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AAA is also a title given to some Indie games that have been of a very high quality so that in itself is a contradiction to your 'definition'. Where is the quality of these AAA games I listed above??. Instead of seeing what I said and coupled with your copious knowledge of the subject you can say, "well it makes sense from a certain perspective" you just all out tell me to get learned and call me an IDIOT.

I can see you don't debate very well lol.

Bottom line is that the term AAA is bogus if you can call a poor quality game AAA and then a high quality Indie game as well, the definition simply does not fit then.
Prove it and list these so-called indie AAA games please. Back it up or shut up.




An indie game is NOT a AAA game. They are two different game classifications. Like I told you before, a AAA game is mainly defined by a massive budget.

Indie games are classified indie for a reason. Smaller budgets and smaller development teams.

Stop being an imbecile.
 
@LaidtoRest_ZA i see your gaming rage is still spreading onto carb.
Yeah, because some people want to argue a debate when there is no debate. They are two different classifications for a reason. The one is not the other. The only debate there is, is that Anthem might not feel like a AAA game and the rare indie game might feel like a AAA game and with that I agree, but that does not make an indie game a AAA game and neither does it make Anthem not a AAA game. It’s a simple matter. It’s not rocket science.
 
Prove it and list these so-called indie AAA games please. Back it up or shut up.




An indie game is NOT a AAA game. They are two different game classifications. Like I told you before, a AAA game is mainly defined by a massive budget.

Indie games are classified indie for a reason. Smaller budgets and smaller development teams.

Stop being an imbecile.

AAA titles are not just mainly "defined by a massive budge". That is only the beginning of it that funds all the rest. There is a entire expectation, realistic graphics, complex gameplay, storyline etc.

As far as budget - "That is the foundation of a Triple A game, while this next part is highly subjective among gamers. The games generally goes on to review well scoring 8+/10 and averaging a score of 88+/100 on metacritic. The game generally receive large to massive amounts of hype and gaming websites, and goes on to sale 1+ million copies.

Suck on the sack as much as you want but if a "Triple A" game scores 55 on Metacritic then it's JUST NOT A TRIPLE A TITLE.
 
AAA titles are not just mainly "defined by a massive budge". That is only the beginning of it that funds all the rest. There is a entire expectation, realistic graphics, complex gameplay, storyline etc.

As far as budget - "That is the foundation of a Triple A game, while this next part is highly subjective among gamers. The games generally goes on to review well scoring 8+/10 and averaging a score of 88+/100 on metacritic. The game generally receive large to massive amounts of hype and gaming websites, and goes on to sale 1+ million copies.

Suck on the sack as much as you want but if a "Triple A" game scores 55 on Metacritic then it's JUST NOT A TRIPLE A TITLE.
GENERALLY. That is the keyword. 55 or not, Anthem remains a AAA title, whether you agree with it or not and most importantly, whether you like it or not. So eat your salt :)
 
Yeah, because some people want to argue a debate when there is no debate. They are two different classifications for a reason. The one is not the other. The only debate there is, is that Anthem might not feel like a AAA game and the rare indie game might feel like a AAA game and with that I agree, but that does not make an indie game a AAA game and neither does it make Anthem not a AAA game. It’s a simple matter. It’s not rocket science.
Lets maybe be grown up and stop calling names? Indie games get the title "III" only when they are of high budget AND high quality. It is that same concept as triple AAA.

Bottom line is that you cannot put your head in the sand and say that it's triple A coz it had big budget no matter what the game turned out.

Now stop throwing a tantrum about something so loosely defined.
 
Very subjective terms you throwing around bruh,
"Quality and experience" Of what? Graphical? Glitches? Entertainment? Storyline?

Observe the kiddies game -Fortnite. Big money didn't go into that but the experience was stellar, Quality of entertainment and performance was great.

All the shit we've been served since BF4, less than stellar except for any hardcore fan.

COD is literally the same game every 6 months. The only new thing was BR.

What about Anthem you say? Did millions of dollars stop consoles from eating shit?

