Define a game grading system

[Shifty Geezer]

Following on from this post, https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/1955051/, what do you think a usable game classification should be? My early thoughts, AAA is only the biggest budget, $200 million+ extravaganzas. Uncharteds and GTAs. Maybe then you'd have 'mainstream' which covers the glut of titles, from FIFA and Project Cars to No Man's Sky. There might be need for a production quality division or two. Then smaller titles, download only, and tiny titles.

The purpose would be to able to talk about what to expect from a game, and maybe open up gamer's eyes to different tiers of value instead of them wanting everything non-Indie to be a 40 hour long Hollywood epic...

 

[turkey]

You might also want to factor rrp as this is also an indicator of where the publisher sees it.

Perhaps a ratio or multiplier comparing budget vs rrp. The higher this ratio the more AAA it would seem.

 

[Rodéric]

price vs length vs quality...
that's never going to end ^^

 

[orangpelupa]

It's easier to categorize as budget for West developed games. But what with games like witcher? The budget is much smaller but it is aaaaaaaaaaaaaah game

 

[iroboto]

Wait. Are we coming up/becoming a review site??

 

[Rangers]

It's easier to categorize as budget for West developed games. But what with games like witcher? The budget is much smaller but it is aaaaaaaaaaaaaah game

It's probably better to think in terms of manpower, man (and woman, gotta be PC!)-time spent. Man-years.

Witcher might have been lower budget because it was made in Poland, and I've not played it but it certainly seems very epic and sprawling and loaded with content and production values (minus maybe some East Euro jank I assume).

If you have lets say 300 people working on a game, you can adjust the budget by how much you pay them, but it's still 300 people regardless.

As for this thread it seems like one of those topics that will never have a granular answer, but yet the classifications maintain at least a modicum of meaning anyway. Hell, the whole of human language is like this, you cant pin down most words to an exact, perfectly precise meaning or definition, yet language works nonetheless.

 

[AlNom]

Caveats, everywhere.

 

[zed]

Rangers is how I would define it, i.e. the number of people working on it.
eg <10, 11-100, 101+

 

[function]

[game score] + [fear of fanboy rage] + [publisher threats / bribes] +/- [desire for controversy] = largely meaningless but potentially important score

 

[Sonic]

It's going to be tough to come to a consensus for this. I guess using the number of people working on the game is a good measurement as others have said. But even then I believe further classification is necessary. Uncharted, Halo, Gran Turismo, Mario, Zelda, etc., are more than AAA games in the fact they are flagship titles/series when it comes to their respective platforms. I do think with flagship titles there's an extra level of care placed into them above and beyond many AAA games whether 1st party or 3rd party though not all of course.

Then again there's also the likes of Final Fantasy, CoD, BF, etc., that are the flagship titles of their respective publishers and again an extra level of care is placed in these titles.

So to me there is:

Flagship
AAA
AA
A

I'm interested in seeing how AA and A games are defined. This thread is gearing up to be a great read.

One thing I'm certain of is that when it comes to the GTA series is it's in a league of its own. AAAA rating.

 

[baten]

@Sonic - where do we put the B games, man? Cant all of them be A's...

 

[Rodéric]

Besides a "love/like/neutral/dislike/hate" opinion, and reasons why, with maybe some gameplay analysis, I don't really see the point.
Youtube gameplay videos are quite useful to see how things pan out, for exemple FFXV looks both gorgeous and damn repetitive in battles, so not for me. (And you need to have seen the movie before playing the game because the game doesn't care about telling you the backstory and events from the movie).

 

[liolio]

Well I like to be able to have informations in a pretty fast manner I dislike having a single note or mention to sum it up.
101: the last (short) paragraph of the review alone should allow the reader to have precise idea about the game.
In a concise manner the last paragraph would address those three points with key words or predefined locutions.
Production value: visual quality and variety, music, dialogue/story, etc.
Execution: whatever the game pushes out does it do so smoothly
Lasting appeal: cover replay-ability content size, mp, etc.


Example:
XYZ is a racing game, heir of a long tradition of XYZ games, production value is above average, execution is flawless, the lasting appeal is great thanks to the replayable nature of the game and a MP mode than did no forgot local MP. XYZ is worthy upgrade for the fans of XYZ series and those in search for racers that packs lots MP fun including local MP.

Now there is hardly nothing new to it. The point is writing is important but reviews site are reputable in the long run due to the consistance of their rating and how pleased costumers have been with their recommandations. In this age of hype, hate, ego I think that if you want to be at tip of the trend it is time to move back to "serious" (not boring), time efficient (for the reviewers and readers alike) approach to reviews. Ultimately there is meta-critics that is competing against you and that is fast. I would make it so pretty much to read the review you don't have to scroll down the page, it should fit on the back of the box game.
Times wants that reviewers have to posture as archetypes of coolness in its many forms (lol...) opinionated, etc. I don't care about it: I want information that should stay out of review.
The positive is that time saved on review can be spent on community building, helping in forum, discussing an actual review with audience etc.