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Gaming has never been better, including AAA (Poll)
- Thread starter Angst
- Start date
Those are definitely AAA. They have huge budgets and teams. AA is something likeA Plague's Tale, The Surge, The Council or Vampyr.
AAA doesn't mean microtransactions. Lots of AAA games don't have these.
There are just too many games to play. I feel like before i could play all of them but even with tons of free time, i just can't do it and fucking annoys me.
Getting less and less if you discount Nintendo. But note Nintendo refuses to reduce price in their games and expects people to pay a price that will make the game profitable to Nintendo. And even Nintendo is doing a little of it themselves.
No I haven't, I should play it but haven't gotten around to it.
I should clarify, I like RPG's where stats are more important than player skill. For instance, I was dissappointed by Fallout 4 making shooting more skill based. I like encumbrance, I like when the choices you make mean something. If it's an RPG, to me, the character is more important than me. To me the bane of RPG's is the ability to respec.
Something like Nier Automota is absolutely not AAA. It was a sequel to a niche game that was made hoping to turn a profit with a small budget. It just happened to wind up selling way beyond what anyone expected. Stuff like Nier and Persona are what AA games are. More contained budgets and less advertising, but still a step above indie games and small titles.
I mean, you could maybe argue that Breath of the Wild was AAA, but they only needed to sell 2 million to make a profit. That's well below AAA budgets.
And I do generally associate AAA with bullshit. Microtransactions, always online stuff, GAAS, etc. That's what AAA means in 2019. Games that intend to make an infinite amount of money from you.
Only if you like brown shooters. I personally hated that year, probably one of my worst with a few exceptions.
If I look at some of my fave games this gen (Bloodborne, Sekiro, BotW, Prey, The Last Guardian, DOOM, RE2, Spider-Man, Titanfall 2) I haven't payed any microtransactions for any of them. It's not a major problem, certainly not for me.
In general, I think that there's a ton to enjoy among modern releases. There's no lack of quality.
I think the argument that there's a suitable "indie" equivalent to any old game or type of game you could possibly enjoy, however, is a poor one.
That said, old games exist. There's nothing stopping me from playing them. Broadly they're more accessible than ever, and there's no good reason to ignore that fact when thinking about "gaming today", no good reason to treat "gaming today" as "new releases today".
I think the argument that there's a suitable "indie" equivalent to any old game or type of game you could possibly enjoy, however, is a poor one.
That said, old games exist. There's nothing stopping me from playing them. Broadly they're more accessible than ever, and there's no good reason to ignore that fact when thinking about "gaming today", no good reason to treat "gaming today" as "new releases today".
AAA is definitely worse, though there's still some good content in that space. The indie space is the best it's ever been, absolutely.
Overall, I'm relatively satisfied.
Overall, I'm relatively satisfied.
Brown shooters?
Bioshock
Mass Effect
Halo 3
Assassin's Creed
Crackdown
The Orange Box
Rock Band
Uncharted
Super Mario Galaxy
Call of Duty 4
Viva Pinata
The Witcher
Ratchet & Clank
BoTW is definitely AAA. how is this even a question? You may associate it with GAAS or microtranstions, buit that's not what AAA is. If those were the criteria, God of War, The Witcher 3, Dishonored 2, Spider-Man, Sekiro, Breath of the Wild and lots of others wouldn't be AAA. But they are. There's a reason people say AA is dead, for a long time there was very little between AAA and indie.
This gen changed that with cheaper AAA games (Ratchet & Clank), more expensive indies (The Witness) and the return of genuine AA gaming (The Council, Vampy, A Plague's Tale, The Surge, Elex, the upcoming Biomutant etc.) And VR in a way, because those could be called smaller, less expensive AAA games (Blood and Truth, Astro Bot etc.)
It's two sided. On one hand, AAA and indie games have been coming out at a crazy high quality, with quite a large portion of games being fun.