Nah, like I conjected, AAA is a title thrown at whatever company has the biggest name and biggest pocket, regardless of what they actually spend on the game itself.

I'd love to know what percentage actually goes to some of these AAA games' development instead of the CEO's, advertisement, useless studies blah blah blah if the game comes out and people have to ask if it was ever tested properly in a beta?

Those may all be valid arguments but you can feel AAA versus smaller devs 99% of the time. Yes the game may be glitchy, ludicrously so, but they still have a greater degree of polish VS a smaller dev.

With a game from a smaller dev you can usually feel the limitation in budget. It will try to look the part but it won't sound the part or vice versa. Or one game mode will be super polished but elsewhere the game will be lacking like missing menu functions or the entire absence of an expected game mode. Yes it may run better, yes it may be more fun, but it will clearly feel lacking somewhere besides bug-squishing, and yes, usually graphical fidelity is limited. You may call so called pixel art a choice but 9.99/10 times it's a clear sign of a very limited budget and dev team size. Very very few game/devs manage to transcend AAA level of "quality" whilst coming from a small dev and or small budget. Runic games did and Klei and Supergiant do but most don't.

And whilst we are on the topic of arguing that something like Arkham Knight doesn't qualify as AAA because of all the bugs let me just tell you that that number of smaller broken games from smaller devs that are equally as buggy or worse outstrip the number of AAA games in that state by 500:1....actually more probably, and that's before one starts looking at asset flips.

And now let's keep in mind that it also translates back to a price you are willing to pay. A Pixel Art game will never demand a price in excess of 30 dollars even if it's more fleshed out than a comparative AAA game. It doesn't feel like it's warranted. Whereas if that AAA game hits exactly that sweet spot of what you want you'll lay 60 USD down day one no questions asked no problem.

Even compare what happens when an AAA studio/publisher delves down to territory held by smaller devs. Child of Light has way more polish than most other ATB RPGs of it's type. Automatically also feels like it's not worth 60 USD any more though either.


No you're wrong. Small devs are not the future, it's rarer for an indie dev to turn out something truly stellar than an AAA studio. Yes they can offer amazingly fun distractions, but at the end of day they are still distractions. And let's not forget that a small indie that consistently turns out successful titles will grow and eventually become an AAA studio making the missteps, or be swallowed by an AAA studio.



The future is competent development, where ever it may be found. It could come from an indie dev, but it could just as easily be your favourite AAA studio turning out another gem.


BioWare can still turn it around, after all Obsidian did.
 
Lets maybe be grown up and stop calling names? Indie games get the title "III" only when they are of high budget AND high quality. It is that same concept as triple AAA.

Bottom line is that you cannot put your head in the sand and say that it's triple A coz it had big budget no matter what the game turned out.

Now stop throwing a tantrum about something so loosely defined.
I’m not the one throwing a tantrum, you are because you fail to see what I’m telling you. All you did was go and candy pick part of an article. You fail to see what is mainly defined as a AAA game. It doesn’t matter how it turned out. Tons of blockbuster movies are negatively received and met with complete and utter disdain and controversy, but that doesn’t make them blockbuster movies any less.
 
Did you even read the article on Anthem or watch any of the videos regarding them? Those poor developers are not to blame at all. In fact, they should be commended. The mess that is Anthem is actually a damn miracle given the time they had to hack it together. Management is to blame. And I say EA is to blame too because they own the studio. They should ensure that the executives they appoint are doing their jobs.

Uhh yes, did you? The whole of Bioware is to blame, with Bioware's management deserving the majority of the blame. The key here is Bioware's management. Aaryn Flynn was GM at Bioware for all of the recent disasters, and has been with the company since the early 2000s, waaaaaay before the EA acquisition. He was not some bogeyman external EA appointment, he was part of the company's core team for nearly 2 decades. Bioware was given free reign to staff their company and their projects from the top down. Anthem's failure is fully, completely and utterly Bioware's failure.

The irony is that this is exactly what people have been screaming about for years. EA needs to free their devs to do what they want. It was EA, everyone always said, that held the devs back. Their oversight and suggestions killed the good games, it was argued.

