AAA (Computerspiele)
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AAA gaming industry
AAA (pronounced "triple A") is a classification term used for games in the video gaming industry[1] [2] [3] [4]. The term is an acronym of several quality characteristics of a game and first emerged in the USA, therefore it uses the grade system of this country (being "A" the maximum grading note).
Definition
With the early modernism of the video game industry occurring during the 80's and after the video game crash of 83, games started to be classified in order to differentiate their quality. Nintendo was one of the first companies attempting to create their own system through the use of a Nintendo Seal of Quality, denoting the game has been properly tested and approved[5]. Alfred Milgrom of Beam software, revealed in an interview how this was a major attempt in changing the development attitude towards games, "In terms of game testing they revolutionized the concept. They said zero defects – we will not allow you to release a game that has any bugs in it whatsoever. Now zero defects was an unheard of concept in any other software or on any other gaming platform. We had to change our programming attitude and the way we developed games, which was brilliant. It was really hard work.” [6].
Nevertheless, the rest of the industry lack a independent term that could translate the overall quality of a title. Eventually, during gaming conventions in the US (CES, and private ones), some development companies started using the acronym "AAA", based on the US grading academic system (A being the highest and F, denoting failure, the lowest). Soon after, the game media and even press-releases, would also use the term to classify games.
Since "AAA" its an acronym, each "A" has a meaning regarding an overall quality[7]. One "A" is given to games that are consider to be "Critical Success" (critics or reviewers give it a perfect, or almost perfect grade), another "A" defines "Financial Success" (it overcomes all the production costs, providing a huge profit), and finally, the last "A" is used when a game brings "innovative Gameplay" (a gaming characteristic so unique that differentiate the game from all the rest). A title consider to be AAA is therefore a high quality game and expected to be among the year’s bestsellers.
As the years progressed, many publishers started to consider their games to be AAA even before their release[8] [9], and justifying this decision through huge development budgets [10]. This lead to a confusion in the gaming industry, since every huge budget game is automatically considered being an AAA title (specially for consoles), even if it doesn't match all of the quality criteria.
References
External links
- ↑ Steven Kent: The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon and Beyond- The Story That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. First Auflage. Prima Publishing, Roseville, California 2001, ISBN 0-7615-3643-4.
- ↑ Rusel Demaria and John Wilson: High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic. First Auflage. McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, USA 2002, ISBN 0-07-222428-2.
- ↑ Mark J.P.Wolf: The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to PlayStation and Beyond. First Auflage. Greenwood Press, London 2002, ISBN 0-240-81146-1.
- ↑ E3 Report: The Path to Creating AAA Games. gamasutra.com, abgerufen am 30. Januar 2014.
- ↑ Licensed and Unlicensed Products. nintendo.com, abgerufen am 30. Januar 2014.
- ↑ Tristan Donovan: Replay. First Auflage. Yellow Ant, East Sussex,UK 2010, ISBN 978-0-9565072-2-8.
- ↑ Sam Pettus, David Muñoz, Kevin Williams, Ivan Barroso: Service Games: The Rise and Fall of Sega. First Auflage. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, USA 2013, ISBN 1-4942-8835-4.
- ↑ ubisoft-has-2-new-aaa-games-coming. ign.co.uk, abgerufen am 30. Januar 2014.
- ↑ black-tusk-creating-aaa-game-for-xbox-one. joystick.com, abgerufen am 30. Januar 2014.
- ↑ David Thomas, Kyle Orland and Scott Steinberg: The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual. First Auflage. Lulu.com/IGJA, USA 2007, ISBN 978-1-4303-1305-2.