On the other hand, monetization of gaming is in the worst spot it's been in a long time. The fact that some people can spend thousands of dollars on a game to try to get a chance at a skin they want or to better their character is just insane. DLC and Expansions are fine, and always have been okay with me, but if I buy a game and can't earn a majority of the cool looking skins in the game without spending money, that's really lame.
On the other hand, monetization of gaming is in the worst spot it's been in a long time. The fact that some people can spend thousands of dollars on a game to try to get a chance at a skin they want or to better their character is just insane. DLC and Expansions are fine, and always have been okay with me, but if I buy a game and can't earn a majority of the cool looking skins in the game without spending money, that's really lame.
PS2/GameCube/Xbox was much better in my opinion. Then the SNES/Genesis gen, followed by the 360/PS3/Wii gen. Then maybe now.
Disagree. I'm mostly talking about AAA games, though. There's far too much of a focus on redoing old games, there aren't any pure handheld options (the Switch doesn't work as well as previous systems as a portable thanks to the size and battery life), and there's no free online (unless you have PC). Also there are a lot fewer AAA games being made, and that makes it so if you like a particular studio but don't like their released game you basically have to wait 4 or 5 years before they put out something else. There also seem to be a lot fewer AA type titles. And lets not forget having far bigger download sizes which can lead to situations like Fallout 76 having a patch that's bigger than the game, or games having patch sizes over 10+ GB.
The nice things are games are pretty big and if you do find a game you like it's easy to stick with it for quite a while, especially if it's a GAAS type of title.
This response has it right, and a lot of those games you mention are from franchises/studios that put out more than just that game last generation.
Horizon Zero Dawn - Guerilla did Killzone 2 and 3
The Witcher 3 - The Witcher 1 and 2 (granted 1 was PC-only but still).
Fallout 4 - Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, Oblivion
Far Cry 5 - Far Cry 3 and 4
Uncharted 4 - Uncharted 1-3 + TLoU. Naughty Dog *has* put out UC4, UC: TLL and will put out TLoU 2 so at least they'll be close to what they did previously.
Spider Man - Granted Insomniac has put out 3 titles this gen (at least), but they put out 3 trilogies (Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank Future, Resistance) last gen.
Driveclub - Motorstorm, Motorstorm Pacific Rift, Motorstorm Apocalypse, Motorstorm RC. Evolution Studios was also closed.
Persona 5 - The exception to this list, given P4 was on PS2. I'm not entirely sure which other games P Studio has released, though.
It's on the whole a lot less output from the same studios.
The nice things are games are pretty big and if you do find a game you like it's easy to stick with it for quite a while, especially if it's a GAAS type of title.
This response has it right, and a lot of those games you mention are from franchises/studios that put out more than just that game last generation.
Horizon Zero Dawn - Guerilla did Killzone 2 and 3
The Witcher 3 - The Witcher 1 and 2 (granted 1 was PC-only but still).
Fallout 4 - Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, Oblivion
Far Cry 5 - Far Cry 3 and 4
Uncharted 4 - Uncharted 1-3 + TLoU. Naughty Dog *has* put out UC4, UC: TLL and will put out TLoU 2 so at least they'll be close to what they did previously.
Spider Man - Granted Insomniac has put out 3 titles this gen (at least), but they put out 3 trilogies (Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank Future, Resistance) last gen.
Driveclub - Motorstorm, Motorstorm Pacific Rift, Motorstorm Apocalypse, Motorstorm RC. Evolution Studios was also closed.
Persona 5 - The exception to this list, given P4 was on PS2. I'm not entirely sure which other games P Studio has released, though.
It's on the whole a lot less output from the same studios.
Only 2 of that list I liked. Galaxy and Ratchet. Most on that list didn't age well at all. AC1 was awful and UC1 was ok, but laid the foundation on much better entries. Every year from this gen destroys 2007.