Ok, so then EA took a hands-off approach. They left devs teams alone to do their thing, especially at "auteur" studios like Bioware. And the results have been apocalyptic.

Apex has been the lone exception. But there, again, EA had almost no input whatsoever, as the devs have admitted.

We need to stop just blaming the publisher when things go wrong. They generally have, especially these days, much less to do with these sorts of disasters than is commonly supposed.
 

Agreed.

It's strange how this entire Anthem mess ended up just being a blame game, for a massive company so make such poor decisions... We saw it coming ages ago when we were told they would be focusing on "gameplay" instead of storyline, meaning they want it as replayable as possible. If they got it right it would've been a cash cow. The only thing they got right with Anthem was their combat feeling like money was spent on it. And hype ofc.

There are other titles such as AA, A, B etc. and those titles need to be given to games that reached for the triple A title but fell short because blowing money on advertising does not equate to a good game.

Like I said earlier, I'd love to know how much of the massive budget they actually spend on game development instead of advertising and the likes.
 
Agreed.

It's strange how this entire Anthem mess ended up just being a blame game, for a massive company so make such poor decisions... We saw it coming ages ago when we were told they would be focusing on "gameplay" instead of storyline, meaning they want it as replayable as possible. If they got it right it would've been a cash cow. The only thing they got right with Anthem was their combat feeling like money was spent on it. And hype ofc.

There are other titles such as AA, A, B etc. and those titles need to be given to games that reached for the triple A title but fell short because blowing money on advertising does not equate to a good game.

Like I said earlier, I'd love to know how much of the massive budget they actually spend on game development instead of advertising and the likes.

It wasn't just money on advertising though. Any 1 minute snippet will have cost as much or more than most indie game devs saw during their entire development. It is definitely AAA, that unfortunately doesn't preclude it from being trash though, just ask Rocksteady.

And let's be honest it's not so much that money was wasted, it's that time was wasted and things were rushed. Given even just 1 extra month it would have been a much better game.

I get what you are saying, but your punchline is wrong.

No amount of buggyness can prevent an AAA game from being AAA even if it's unplayable garbage compared to it's 9.8/10 rated AAA brethren.
 
Uhh yes, did you? The whole of Bioware is to blame, with Bioware's management deserving the majority of the blame. The key here is Bioware's management. Aaryn Flynn was GM at Bioware for all of the recent disasters, and has been with the company since the early 2000s, waaaaaay before the EA acquisition. He was not some bogeyman external EA appointment, he was part of the company's core team for nearly 2 decades. Bioware was given free reign to staff their company and their projects from the top down. Anthem's failure is fully, completely and utterly Bioware's failure.

The irony is that this is exactly what people have been screaming about for years. EA needs to free their devs to do what they want. It was EA, everyone always said, that held the devs back. Their oversight and suggestions killed the good games, it was argued.

Ok, so then EA took a hands-off approach. They left devs teams alone to do their thing, especially at "auteur" studios like Bioware. And the results have been apocalyptic.

Apex has been the lone exception. But there, again, EA had almost no input whatsoever, as the devs have admitted.

We need to stop just blaming the publisher when things go wrong. They generally have, especially these days, much less to do with these sorts of disasters than is commonly supposed.
On some I agree, on some not.

I’m sorry but you can’t blame the actual developers for Anthem’s mess. It’s made very clear in that Kotaku article that the developers were the ones that went to management and said hey, this is not on, this is not going to work etc. and management failed to make decisions, some things left for up to a year before any decision is made. Some of those developers had been working on stuff for years to be told can it, you’re doing this now.

I mean fuck.... How does your developers only find out at E3 2017 what the game is actually supposed to be after they had been working on the project for years.

And I’m sorry, EA is to blame too. Firstly, I stand by saying how the hell did they not know what was going on in the studio. That is why you need to listen to your developers and not just your management.

Second, EA was the one that mandated them to use the Frostbite engine more than half way into the project, not BioWare internally. Most of the game was already built in the engine used for Dragon Age. Tons of work just wasted away right there. And the worst of all, NONE of those developers had any experience with Frostbite whatsoever. And EA didn’t give them any support. Instead all Frostbite support was pulled into the microtransaction frenzy that is FIFA.

