With AAA games going the way of the dodo...

what are you plans when AAA development finally kick the bucket? Are you going full indie or what?

Hypothetically speaking of-course....

I'll play whatever gets made.

Well Not really.. even another Video game crash won't kill AAA gaming...

What does AAA even mean any more? Size of the budget? Brand strength? Supposed quality? Because let's be honest, last year and the beginning of this year saw some shoddy releases from the big publishers, in spite of throwing huge amounts of money at development and marketing. It seems like they are struggling to release products not beset by problems (bugs or other issues), but also misjudging the market with some titles that fall a bit flat. Personally, I'm looking forward to many more games from independent developers (not necessarily 'indie') this year than supposed AAA games from big publishers, especially with some titles delayed to next year. The number of AAA releases on my radar is gradually diminishing, but maybe my tastes are changing.

Thankfully there still looks to be plenty of AAA games in the works and for the foreseeable future to keep me going. I really don't see it dying off.

@Gue1: I don't agree that AAA games are going out of fashion - it tends be the reverse. A Hollywood-ization of the games industry - big budgets and development times, super quick sales on launch to make the investment back, then drip feed content to hide the scam.

AAA games will never be done.

What might happen is that developers will see that its not a good idea to spend the massive amounts, but reduced budgets does not mean that AAA games is dead.

I think even if we think that AAA games are going downhill in more than one term....it still won't make a difference.

Look at the sales of the recently released AAA games....It's sky high and it's increasing.

I get a feeling that a lot of people don't question the content given to them.

They merely buy it because the game has a nice "EA" logo or "Activision" logo. They then make a correlation between the fact that they are big publishers and they publish good games... which is a grand misconception.

I bet there are so many kids on CoD that don't even know who the hell CD Projekt RED or Black Tusk Studios or all the other developers, that we partially still trust to give us good content, are. It's sad.

Indie games actually give you exactly what you want from an indie game.

It's always new and has a different taste.

I've been playing more indie games than AAA stuff since about 2011-2012. Except for when Q4 comes around where there's abit of a balance.

While I don't play many AAA, big-budget games (since 80% of them are garbage; uninteresting, recycled concepts with loads of DLC to make the product seem more valuable), I would certainly play one if it looked appealing.

I prefer medium-budget games made by mid-size dev teams.

Small titles are cool too, though I usually cherry-pick those since no-one needs thousands of 2d, side-scrolling platformers.

I don't even know what AAA means......

I am gonna do as I do now. Mostly focus on mid tier development games. AAA games stopped appealing to me ages ago.

@Lulu_Lulu: Yeah I agree, the meaning for triple AAA is pretty vague so I'm I sure what qaulifies as a AAA game

As others have said, I don't think that AAA gaming will die out.
Indie games are getting more popular and I think more and more people will start playing a mix of indie and AAA, not one or the other.
I tend to play mostly AAA games on consoles and indie games on PC - not on purpose, it just happens.

Its pretty simple.

From the perspective of a publisher, it means a game is given as much budget as it (reasonably) needs to develop it to completion. In the last few years, you are looking at the more ambitious titles being 30 million and up or so. 10 years ago, the bar was probably considered 20 million.

From the perspective of game review sites, it means a high scoring game.

The idea, in theory, is that if a game is given enough time and money, it should lead to a well made game and well made games sell. Naturally, there are always exceptions of super well made games that are massive hits done with a tiny budget, as well as crazy high funded games that flop incredibly in sales. In general, it does hold true that more money equals a better made game. And publishers have more or less faith in some developers than others to make do with a very constrained budget or a "take-as-much-as-you-need" budget.

Destiny is a AAA game from a publisher's perspective, but not a players. Something like Hearthstone was done on something that was even a sub-A budget but was AA/AAA from a player's perspective.

@thehig1:

Some say its Reception.... some say its the game's budget...... some say its the how many copies it sells......

Honestly..... the term is meaningless as it is.

@Lulu_Lulu: sure is

This.

Although there are a few exceptions, mid tier/mid sized teams is the way to go for the most part.

@Gue1: They're not going to dissapear

@The_Last_Ride:

but compared to last gen the releases have slowed down dramatically and more and more companies are focusing more and more on mobile, DLC, F2P, indies, remasters... I mean, did you ever imagine Capcom making an episodic Resident Evil game? And there's hardly anything of worth in current gen systems beside indies and yearly franchises after 2 years in the market.

indies are more than enough to entertain me when they're good

Honestly the best games have aleready being made each year is going backwards in quality. but i got to say the last few yeasr there have been advancements in gameplay, games cost WAYYYYY too much now, so the AAA budget is becoming less innovative ,more sequel based and fewer titles will be made. I think console exlusives will have the biggest problem with this since they are not gonna get as many sales as multiplats. Personally i find indies or AA to be more interesting than AAA these days, you dont need AAA budget to make a good game i hope more devs from smaller countries reallize this and stop spending riddiculus amount of money for crappy games.

The last AAA game that I played and enjoyed was The Last of Us. If it weren't for that game, I'd probably have to go all the way back to to Arkham City. The big publishers just don't put out many good games anymore, and I've all but given up on buying AAA games, honestly.

As other said I don't think AAA are going away. I don't even think they are going down in quality.

If there are no more AAA then I would say it would be a stagnation for gaming as a whole.

We are being flooded by lower grade games and they have little to nothing to improve gaming. Look even bigger companies are putting lower grade games like hearthstone (A) and team fortress 2 (A).

I would *SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY* whenever there's a game which I think is worthy. AAA or not.
We should let the gimmicky title cloud our judgement of a good game, shouldn't we

There are good game among AAA, there are good game among Indie(maybe even more)

that doesn't mean that we have to choose one of them.

I still have hope in AAA. Maybe one day, something groundbreaking would come, one day.
Indie may give it a push, or become better than AAA.
Who knows.

Just wait and see.