AAA (video game industry)
History
The term "AAA" began to be used in the late 1990s by game retailers attempting to gauge interest in upcoming titles. The term was likely borrowed from the credit industry's bond ratings, where "AAA" bonds represent the safest investment opportunity and are the most likely to meet their financial goals.
History
Triple-A titles produced during the late 1990s and early 2000s brought a shift towards more narrative-driven games that mixed storytelling elements with gameplay. The earlier widespread adoption of optical media from early-1990s had brought elements like cutscenes, and the advances in real-time 3D graphics in the mid-1990s further drove new ways to present stories; both elements were incorporated into Final Fantasy VII. With larger budgets, developers were able to find new innovative ways to present narrative as a direct part of gameplay rather than interspersed into pre-rendered cutscenes, with Half-Life) one of the first of these new narrative games to nearly eliminate cutscenes in favor of interactive storytelling mechanisms.
History
During the seventh generation, AAA (or "blockbuster") games had marketing at a similar level to high-profile films, with television, billboard and newspaper advertising; a corresponding increasing reliance on sequels, reboots, and similarly franchised IP was also seen, in order to minimize risk. Costs at the end of the generation had risen as high as the hundreds of millions of dollars – the estimated cost of Grand Theft Auto V was approximately $265m. The same conditions also drove the growth of the indie game scene at the other end of the development spectrum, where lower costs enabled innovation and risk-taking.
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