Absolutely not. I know plenty of so-called “AAA” studios that would murder for whatever deal with Raphael Larian had with Hasbro to fund a 200 million dollar early access six-year-long development cycle.
Larian is “independent”, sure, in that they’re a private company. They are AAA+, though, both in size and, depending on their licensing deal, on available resources as well. At least since halfway through the BG3 EA process.
Oh well they used to be thought of as AA, it at least III (lol these shorthands, man…).
They don’t really have a AAA aesthetic imho, as much as such a statement makes sense. Do you know what I mean? Like their game feels ambitious, yes, but it hasn’t been polished into a featureless sphere.
Yeah, but that’s my problem with the entire conversation in the first place. If you define “AAA” fully tautologically as “soulless game that feels corporate and is kinda shitty” then sure, AAA has a major issue, in that it seems to be consistently soulless and kinda shitty.
But if the definition is somewhat reasonable, either as a major production in terms of budget and scope, or even as a production from a major studio then all of a sudden AAA games are way more diverse and way more interesting than these types of posts give them credit for.
Absolutely not. I know plenty of so-called “AAA” studios that would murder for whatever deal with Raphael Larian had with Hasbro to fund a 200 million dollar early access six-year-long development cycle.
Larian is “independent”, sure, in that they’re a private company. They are AAA+, though, both in size and, depending on their licensing deal, on available resources as well. At least since halfway through the BG3 EA process.
Oh well they used to be thought of as AA, it at least III (lol these shorthands, man…).
They don’t really have a AAA aesthetic imho, as much as such a statement makes sense. Do you know what I mean? Like their game feels ambitious, yes, but it hasn’t been polished into a featureless sphere.
Yeah, but that’s my problem with the entire conversation in the first place. If you define “AAA” fully tautologically as “soulless game that feels corporate and is kinda shitty” then sure, AAA has a major issue, in that it seems to be consistently soulless and kinda shitty.
But if the definition is somewhat reasonable, either as a major production in terms of budget and scope, or even as a production from a major studio then all of a sudden AAA games are way more diverse and way more interesting than these types of posts give them credit for.