It’s no wonder their good developers got depressed and left the studio. I don’t blame them for one second.

There is an insightful discussion on Angry Joe’s channel that you can watch as well. It’s almost 50 minutes long. I’ll link it here later, I’m on my phone right now.
 
It wasn't just money on advertising though. Any 1 minute snippet will have cost as much or more than most indie game devs during their entire development. It is definitely AAA, that unfortunately doesn't preclude it from being trash though, just as Rocksteady.

And let's be honest it's not so much that money was wasted, it's that time was wasted and things were rushed. Given even just 1 extra month it would have been a much better game.

I get what you are saying, but your punchline is wrong.

No amount of buggyness can prevent an AAA game from being AAA even if it's unplayable garbage compared to it's 9.8/10 rated AAA brethren.
See, you get it.

Honestly, they should have given Anthem another year. And like Angry Joe concluded his video has well, I hope they keep working on it to make it better because the foundation is there. I’m just afraid that they might try and fix some bugs and leave it at that instead of expanding the game to what it should have been (free of charge that is)
 
By the way...I find it super meaningful that this thread we are having this discussion on still has Demo in the title.
 
On some I agree, on some not.

I’m sorry but you can’t blame the actual developers for Anthem’s mess. It’s made very clear in that Kotaku article that the developers were the ones that went to management and said hey, this is not on, this is not going to work etc. and management failed to make decisions, some things left for up to a year before any decision is made. Some of those developers had been working on stuff for years to be told can it, you’re doing this now.

I mean fuck.... How does your developers only find out at E3 2017 what the game is actually supposed to be after they had been working on the project for years.

And I’m sorry, EA is to blame too. Firstly, I stand by saying how the hell did they not know what was going on in the studio. That is why you need to listen to your developers and not just your management.

Second, EA was the one that mandated them to use the Frostbite engine more than half way into the project, not BioWare internally. Most of the game was already built in the engine used for Dragon Age. Tons of work just wasted away right there. And the worst of all, NONE of those developers had any experience with Frostbite whatsoever. And EA didn’t give them any support. Instead all Frostbite support was pulled into the microtransaction frenzy that is FIFA.

It’s no wonder their good developers got depressed and left the studio. I don’t blame them for one second.

There is an insightful discussion on Angry Joe’s channel that you can watch as well. It’s almost 50 minutes long. I’ll link it here later, I’m on my phone right now.

I don't blame the code grunt devs as such, but there are many layers of "management" going down to the small dev teams who have their own leaders and who also make design decisions. Now these decisions are supposed to be reviewed and discussed and amalgamated up the food chain, and I get that was not done here. But from the article it's clear that there was major dysfunction even at these granular levels, where in team meetings nobody could make up their minds or agree on a decision. As I say, management deserves the vast majority of the blame.

As for Frostbite...That's certainly a whole other discussion. The engine is problematic to say the least. However, Anthem was going to use Frostbite from day 1 as far as I understand. Even in early pre-production there was concern that the engine would struggle to cope with some of the design concepts. Dragon Age Inquisition also used Frostbite, so it's not like Bioware was entirely unfamiliar with the engine and what it could do. They learned a ton of lessons from that project regarding Frostbite, and they should have heeded them on Anthem. The engine was an issue, but to blame it completely unfair. You can't say the engine can't do what you want it to, if you don't even know what you want the engine to do. If you try to cram 4 years of work into 18 months and the engine can't accommodate your every whim instantly, that's on you not the engine.

I absolutely believe EA should have had much stronger oversight over Bioware. But my point is that this is exactly what whine about all the time. "Oh oh EA is too draconian they stifle all creativity!" So which is it? Must EA whip the studios into shape to produce a product with discipline and on schedule? Or must they let the precious little flowers create without any mean execs nudging them along?

Bioware has been getting the benefit of the doubt for way too long, and EA way too much of the blame.
 