I think we're in a good spot now but there are things I look back on and miss from years and console generations before. As a fan of snowboarding games (and extreme sports games in general) and having watched that genre all but die out, I couldn't completely agree that gaming is better than it's ever been. The same goes for individual franchises that came and went leaving a void not truly filled by anything coming from current publishers/developers. Burnout being one that comes to mind.
There's another side to this though. I feel my taste in games has changed quite a lot over the years and it divides how I look at both the present and past. I was a big fan of first-person shooters in the late 1990s and early 2000s but I care a lot less for that kind of game now. The same goes for competitive multiplayer games too (though the toxicity in that scene is what mostly turned me away from it). So while I look back fondly at, say, a game like Quake 3 Arena I have zero interest in playing Quake Champions now. I'm looking forward to MCC coming to PC and I think Doom Eternal looks incredible but I can't help thinking it's the nostalgia working its magic rather than me genuinely being interested in playing those games.
There's another side to this though. I feel my taste in games has changed quite a lot over the years and it divides how I look at both the present and past. I was a big fan of first-person shooters in the late 1990s and early 2000s but I care a lot less for that kind of game now. The same goes for competitive multiplayer games too (though the toxicity in that scene is what mostly turned me away from it). So while I look back fondly at, say, a game like Quake 3 Arena I have zero interest in playing Quake Champions now. I'm looking forward to MCC coming to PC and I think Doom Eternal looks incredible but I can't help thinking it's the nostalgia working its magic rather than me genuinely being interested in playing those games.
The push for live services/aggressive monetization in both mobile and AAA isn't great, but there's been a huge diversity of games at all levels from indie to AAA, so I can't complain overall.
Every year? Not even close.
At the time AC1 and Uncharted 1 were fantastic, and Bioshock and Halo 3 really delivered.
Not to mention the effect CoD4 had on the entire industry.
I don't think I've had a year since where I bought that many games in on Fall period.
"Cheaper AAA games" is an oxymoron. The "AAA" designation refers solely to the budget of the game. Some first party AAA titles might avoid microtransanctions, but they're few and far between. On the whole, AAA means following the leader and putting in everything that other popular games are doing.
Gaming as a whole is doing well, but the AAA space is increasingly diseased and dysfunctional, regardless of "record profits".
I realize one can point to Nintendo's AAA games which go against the trends, but that's exactly the point. Nintendo and a few other random games from certain publishers are the exception that prove the rule.
I realize one can point to Nintendo's AAA games which go against the trends, but that's exactly the point. Nintendo and a few other random games from certain publishers are the exception that prove the rule.
I agree with the Online criticism but I disagree with this. I don't think the size or battery life have been significant hindrances in how people use the system as a portable since it's effectively the same size if not smaller than popular tablets. The battery life is fine with less intensive games, not fantastic, but USB-C charging alleviates it.
I understand by 'pure' handheld you mean something Vita-sized or smaller, but I don't find the Switch something more cumbersome to carry around than a Vita as I would just toss both in my bag. Anyways, the speculated Switch Mini seems like it might address this directly.
There is not some arbitrary budget line at which AAA begins and ends. Something like Blood and Truth is definitely AAA, but it doesn't need the sales of Red Dead Redemption 2. Because it's shorter, more linear, less actors, etc.
For me it's never been better. You may get some AAA duds and annualised releases here and there, and microtransactions etc can be a thing in some games, but you still also get AAA titles that are simply unbelievable experiences, offering a sense of occasion, drama, spectacle, complexity, mechanical and technical sophistication or narrative poignancy that simply didn't exist in the same way in games back in the day.
Then there's the sheer volume of fantastic AA and indie titles that greatly add to the diversity and quality of games available.
If I was being truly honest with myself, one of the main reasons the old days of gaming seem so appealing on reflection, is predominantly because of nostalgia, my much younger age and my gaming inexperience. Gaming was fresher and newer back then, and standards and expectations were different and much lower.
