Humble Indie Bundle V Generates Five Million USD

[madjr]

It was a system seller - millions of systems - but doesn't meet the modern definition for "Triple A title" - a term which only really started appearing in the CD-ROM game era, which is rather more modern than the Game Boy. AAA is mostly about budget - the rest is fluff. and Tetris had a low budget.

I believe a "system seller" is sometimes considered the best kind of game. The best ROI.

I mean I don't know if Mario would be considered AAA or not, but it certainly is a system seller.

while many other games have cost many millions but flopped...

so if a game (or film) costs like 200 million and flops is that considered AAA or not ?

I mean hey remember Water-world with its AAA budget?

http://www.filmsite.org/greatestflops.html

[madjr]

I'm sure you can create a good title with under a million $. There are good free engines like doom3 and whatnot, so you don't really have to create a game from scratch.

Agree with this, like overdose is doing:

http://www.indiegogo.com/overdose?a=537463

[smitty3268]

Clearly I have played and I haven't found any AAA game, only amateurish and average ones.

Bastion and Limbo were up for several Game of the Year awards.

I suppose what you mean is there aren't any AAA games, and that's true enough.

$5 million is chump change for a AAA game, though - they aren't sniffing anywhere near this.

[smitty3268]

Agree with this, like overdose is doing:

http://www.indiegogo.com/overdose?a=537463

Someone else mentioned this, but the game engine is the easy bit.

Paying 50 artists to work 80 hours a week for 3 years creating content for your game is the expensive part.

That's why all these smaller-budget games try to go a different direction than AAA titles, by having an interesting stylized look, often 2-D or fixed perspective, to draw players in, rather than trying to become a more realistic-looking 3D game.

Even if they succeed looking good with the engine in one scene, the limited amount of assets would quickly get repetitive and highly noticeable.

[directhex]

so if a game (or film) costs like 200 million and flops is that considered AAA or not ?

yep. it just becomes infamous. See also: Shenmue

[lopho]

wait. what?

all of you people discussing the AAA thing here are aware of

Humble INDIE Bundle

INIDIE Bundle

INDIE

...

[directhex]

wait. what?

all of you people discussing the AAA thing here are aware of

Humble INDIE Bundle

INIDIE Bundle

INDIE

...

Bring it up with mark45, who insists AAA is nothing to do with budget, and that $600k is enough for an indie Call of Duty.

[cbamber85]

What this world needs is more complaining about good news stories.

I'm complaining that your post is not complain-y enough.

[t.s.]

AAA doesn't mean anything if you judge it solely by the budget. And when I say AAA I mean quality since I don't give a rat's ass how much they spent creating a game. That's why I played Call of Duty and stuff alike - because it's sophisticated and cool. There's nothing like this in the Bundle and since they have big budgets lately they can probably try to create and/or ship such a title. I'm sure you can create a good title with under a million $. There are good free engines like doom3 and whatnot, so you don't really have to create a game from scratch.

Um.. so maybe what you mean by sophisticated and cool is about the graphic quality? For me, it's half true. The plot must be OK too. Or the game have something unique. I'm OK with mediocre graphic quality but have an OK plot & uniqueness.

[Kivada]

Though, maybe I could buy and 100% proceeds to charity and 0% to developers and 0% to HIB?

Yes, this has been possible with the custom payment option for several HIBs now.

I usually dump most of the purchase into the EFF.