GamerBraves Newsletter vol. 57 – The Importance of AA Games

Video games nowadays tend to be split into two categories: AAA games, the big-budget mainstream blockbusters of the gaming world, and Indie Games: the smaller, experimental titles that bring in some creative flair to spice up the industry. In between these two, however, there is a middle ground in the form of AA (double-A) games.

Smaller titles from well-known developers: Digimon Survive, The World Ends With You, Melty Blood, 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim, and many more. While you likely haven’t heard of all of them, they’re still an important element of the video game industry that deserve some love and attention. So let’s give it to them.

So let’s start by discussing what exactly a AAA game is. There’s actually no set definition of what counts as a AAA or AA game. If anything these exist more as a mindset of the kind of trends and ideas the game follows and the kind of audience they want to receive. AAA titles are your top-end budget games that are made for mass appeal. Franchises that are well known even among those not interested in them. They characteristically have state-of-the-art graphics, sell for tens of millions, and have a high level of marketing, including product placements with popular brands like Call of Duty having tie-ins with Mountain Dew and Doritos.

AA games on the hand are lower-budget titles (in comparison to AAA games, they still have large amounts of funding poured into them) that are still marketed and released by a larger publisher. These games are often made for more specific audiences: anime fans, horror fans, and groups with more acquired tastes. They usually aren’t marketed as heavily and may not be as polished as their AAA counterparts (less polished doesn’t equal lesser quality though). If you’d like to read more about AA Games, consider subscribing to our newsletter so you can read more about it. You can read it for free by putting your email address in the box below:

Give it a read and let us know what you think! New newsletter feature articles are released weekly every Wednesday at lunchtime regarding various topics surrounding video games and the greater entertainment industry as a whole.

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