Then there's the sheer volume of fantastic AA and indie titles that greatly add to the diversity and quality of games available.
If I was being truly honest with myself, one of the main reasons the old days of gaming seem so appealing on reflection, is predominantly because of nostalgia, my much younger age and my gaming inexperience. Gaming was fresher and newer back then, and standards and expectations were different and much lower.
You're aware that publishers coined the term "AAA" to refer to their highest budget games that were going to have the biggest advertising campaigns behind them and were aiming for massive sales, right? That's all the term refers to. AAA games are the absolute biggest games of the year that have $100 million+ budgets behind them and are aiming to make obscene amounts of money. Shorter games with smaller, more contained budgets are by definition not AAA games.
Is this really such a big problem as some make it out to be though? Look at Sony's acclaimed and commercially succesful titles, there are no greedy tactics employed if you want to enjoy Horizon, Spidey or God of War. Same with the games Bethesda publishes (Dishonored 2, Wolfenstein, Prey, DOOM), or From Software's prolific output, CDPR,'s or most of Capcom's games, etc. Damn good games too.Yeah, Activision and EA are scummy, but as far as the entire industry is concerned I feel it's a bit overblown. I've played tons of amazing AAA games this gen and didn't spend a dime on microtransactions.
Microtransactions are not inherent to AAA. Many of them have them but microtransactions are not a qualifier. What was the budget for BotW & Mario Odyssey?
Annoying that the poll once again doesn't really reflect the title.
Overall I preferred it when AAA games were daring trailblazers, it's a best of both worlds situation as a consumer. It generated a lot of all time classics
I hate gamified storefronts with a passion so the AAA industry is by and large dead to me, outside of Sony and Nintendo exclusives and now with indies. Overall though, Sony, Nintendo and indies have picked up sufficient slack so that there are still more good games to play than in the old days. Just fewer all time classics.
Overall I preferred it when AAA games were daring trailblazers, it's a best of both worlds situation as a consumer. It generated a lot of all time classics
I hate gamified storefronts with a passion so the AAA industry is by and large dead to me, outside of Sony and Nintendo exclusives and now with indies. Overall though, Sony, Nintendo and indies have picked up sufficient slack so that there are still more good games to play than in the old days. Just fewer all time classics.
The problem is that there is no clear definition or budget. RDR2 is AAA, but so is Sekiro, Mario + Rabbids or DMC 5 and the difference in budget between those is staggering. You said AAA is basically a guarantee for scummy practices, but I pointed to loads of great games that don't have these practices, but are definitely AAA.
We should just talk about games. Indies, AA, AAA and everything in between (are funded and published titles like Cuphead or Ori still indie for example?)
And gaming as a whole is definitely on fire.
Gaming has become polarized. The highs have never been higher. Indies have become amazing. Almost nothing else is sustainable. There is a big vacuum right now. The creators of Uncharted have said that that game couldn't be made in today's environment. That's a red flag to watch before saying things have never been better.
Also, the financials behind the industry have grown fundamentally dishonest, relying on secondary purchases and whales to keep the sticker price as low as possible (or worse, to milk as much profit as possible despite already hitting a point of healthy profit). That trades long term industry health for short term profit. Hiding a significant percentage of a game's cost within the game itself hides the game's honest price until there has already been buy-in; that is a recipe for long term failure. One of the primary reasons given for Vita's death was the hidden cost of proprietary memory cards. This is the exact same phenomenon, and it's becoming industry wide. If I want to pay an upfront price for all of a game, roughly half of the console space is now closed to me.
Saying things have never been better is to only look at the best aspects of the current industry. If you know what you want and know what you need to avoid, things can be better than ever. But part of the industry is rotting from the inside out, and that part of the industry is both growing and heading towards collapse. It feels like someone in the late 1920's saying the market has never been better. On the surface, sure. But the problems are huge and unaddressed.
