I think the spirit of games classification of AAA l, AA and indie comes from the expectations of the game.
Those expectations being generally:
Marketing dollars > Graphical fidelity > scope.
AAAs have all three in spades.
AAs might have great graphics, but usually they’re just decent. But they usually have great scope.
Indies have no marketing dollars, low budgets for graphics, generally smaller scopes.
If you define a game by its budget and maximum team size throughout development that metric would capture all the attributes here because each one costs money.
Then we can unchain the backroom deals on the funding of these games. It’s mostly irrelevant to the spirit of the game.
I think the spirit of games classification of AAA l, AA and indie comes from the expectations of the game.
Those expectations being generally:
Marketing dollars > Graphical fidelity > scope.
AAAs have all three in spades. AAs might have great graphics, but usually they’re just decent. But they usually have great scope. Indies have no marketing dollars, low budgets for graphics, generally smaller scopes.
If you define a game by its budget and maximum team size throughout development that metric would capture all the attributes here because each one costs money.
Then we can unchain the backroom deals on the funding of these games. It’s mostly irrelevant to the spirit of the game.