The AA Problem: Gamers don't want to buy AA games

[mibu no ookami]

Gamers say they want more AA games and many in the industry think this is the answer to ballooning AAA budgets, but gamers don't want to pay for AA games.

I think the industry needs to find the right value proposition for these games and it obviously isn't the same for all games.

The Karate Kid: Street Rumble is 40 dollars. It's a 4 hour game to beat. I'm not certain that's the right price for Karate Kid Street Rumble.

This seems like a cool fun game, but 40 dollars for a 4 hour beat em up? This should probably be like 5-15 dollars. That they would release this 4 player co-op game for 40 dollars without online play is pretty unbelievable. Clearly, they're having a laugh.

There's no market for a game like this at 40 dollars and it'll obviously be discounted eventually. An online co-op mode wouldn't have moved this to AAA status. At 40 dollars you're selling to hundreds or thousands of players at best. Whereas for 10-15 dollars maybe you could have sold to tens of thousands of players if not 100 thousand, especially with co-op online play.

It doesn't look like this was a cheap cash grab, but at the end of the day it certainly will come across as such.

 

[Fenton]

For example, three AA PS games last gen flopped. Shadow Of The Beast, Concrete Genie (studio shut down), and MediEvil.

 

[BillyZ]

For example, three AA PS games last gen flopped. Shadow Of The Beast, Concrete Genie (studio shut down), and MediEvil.

You need to score an 80 on Metacritic at least or you can get the fuck out. All three failed in this simple task.

 

[arvfab]

I blame this to

1) the disappearance of demos. Smaller games, maybe even with niche gameplay mechanics, are a hard blind sell.

2) people pushing for the wrong equation "value = money/gameplay hour". This is the reason for so many uninspiring open-world games, with bloated content just to make sure the game is long enough.

 

[mibu no ookami]

You need to score an 80 on Metacritic at least or you can get the fuck out. All three failed in this simple task.

I think the score is actually generally higher than an 80 depending on the type of game as well.

Space Marine 2 was really successful with an 82. Same grade for Helldivers 2.

But Gravity Rush 2 had an 80 and that didn't do it and plenty of 90s flop entirely. Prince of Persia Lost Crown was an 86 and was not a big seller. So I think it's a combination of factors to include price.

I blame this to

1) the disappearance of demos. Smaller games, maybe even with niche gameplay mechanics, are a hard blind sell.

2) people pushing for the wrong equation "value = money/gameplay hour". This is the reason for so many uninspiring open-world games, with bloated content just to make sure the game is long enough.

I think your assumption here is that the value = money/gameplay hour is a straight line. It isn't.

At 4 hours, this would have to be one of the best games of all time to be worth 40 dollars or have the greatest replay value. Again it doesn't have online co-op. That's quite limiting in this day and age.

Game demos absolutely help. I think the Metaphor demo helped its sales even though I wasn't personally impressed. I think Astro's Playroom helped Astro Bot sales as well. I think quite a few games are available for free trials via Ps Store for example, but maybe people aren't fully aware of that.

 

[arvfab]

I think your assumption here is that the value = money/gameplay hour is a straight line. It isn't.

At 4 hours, this would have to be one of the best games of all time to be worth 40 dollars or have the greatest replay value. Again it doesn't have online co-op. That's quite limiting in this day and age.

I wasn't talking about your example.

Even Astro Bot, which going by reception and metacritic score, can be considered as one of the greatest games of all time, has been often dismissed as being too pricey for the length provided.

 

[mibu no ookami]

I wasn't talking about your example.

Even Astro Bot, which going by reception and metacritic score, can be considered as one of the greatest games of all time, has been often dismissed as being too pricey for the length provided.

I loved Astro Bot, but I think price is a major factor in people being able to play it. The price of the game as well as the price of the console.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Gamers say they want more AA games and many in the industry think this is the answer to ballooning AAA budgets, but gamers don't want to pay for AA games.

I think the industry needs to find the right value proposition for these games and it obviously isn't the same for all games.

The Karate Kid: Street Rumble is 40 dollars. It's a 4 hour game to beat. I'm not certain that's the right price for Karate Kid Street Rumble.

This seems like a cool fun game, but 40 dollars for a 4 hour beat em up? This should probably be like 5-15 dollars. That they would release this 4 player co-op game for 40 dollars without online play is pretty unbelievable. Clearly, they're having a laugh.

There's no market for a game like this at 40 dollars and it'll obviously be discounted eventually. An online co-op mode wouldn't have moved this to AAA status. At 40 dollars you're selling to hundreds or thousands of players at best. Whereas for 10-15 dollars maybe you could have sold to tens of thousands of players if not 100 thousand, especially with co-op online play.

It doesn't look like this was a cheap cash grab, but at the end of the day it certainly will come across as such.

AstroBot is AA. Make good AA or even indie and people will buy it. People don't wanna buy garbage.

 

[Zzero]

Plenty of AA games do well, what they really need is way smaller teams and smarter art design and gameplay loops/hooks. Like, what is your definition of AA, was it worked on by a team of 100 people over 3 years? If so, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Plenty of AA games do well, what they really need is way smaller teams and smarter art design and gameplay loops/hooks. Like, what is your definition of AA, was it worked on by a team of 100 people over 3 years? If so, you're doing it wrong.

Another amazing indie/AA game:

 

[Bryank75]

It all depends for me but I can see how it's a problem on an industry scale.

