Ideally, it has to be a big publisher that spends a ton of money on it.
In truth, an AAA game can be spotted by a price tag of over 60 €/USD, at least one season pass, 3+ different editions, a huge day-1 patch and a lack of anything that’s not predatory monetization of any remaining gameplay elements.
As a general guideline, that check list looks about right. It seems to me that the company doesn’t strictly need to have all of those features in the game. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 put all of their dev points into having the most catastrophic launch possible, and they had none left for predatory monetization. Others have chosen a more balanced approach. Some game breaking bugs, a little bit of whale milking etc.
Ideally, it has to be a big publisher that spends a ton of money on it.
In truth, an AAA game can be spotted by a price tag of over 60 €/USD, at least one season pass, 3+ different editions, a huge day-1 patch and a lack of anything that’s not predatory monetization of any remaining gameplay elements.
As a general guideline, that check list looks about right. It seems to me that the company doesn’t strictly need to have all of those features in the game. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 put all of their dev points into having the most catastrophic launch possible, and they had none left for predatory monetization. Others have chosen a more balanced approach. Some game breaking bugs, a little bit of whale milking etc.