Also, the financials behind the industry have grown fundamentally dishonest, relying on secondary purchases and whales to keep the sticker price as low as possible (or worse, to milk as much profit as possible despite already hitting a point of healthy profit). That trades long term industry health for short term profit. Hiding a significant percentage of a game's cost within the game itself hides the game's honest price until there has already been buy-in; that is a recipe for long term failure. One of the primary reasons given for Vita's death was the hidden cost of proprietary memory cards. This is the exact same phenomenon, and it's becoming industry wide. If I want to pay an upfront price for all of a game, roughly half of the console space is now closed to me.
Saying things have never been better is to only look at the best aspects of the current industry. If you know what you want and know what you need to avoid, things can be better than ever. But part of the industry is rotting from the inside out, and that part of the industry is both growing and heading towards collapse. It feels like someone in the late 1920's saying the market has never been better. On the surface, sure. But the problems are huge and unaddressed.
I agree with Indie, AA and japanese games.
Western AAA is now mostly on the GaaS train and that doesn't appeal to me. The last Ubisoft E3 conference was pretty telling were it was almost all updates to their existing titles. I'm also sick of the "everything is a huge open world" trend bar some exceptions.
Still the stuff that appeals to me far outnumbers the volume of games we used to get 20 years ago so ignoring the big AAA pubs is easy.
Western AAA is now mostly on the GaaS train and that doesn't appeal to me. The last Ubisoft E3 conference was pretty telling were it was almost all updates to their existing titles. I'm also sick of the "everything is a huge open world" trend bar some exceptions.
Still the stuff that appeals to me far outnumbers the volume of games we used to get 20 years ago so ignoring the big AAA pubs is easy.
(I really don't think you can consider something like Mario + Rabbids to be AAA unless your only definition of AAA is "from a big publisher)
Gaming as a whole is definitely fine; my argument has always been that it's the non-big budget games that are the ones worth playing. But since the OP wanted to specifically ask if gaming was great even including AAA, this thread seems to be asking to separate them out.
No? Sekiro is aaa and that didn't cost 50 million even. Dishonored games, prey is aaa and those too are relatively cheaper. By your definition aaa is only for rockstars and ubisofts of the world.
Yes, that is literally what publishers invented the term AAA to refer to.
OP
OP
It actually wasn't intentional, I just really love Sony and Nintendo's first party.
Edit: Also I think the only Sony games up there are death stranding, gravity rush, and God of war. The rest are third party.
Edit2:huh. There was also Astrobot and infamous.
Oops
This gen started pretty meh, 2013 and 2014 werent very good years. Things really picked up once 2015 and beyond hit though.
This gen has not been for me. A few games were great but nothing has been as amazing as the PS2, GC, Dreamcast gen as far as types of games that appeal to me.
Other it's not a question of being better or worse from my pov
I had a NES with ROB the robot and still play games as a way to see innovation now that I'm older.
Storytelling is definitely the best it's been this generation
Style is something we don't give this cycle enough credit that's where the new voices in the indie scene are leaving their digital footprint
Battle Royale ,Games as a service are the new Everyone needs a Military FPS of previous generation
For as many broken early access releases that dissapointed you could find just as many where the delays or promises returned and were above the expectations they had set or went on to do financially better than expected
This industry is dedicated to fan service more than any other media
And it shows this generation by how emotional people can feel about a hobby or the attachments,respects we have or don't for the developers, companies involved
I think like most industries you have what can inspire and then teach you what not to do in business as well
I had a NES with ROB the robot and still play games as a way to see innovation now that I'm older.
