If you have spent any time playing games or around games, you have probably seen a AAA Game. You probably have even seen an advertisement for it. They are built with the same experience as a major film you see at a theater.
You might have heard of the term “AAA” associated with game companies. Although it sounds like it should be an Acronym or even an accreditation of some type, it is not. By saying “AAA,” you are saying this studio or publisher is putting a significant amount of money in to recruit who they think are the best developers, voice actors, producers, marketers, designers to create the next big hit. Think about how we classify the movies we watch, we say A-list actors, or oh, that’s a B-grade movie. In the same vein, when a company goes all out on trying to create the best game, they have huge budgets, when you see a game trailer with amazing graphics and familiar voice actors with an action-packed scene. Know that it was very likely a hefty sum of money to get just that trailer produced. There is nothing wrong with this. So many of your favorite games are classified AAA and have won many awards, let alone dedicated spots on our shelves. These studios drop this kind of money because they believe the experience of those working on it will give them a big payday even after spending potentially millions of dollars developing and testing this game for release.
Putting down a lot of money on making these games puts a lot of risk on the studio to make the next hit and earn back the money to make the game and even profit from it. Sometimes the focus on profits alone can break the spirit of the game and lead to flops. Similar to that highly anticipated movie you were going to watch at the theatre becomes something you regret seeing and tell others not to bother watching.
There are some great AAA Game companies, and some we wish would learn to be customer devoted versus so profit-focused. But in the end, they are running a business and doing their best to stay afloat and pay all those amazingly hard-working people at the studio.
Just a few AAA Game studios
- Blizzard Activision (At one time was separate companies that have merged)
- Overwatch, Diablo, Starcraft, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Destiny 2
- Ubisoft
- Assassins Creed, Rainbow Six Siege, Farcry, Ghost Recon
- Nintendo
- Zelda, Animal Crossing, Mario
- Valve
- Half-Life, DOTA2, Portal, Left 4 Dead
- Microsoft
- Gears of War, Forza, Halo (Indie nod to Bungie), Fable
- Rockstar
- Grand Theft Auto 4
Big Budgets
When we talk about high budgets, we mean high budgets. Take Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto 4. When it came out back in 2008 (wow 2008?), it cost the studio 100 million dollars to create. But it paid off for them because when it was released, they sold 3.6 million copies within 24 hours. That is easily 216 million dollars, not taking into account tax or special editions of the game. So it paid off for them in the end, and we all enjoy the updates and remastering that they do in-game.
Beyond Word of Mouth
In the same vein, if you drop a lot of money on building this fantastic game that you want people to play, you have to put money down on marketing to make everyone aware of it. It is not the time to count on word of mouth to get you the profits you need to stay in business. The cost of doing marketing is sometimes the same cost of doing production sometimes more. For instance, the development of Halo 3 was around 30 million, but the marketing budget was approximately 40 million. Think of those conferences were they have booths set up for you to play, or even entire rooms to showcase what is going on. Those can easily be 500k to rent an event room, let alone the hardware and the people putting it all together.
Influenced by Investors
Not all AAA companies are public, but if you are working with a company that is then you are doing more than making your customers happy. You must make the investors of the company happy too. What does that mean? It means showing year after year growth. It means trying to get as much profit as possible from the game released. When your part of the studio is bringing down the rest of the company down, then it becomes a time to worry. Strategies get deployed, expansion packs are planned, and probably emails from managers start going around about how to ensure your next release is a hit.
The Safety and Excitement of a AAA Game Studio
Working at a game studio like any of the AAA studios listed above can be exciting, and you can have some level of job security. Most of the time, these studios have a common theme to other corporate software companies. They have money so they can pay their employees on a standard paycheck timeline. You also get to work on some of the best games and characters you might have grown up loving. Imagine growing up playing the Zelda games and then being able to work on the next Zelda hit. It can be a great experience that has you not caring how long you work because the opportunity to help make the game fills you with excitement and anticipation. Until it no longer does, and things end up not being quite as enjoyable as you had first thought.
The Cost of Maximizing profits
Sometimes this bet it all with the maximum budget has consequences. Take Radical Entertainment, for example. Hot on their heels with the success of Prototype, they released Prototype 2 in hopes of the same success. They sold around 1 million copies for the console right after it was released. Prototype 2 was unfortunately not enough to cover the cost to bring this game to release, and the parent company Activision closed down the studio making all these developers have to go in search of a new job.
The Code Crunch
If you have never worked at a game company, then you may not have heard about the code crunch. Do not let the name deceive you; it is not limited to just coding. Often in development, things take longer than initially planned. That single feature turns out to be a nightmare to code. Then because of this nightmare, the next one also becomes a nightmare. There are wins and manageable implementations that try to make up for it. But in the head, you find you that on your current pacing, you are going to be three months or more delayed on releasing.
So you head on up and tell your bosses and report that there will be a delay. Well, the marketing department has already said what the release date is. We have promised the investors we would not miss the quarter. We also can not release after the Christmas season, which is statistically the best way to maximize our sales. Also, this other company is making a similar game, and we can not let them release before us and steal away our players. You receive this from the managers and bosses and the other departments around you. So, in the end, you must tell your team to crunch.
Crunching has a fixed timeline, so you order pizza, energy drinks, coffee, lots of coffee, so your team works extreme overtime to get the schedule back down to hit that deadline. You will practically live at the studio and try to hit that deadline. You might get a month’s delay if you are fortunate, but do not count on it. Imagine that paper you need to write that you spend usually doing the night before it is due. Imagine having to relive that experience for a couple of months straight. That experience is the best way that I can define crunching.
I hope you enjoyed this article and learned something new. If you did share this with someone you think would find this interesting.