Then you have AAA games asking for higher prices, leaving less on the table for smaller games.

There's only so much disposable income these days and the AA game really has to go above and beyond to get any attention.

It's a very difficult market.

 

[Shadow2027]

Whats the definition of AA? Smaller games i loved are like Gravity Rush, Stray, Kena and Astrobot. Have and would continue buying those. Not a random side scroller. Just wish some AAA would narrow their scope and get rid of the ton of filler. Get it from 40+ hours to 20-25.
Astro Bot had like 60 people work on it for 3 years and was a high qualify experience that made u want to do everything. Much easier to get to a profit point for business.
Dont be a Ubisoft and have 20k people for a company that should have 5k people. Like any company, mine included they need to trim the useless people and people doing practically nothing and you would see better margins

 

[daniel5043]

If they were indies they would have

You need to score an 80 on Metacritic at least or you can get the fuck out. All three failed in this simple task.

 

[Johnic]

If they were indies they would have

Is that Del in a Batman costume? LMAO!

 

[Nym]

I buy more indie games than AAA games now so idk, ymmv

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

"Gamers don't want to buy AA games"

-Kena: Bridge of Spirits​

-Sifu​

-Stray​

-Black Myth Wukong (yes this is a AA game in terms of budget)​

-Astro Bot (high-end AA)​

Your idea around AA is outdated. Clearly, we see multiple instances where gamers will buy AA games if they are seen as worth buying. If the Karate Kid game you used as your example to pin this whole theory is a bad game (I'm not saying it is, just supposing), then it wouldn't sell even if it were a $10 8-bit indie. If you look at the scores, your example didn't do so hot in the reviews, and it's based on an IP that may not be familiar to certain people or make the game seem like it's a licensed cash-grab.

Not even just that, but it's a 16-bit pixel beat-'em'-up, a game in a market already heavily saturated, and where a stylistically similar Scott Pilgrim game just released not too far back to critical & commercial success. Not to mention, Streets of Rage 4 raising the bar for new games in this genre; people didn't just suddenly forget about those titles or forgot their standards were raised thanks to those games.

Your theory also leaves out the very real instances of games, often smaller ones, choosing to release at bad times when major franchise titles are about to come out. If some AA game launches the same day as GTA6, no one should act surprised if that AA game bombs and you shouldn't use its failure as an example of gamers not wanting to support AA games. Because at that point you are looking for fringe examples to confirm your preexisting bias.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

"Gamers don't want to buy AA games"

-Kena: Bridge of Spirits​

-Sifu​

-Stray​

-Black Myth Wukong (yes this is a AA game in terms of budget)​

-Astro Bot (high-end AA)​

Your idea around AA is outdated. Clearly, we see multiple instances where gamers will buy AA games if they are seen as worth buying. If the Karate Kid game you used as your example to pin this whole theory is a bad game (I'm not saying it is, just supposing), then it wouldn't sell even if it were a $10 8-bit indie. If you look at the scores, your example didn't do so hot in the reviews, and it's based on an IP that may not be familiar to certain people or make the game seem like it's a licensed cash-grab.

Not even just that, but it's a 16-bit pixel beat-'em'-up, a game in a market already heavily saturated, and where a stylistically similar Scott Pilgrim game just released not too far back to critical & commercial success. Not to mention, Streets of Rage 4 raising the bar for new games in this genre; people didn't just suddenly forget about those titles or forgot their standards were raised thanks to those games.

Your theory also leaves out the very real instances of games, often smaller ones, choosing to release at bad times when major franchise titles are about to come out. If some AA game launches the same day as GTA6, no one should act surprised if that AA game bombs and you shouldn't use its failure as an example of gamers not wanting to support AA games. Because at that point you are looking for fringe examples to confirm your preexisting bias.

This would've been an amazing game in early 1990's. Maybe the devs need to wake up. I started gaming on Atari 2600 back in 1988 and even though there was nothing else it felt like garbage. I honestly didn't start to really appreciate gaming fully until PS4 era despite replaying and gaming a lot back then. Games felt like missing something back then. That's why my top 10 or 50 games are all new games as I don't stomach old games. Yeah I played Streets of Rage to death back then on Sega MegaDrive but doesn't mean I will play it on PS5 even when offered for free, which kinda have as I have it on my PS+ catalog and never even downloaded it.

Kena made by 2 people and looks ages ahead to many AA and AAA games. Just respect our taste and bring something worth while. Money isn't really always the issue but the quality of the product itself.

 

[ethomaz]

I play AS games… it is basically my limit of acceptance.

But when I see these ugly, unpolished low quality indies I have no ideia how people can buy them except for some few exceptions that I already consider being AA and not indie.

For a classic example Journey was made by a indie developer but the money Sony put into it makes it an AA project than indie and see that in the results.

I buy a lot of AA games.

 

[BroodCorp]

I buy them off the strength of putting my money where my mouth is. Some of these games aren’t worth the price of admission buy I’ll support them anyway.

 

[DarkLordOtaku]

The AA vs AAA rating is just an informal grade based on the production costs associated with development. While production costs can be an influence on quality, this is not always the case.

The main strategic advantage AA games have is their price point to break even is lower than a AAA game. If a AA game boasts quality comparable to what you see in the AAA space, and is also $20 less, it's a slam dunk buy.