Storytelling is definitely the best it's been this generation
Style is something we don't give this cycle enough credit that's where the new voices in the indie scene are leaving their digital footprint
Battle Royale ,Games as a service are the new Everyone needs a Military FPS of previous generation
For as many broken early access releases that dissapointed you could find just as many where the delays or promises returned and were above the expectations they had set or went on to do financially better than expected
This industry is dedicated to fan service more than any other media
And it shows this generation by how emotional people can feel about a hobby or the attachments,respects we have or don't for the developers, companies involved
I think like most industries you have what can inspire and then teach you what not to do in business as well
absolutely agree. so many good games, so many good platforms to play on, so many good devs working on great stuff.
of course there are some shitty things as well like loot boxes or shitty exclusivity deals, but overall gaming has never been this good.
of course there are some shitty things as well like loot boxes or shitty exclusivity deals, but overall gaming has never been this good.
On the subject of the "goodness" of AAA. I was a PC gamer for a large portion of the years crossing the refresh of the consoles, as such, I didn't really feel any form of generational divide.
Around that time, AAA was at its peak. It was great on PS3/360, and it handed over really well to PS4/XB1, and PC straddled both. That was its best. It has gradually been on a decline. There are definitely shining high points in terms of titles, but the amount of bad will surrounding its economics is really hard to ignore now. It compromises the games. Games, for a while, were consistently hitting 7 or 8 in terms of scoring, such was the consistency and quality. Now, we're getting absolute clangers happening from big "too big to fail" studios.
I've moved to Switch, so I'm not feeling this any more. I'm getting some of my favourite games from the peak ported to the platform, and I'm getting a new diverse breadth of titles. I do look at what is to come with PS5/NextBox, and I seriously wonder what the state of games are going to be like on those platforms. Rather than handing over at its best, it is handing over at its lowest.
Around that time, AAA was at its peak. It was great on PS3/360, and it handed over really well to PS4/XB1, and PC straddled both. That was its best. It has gradually been on a decline. There are definitely shining high points in terms of titles, but the amount of bad will surrounding its economics is really hard to ignore now. It compromises the games. Games, for a while, were consistently hitting 7 or 8 in terms of scoring, such was the consistency and quality. Now, we're getting absolute clangers happening from big "too big to fail" studios.
I've moved to Switch, so I'm not feeling this any more. I'm getting some of my favourite games from the peak ported to the platform, and I'm getting a new diverse breadth of titles. I do look at what is to come with PS5/NextBox, and I seriously wonder what the state of games are going to be like on those platforms. Rather than handing over at its best, it is handing over at its lowest.
I'd say over 90% of the big publishers' output is AAA, yeah. But, like I said, AAA is a bit hard to nail down.
My argument is that it's certainly not just low budget games that are worth playing this gen and that there have been many astonishing big(ger) budget games, some of which (Bloodborne, Breath of the Wild) are among my all-time faves. The fact that I can switch from something like Monster Hunter World with my friends at home to Breath of the Wild in the train to Astro Bot in VR, makes this gen so good. There should be something for everyone, it's more accessible than ever and there are more ways to play them.
I'm not saying it's all perfect, but in general, I think it's better than it's ever been, and I've been playing since the C64 days. Fuck, I'm old.
But in the end, it's a matter of personal taste. I'm lucky that my prefered genres are going strong. If you're a fan of arcade racers, you're less lucky.
Well there's also Astrobot, inFAMOUS, and the likes of Nier Automata and Persona 5 were/are PlayStation exclusive. Not meant to be a call out, just that you're examples are mostly limited to one platform and publisher and there are plenty of other examples out there that would do a better job of showing variety in the AAA space by looking at games from different publishers, such as Doom, The Witcher 3, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Resident Evil 2 Remake, and so on. Even more if you go into the indie / AA space, such as with Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Shovel Knight, Celeste, Life is Strange, and Stardew Valley
Indies and Nintendo might be the only consistently redeeming part about games today. Only considering AAA titles; very few appeal to me nowadays but the ones that are great (RE2make & Spider-Man were the two best AAA games I've played recently) are really good titles admittedly. Excessive monetization found in certain titles really is bringing down my enthusiasm, especially since the games that seem to feature them the most frequently are really boring sandboxes.