We talk a lot about AAA titles, indie games and everything in between, but what actually constitutes a AAA game or studio? As it turns out, there aren’t any strict guidelines out there.

The two extremes of the spectrum are pretty easy to classify. Battlefield V, Call of Duty and basically anything made by EA, Ubisoft, Square Enix, etc. can easily be thrown into the AAA category. On the other end, games like Cuphead, Super Meat Boy, Undertale and countless others can easily be deemed ‘indie,’ thanks mosly to low production and advertising budgets and small development teams.

It’s that in between zone that is especially hard to quantify, especially because there’s no universal term(s) that identify that area. People don’t refer to games or publishers as AA or Single A, but they should.

Game development and publishing is vastly different than it was 30 years ago when the term AAA first started being thrown around. Back then, making a video game was a long and exclusive process. Nowadays, just about anyone can make a game regardless of resources or technical skill, and that’s why we need to broaden our terminology.

Take Bluehole for example. They’re the publishers behind PUBG, but you might not have ever heard of them. That’s because they’ve only ever published a handful of games, none of which were very popular. You can’t classify them as a AAA publisher, but they’re certainly not indie. So are they AA, Single A or something else?

If AAA is defined as the highest budget and production value, then PUBG and Bluehole are probably better defined as AA. In this scenario, we’d define AA as involving a substantial, but still limited budget and dev team. On the other hand, Fortnite is published by Epic Games and has seemingly unlimited budget and resources. This would likely push the game towards the AAA classification, even though Epic might not be regularly considered a AAA studio.

The Single A classification would be perfect for games like Minecraft and publishers like Mojang. The immensely popular world building game could have certainly been classified as indie when it was first released, but it absolutely should not be now. Single A could be the home for games and publishers who essentially outgrew their indie origins. A theoretical Cuphead sequel for instance, would fit perfectly into the Single A category.

What about a game like Detroit: Become Human which was developed by the relatively small studio Quantic Dream and published by Sony? Again, the AA classification is perfect here. Detroit is a big-budget game that’s received endless press and media coverage, but at the end of the day, it still isn’t in the same echelone as Call of Duty, Legend of Zelda, Battlefront or any of the other AAA games.

What do you think of the current way games are classified in the industry? Should something along the lines of the AAA, AA and Single A model be adopted, or do you have a better idea? Let us know in the comments!