Hellblade Proves There’s “A Space Between Indie and AAA Games”

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Megalith

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Ninja Theory's most recent title, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, has sold nearly 500,000 units since its release in August and is already profitable. This is noteworthy, as the game looks and feels like a triple A title despite being crafted by a small team. Their latest dev diary explains how the independent AAA model has effectively gone from experiment to proven model.

The escalating stakes in the AAA retail publishing model has killed off countless independent studios like us, many smaller publishers, and is now straining even the largest of publishers. This isn’t survival of the fittest, but a routing of the creative base upon which this industry was built. The future isn’t written, and we don’t believe that the writing is on the wall. AAA will always exist, but we need strong alternatives as well.
 
ArFLaserBear said:
And some studios think the difference is just in cost of the game... Oh hi there EA et al.

Prime example ME Andromeda not a AAA title since it was developed by Biowares un-experienced C-team....
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The term has absolutely zero meaning so anyone can call their game AAA. EA considers ME: A AAA therefor it is because it is an entirely made up term with no official meaning. That said, AAA is pretty much a dirty word these days due to publishers like EA.
 
ArFLaserBear said:
And some studios think the difference is just in cost of the game... Oh hi there EA et al.

Prime example ME Andromeda not a AAA title since it was developed by Biowares un-experienced C-team....
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A Lot of studios think it is in the cost of the game, forget indie doesn't mean independent a lot of "indie" games are developed under contract with a publisher or another studio, for ofc alot less money.
 
Yeah Jim Sterling absolutely hates the term AA simply because it leads to validation of the AAA. When AAA has just become a buzz word for an overwrought over budget large publisher game.

AAA used to mean a game that was at the top. Top devs, graphics, gameplay you name it. Triple A was trying to lead the pack. Now it’s more synonymous with established series than anything else.

As for Hellblade, I only played about a 3rd of it but it is very well done and I recommend it to anyone with a passing interest. Graphically it is very good, the gameplay is solid as well as the story. And it depicts mental illnesses in a way that can hit home easily and realistically.

And I’m glad for Ninja Theory. I’ve been a fan of them since Heavenly Sword and Enslaved, and as much as I love DMC 1,3,and 4 I thought DmC was a fantastic game as well. Ninja Theory are talented but often overlooked so I’m glad they’re getting some recognition and making waves in the industry about how to properly budget a game.
 
I think it has more to due with the cost of marketing than the cost of the game.
 
"AAA" just refers to the budget...clearly doesn't have anything to do with quality these days.
 
tetris42 said:
I think it has more to due with the cost of marketing than the cost of the game.
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Budget includes marketing. At least to my knowledge that’s how most cases are. I can’t see how the two could be separated. A marketing campaign literally cannot make money except if what it markets it is successful. If the budget was separate all marketing campaigns would fail.

Unless of course a large enough publisher literally did have a separate marketing budget for all games released. I still see it being a failing department though and being rolled into other departments to not report losses.


Regardless of all that bullshit. There is no reason any game can’t budget to make a reasonable profit. Games selling multimillion should never be considered failures. That’s a sign of a poor budget. Some super simple non representative math. Hellblade sold 500,000 at $30 that’s 15,000,000. That is profit. Games selling 6.8 times (3.4 million; Tomb Raider-2013) as much have been called failures. Something went wrong in the budget or the cost of the game. More likely the budget.
 
I don't think there's a doubt that there is a large gap in between indy games and AAA games. In fact, there are a LOT of studios that have smaller outfit release stop gap games regularly. Not every game is world of warcraft or destiny. There are dozens of games a year that hit WAY above their weight and studios that are continuing to push the envelope of possibility in gaming. AAA studios regularly farm the field and take unique or exceptional game play elements from other games that have set higher standards. Without these studios and their love projects we'd still be stuck with bland coridors and linear meaningless story/combat.
 
A lot of AAA games are not AAA games. They show one sales failure after the other.

Wolfenstein 2, 260K.
AC Origins, 360K.
Sniper Elite 4, 380K.

And the list is long.
 
This game is an example of how I like single-player games, and is an example of a developer going somewhere new without screwing it up.
 
