AAA - big budget for both development and marketing; these usually make news headlines, regardless of quality, and most people hear of them
AA - usually focus on some niche with a moderate to high dev budget and moderate marketing budget; so something like Paradox or perhaps Double Fine (before MSFT acquisition)
indie - low budget games, usually through “bootstrapping”; some of these make headlines, but those are outliers
Publishing is a separate discussion entirely. Some AAA games are self published, some use a separate publisher. Same goes for indies and AA games. I think it’s a lot less likely that indies will self publish because they just don’t have the skillset to market a game.
I mostly buy indie and AA games because they tend to need to focus on some core game loop and can’t just throw the kitchen sink in like AAAs often can.
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My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Honest question: are those really indie games if they have a publisher?
Yes.
In general:
Publishing is a separate discussion entirely. Some AAA games are self published, some use a separate publisher. Same goes for indies and AA games. I think it’s a lot less likely that indies will self publish because they just don’t have the skillset to market a game.
I mostly buy indie and AA games because they tend to need to focus on some core game loop and can’t just throw the kitchen sink in like AAAs often can.
Indie makes reference to an independent developer that is often self funded irregardless of how the final game is distributed.