Those may all be valid arguments but you can feel AAA versus smaller devs 99% of the time. Yes the game may be glitchy, ludicrously so, but they still have a greater degree of polish VS a smaller dev.

With a game from a smaller dev you can usually feel the limitation in budget. It will try to look the part but it won't sound the part or vice versa. Or one game mode will be super polished but elsewhere the game will be lacking like missing menu functions or the entire absence of an expected game mode. Yes it may run better, yes it may be more fun, but it will clearly feel lacking somewhere besides bug-squishing, and yes, usually graphical fidelity is limited. You may call so called pixel art a choice but 9.99/10 times it's a clear sign of a very limited budget and dev team size. Very very few game/devs manage to transcend AAA level of "quality" whilst coming from a small dev and or small budget. Runic games did and Klei and Supergiant do but most don't.

And whilst we are on the topic of arguing that something like Arkham Knight doesn't qualify as AAA because of all the bugs let me just tell you that that number of smaller broken games from smaller devs that are equally as buggy or worse outstrip the number of AAA games in that state by 500:1....actually more probably, and that's before one starts looking at asset flips.

And now let's keep in mind that it also translates back to a price you are willing to pay. A Pixel Art game will never demand a price in excess of 30 dollars even if it's more fleshed out than a comparative AAA game. It doesn't feel like it's warranted. Whereas if that AAA game hits exactly that sweet spot of what you want you'll lay 60 USD down day one no questions asked no problem.

Even compare what happens when an AAA studio/publisher delves down to territory held by smaller devs. Child of Light has way more polish than most other ATB RPGs of it's type. Automatically also feels like it's not worth 60 USD any more though either.


No you're wrong. Small devs are not the future, it's rarer for an indie dev to turn out something truly stellar than an AAA studio. Yes they can offer amazingly fun distractions, but at the end of day they are still distractions. And let's not forget that a small indie that consistently turns out successful titles will grow and eventually become an AAA studio making the missteps, or be swallowed by an AAA studio.



The future is competent development, where ever it may be found. It could come from an indie dev, but it could just as easily be your favourite AAA studio turning out another gem.


BioWare can still turn it around, after all Obsidian did.

Agree pretty much entirely. Maybe not about Bioware turning it around though.
 
I don't blame the code grunt devs as such, but there are many layers of "management" going down to the small dev teams who have their own leaders and who also make design decisions. Now these decisions are supposed to be reviewed and discussed and amalgamated up the food chain, and I get that was not done here. But from the article it's clear that there was major dysfunction even at these granular levels, where in team meetings nobody could make up their minds or agree on a decision. As I say, management deserves the vast majority of the blame.

As for Frostbite...That's certainly a whole other discussion. The engine is problematic to say the least. However, Anthem was going to use Frostbite from day 1 as far as I understand. Even in early pre-production there was concern that the engine would struggle to cope with some of the design concepts. Dragon Age Inquisition also used Frostbite, so it's not like Bioware was entirely unfamiliar with the engine and what it could do. They learned a ton of lessons from that project regarding Frostbite, and they should have heeded them on Anthem. The engine was an issue, but to blame it completely unfair. You can't say the engine can't do what you want it to, if you don't even know what you want the engine to do. If you try to cram 4 years of work into 18 months and the engine can't accommodate your every whim instantly, that's on you not the engine.

I absolutely believe EA should have had much stronger oversight over Bioware. But my point is that this is exactly what whine about all the time. "Oh oh EA is too draconian they stifle all creativity!" So which is it? Must EA whip the studios into shape to produce a product with discipline and on schedule? Or must they let the precious little flowers create without any mean execs nudging them along?

Bioware has been getting the benefit of the doubt for way too long, and EA way too much of the blame.
The engine they were going to use for Anthem from the start was the engine they used before Dragon Age Inquisition. Dragon Age Inquisition was built by an entirely different team at BioWare. The team working on Anthem had no Frostbite experience.

Sure, I do agree that BioWare has been getting the benefit if the doubt for too long, but EA isn’t squeaky clean on this one either. Fair blame can be placed on them too.