Nolan7689 said:
Budget includes marketing. At least to my knowledge that’s how most cases are. I can’t see how the two could be separated. A marketing campaign literally cannot make money except if what it markets it is successful. If the budget was separate all marketing campaigns would fail.

Unless of course a large enough publisher literally did have a separate marketing budget for all games released. I still see it being a failing department though and being rolled into other departments to not report losses.


Regardless of all that bullshit. There is no reason any game can’t budget to make a reasonable profit. Games selling multimillion should never be considered failures. That’s a sign of a poor budget. Some super simple non representative math. Hellblade sold 500,000 at $30 that’s 15,000,000. That is profit. Games selling 6.8 times (3.4 million; Tomb Raider-2013) as much have been called failures. Something went wrong in the budget or the cost of the game. More likely the budget.
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My point is you can have a very high quality looking game, but the main thing that separates that from a "high end mid-studio release" and a AAA game is marketing.

You just said this amounts to $15 million, so that should mean profit. Well, just to pick an example, Left 4 Dead 2 had $25 million in marketing alone. So if Hellblade marketed like a major company, that return would put them well in the red. Would you say L4D2 is a AAA game? For me, it felt like a polished mod. But with a huge marketing budget, THAT tends to be what defines if a game is AAA or not, more than any other factor.

Both AAA and mid-sized studio games can be absolutely loaded with content and highly polished, or they can be kind of sparse and feel a little lacking. But what really seems to define if a game is AAA or not, is if it has a MAJOR marketing budget behind it, regardless of how much game and production you're getting.
 
I think it is production budget and marketing budget combined- and not just 'budget', but both components, that mark a AAA-game.

And that means budget put into assets and production quality on top of getting it all in front of everyone's faces.

For instance, you can have a failed AAA-game. Andromeda isn't one, but it does make a good example because it has the main components and it didn't live up to the publisher's sales expectations. It also doesn't have to be a known property; Halo would be an example of a successful AAA-game that introduced a game universe.
 
What about the fact it's on GoG without DRM and it still sold and became profitable

Personally I find that the more interesting thing instead of an arbitrary game rating no one is enforcing the meaning of

And personally I thought AAA refers to the budget poured into a game, not the games quality

A good amount of AAA Movies are kinda trash that would've never garnered so many viewers if you'd take out all the lensflare and CGI
 
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IdiotInCharge said:
I think it is production budget and marketing budget combined- and not just 'budget', but both components, that mark a AAA-game.

And that means budget put into assets and production quality on top of getting it all in front of everyone's faces.

For instance, you can have a failed AAA-game. Andromeda isn't one, but it does make a good example because it has the main components and it didn't live up to the publisher's sales expectations. It also doesn't have to be a known property; Halo would be an example of a successful AAA-game that introduced a game universe.
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Yeah, that's a more accurate way of looking at things. Sometimes smaller studios can match AAA ones on production budget (for smaller projects, obviously no small studio is making Skyrim or GTA V), but it's the combination of production and marketing budget that defines AAA. Actual game content is of course a big variable.
 
Yeah, and that comes down to imagination and management. Senua's Sacrifice seems to have done well despite lacking the budget and marketing; Mass Effect: Andromeda is one where management appears to have failed their own dev team, and they got less done than they could have while spending boatloads of cash, and The Witcher 3 is an example of a committed AAA-team getting a modern property right.

And just like the movies, it's impossible for investors and production houses to tell whether a concept will be a knockout or a flop, and there's a lot of ways for it to go wrong along the way. I think Blizzard is probably the best example of a production house that has a handle on the process as a whole.
 
Shintai said:
A lot of AAA games are not AAA games. They show one sales failure after the other.

Wolfenstein 2, 260K.
AC Origins, 360K.
Sniper Elite 4, 380K.

And the list is long.
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Are those physical copy numbers? XD
 
People didn't know there was a gap between AAA and mobile/budget? Come on. Not every game is an AAA game, and not every non-AAA game is some bargain bin piece of garbage.

NieR: Automata is a fantastic example of what a non-AAA title can be.
 
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