Developers Admit They Don't Understand the Meaning of the Term «AAA Games»
When the disastrous Skull and Bones was released, Ubisoft puzzled the entire industry with the term «AAAA games». But as a recent Edge report showed, many developers still haven’t figured out the three A’s either.
For example, Revolution Studios (Broken Sword series) co-founder Charles Cecil admitted that he first heard the term during a visit to the Virgin Interactive publisher’s office after the release of the first Broken Sword in the 1990s. At that time, the company’s CEO first used the phrase «AAA games», which he took from financial terminology. The head of Virgin Interactive put the following meaning into the concept: «We put enough money into the game so that it wouldn’t fail».
It’s a stupid term. It’s meaningless. And I think it came from that era, which I don’t have very fond memories of, when everything changed, but not for the better.
ID @ Xbox CEO Chris Charla expressed a similar point of view. According to him, he heard the term “AAA games» back in the 90s, when he was working as a journalist. Back then, it had a rather negative connotation and was still closely associated with lender terminology. Terra Virtua CTO Kish Hirani agreed with his opinion, adding that it was an attempt to differentiate the gaming and film industries:
And somehow it became our word. You would think that we would eventually use the term «blockbuster», which is easier to pronounce. But it was all about money.
Three Friends co-founder and former Mojang developer Daniel Kaplan said he discussed the term many times during behind-the-scenes talks with industry giants like EA and Ubisoft. However, studios were reluctant to explain what «AAA» actually meant, limiting themselves to a vague «very expensive game»:
The gaming industry felt like it was the underdog during the late ’90s, and the early 2000s, trying to compete with the movie industry. And it felt like they put the triple-A label on themselves to reflect that they were big business.
It so happened that even by 2024, studios still haven’t decided what those three letters mean. However, they continue to use the concept to create «false competence» and even expand the terminology. As Alex Hutchinson, former creative director of Assassin's Creed 3 and Far Cry 4, admitted, he heard the concept of «AAAA game» at Ubisoft back in 2017: «It made me throw up in my mouth a little».
Let's recall that Ubisoft intends to release another project with the vague concept of «AAAA game» in the future. It was mentioned in the profile of one of the developers on LinkedIn.
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