As for what EA should do, personally I don’t think they should get too involved. What they touch is destined to piss off consumers. Look at FIFA. It is absolutely loaded with micro-transactions. Look at what happened to Anthem at one stage. An EA rep came in and played a build of the game not long before E3 2017. (That’s already 5 years into the project which will bring me to my next point shortly). So after playing the build he said it sucks, he wants something else. In this build the flying mechanics were not present as management had earlier made a decision to remove them. After hearing the build sucks, management instructed them to build those mechanics again and with that level design changes had to be made once again.

EA should ensure that the executives they appoint have a track record of getting things done and have a good sense of creative vision. EA should request quarterly reports on progress. If things are bad, intervene at a management level. For the love of all that is good do not give EA the mandate for mechanics and creativity or you will end up with a FIFA micro-transaction fest.
 
And just a further bit on how the developers stood up for what they believed in...

Management had them time lock the tomb mission and the developers said no that isn’t right. It was removed not long before release. Had the developers not fought to remove it that mission would only have been playable at certain times. The management team are scumbags from the top shelf.
 
So after playing the build he said it sucks, he wants something else. In this build the flying mechanics were not present as management had earlier made a decision to remove them. After hearing the build sucks, management instructed them to build those mechanics again and with that level design changes had to be made once again.

EA should ensure that the executives they appoint have a track record of getting things done and have a good sense of creative vision. EA should request quarterly reports on progress. If things are bad, intervene at a management level. For the love of all that is good do not give EA the mandate for mechanics and creativity or you will end up with a FIFA micro-transaction fest.

He said the graphics suck and the game isn't fun, which is pretty much what the knew already internally. That was the boots-on-the-ground version and was never going to work. So he didn't push them in the wrong direction on that occasion at least. And I believe he got the Frostbite specialists to come and help them at that point as well. So at least in that instance EA's involvement was a good thing.

EA's problem has always been that they employ moron business types to oversee studios. They have no idea how to oversee creative enterprises like that.

Ideally you want a guy like David Vonderhaar overseeing a cluster of studios. He has extensive creative experience as well as the logistical experience of pulling major projects together on time and in shape. He would be able to identify issues early on and make changes where necessary.

The problem is guys like Vonderhaar are very hard to find. Soderlund was their attempt at getting that type of person to oversee things, but he's a dumbass unfortunately.
 
He said the graphics suck and the game isn't fun, which is pretty much what the knew already internally. That was the boots-on-the-ground version and was never going to work. So he didn't push them in the wrong direction on that occasion at least. And I believe he got the Frostbite specialists to come and help them at that point as well. So at least in that instance EA's involvement was a good thing.

EA's problem has always been that they employ moron business types to oversee studios. They have no idea how to oversee creative enterprises like that.

Ideally you want a guy like David Vonderhaar overseeing a cluster of studios. He has extensive creative experience as well as the logistical experience of pulling major projects together on time and in shape. He would be able to identify issues early on and make changes where necessary.

The problem is guys like Vonderhaar are very hard to find. Soderlund was their attempt at getting that type of person to oversee things, but he's a dumbass unfortunately.
No he didn't steer them in the wrong occasion in that instance, but had EA known what's going they would have known the flying mechanics were there once upon a time and the developers could have been on the right track. There were months wasted in gameplay adjustments and level design from building those mechanics, then removing them again, and then having to build them again.

And I do think it's important to remember that Anthem was never going to be a loot shooter from the beginning. It was going to be something completely different. So when EA gave the go-ahead and the money to start this project back in 2012 they knew damn well they are not having a loot shooter developed. So the guy saying the boots on the ground thing wasn't fun wasn't exactly fair either, but by some luck due to the popularity of games like Destiny he gave them a correct push there.

What BioWare needs, or any studio needs for that matter is a Neil Druckmann
 
i see now that there is a public test server for Anthem...it will show the progress and be used to gather feedback for the cataclysm update which has been delayed due to all the issues/problems surrounding the game.
 
Doesn't matter. Game was a fantastic flop from the start, as it was foretold when Bioware announced they would be more gameplay driven than story.
 

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