind of franchises), and that was where my comment about the pricing came in.  If that's not what this guy is talking about, then never mind!

I strongly disagree.


Really, the downfall of the (b movie like) AA games stems from the big publishers & developers. After the beginning of the last gen, developers and publishers had this crazy idea that they were able to make bigger, better looking games due to an increase in stronger hardware. and the rise of HD, They thought they could make big bucks by spending the majority of their time and money into AAA games and less into the middle area.

At a cost, many companies closed because of this idiotic, and delusional mindset. Now you got big publishers like Take2 Interactive, Capcom, SquareEnix, and especially EA suffering heavy losses so big that not even their most popular franchises are helping them.

If this industry was able to learned its lesson after so many bad hits, maybe the AA market wouldn't have shrunk so considerably. There would'v been a better balance in AA and AAA games.