5 things to learn from AAA studios
Game Developer
SEPTEMBER 9, 2024
This article covers five key aspects—production, community, development, storytelling, and updates—valuable for both indie and AAA game developers.
New AAA studio Muddy Robot launches
GamesIndustry.biz
MARCH 18, 2024
A new AAA studio has launched, composed of industry veterans from EA, Sony, Blizzard, Disney, Apple, and Google. Founded in October 2023, Muddy Robot Games is led by former International Game Developers Association president Chris Hood.
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Apple stakes its claim to AAA gaming on mobile with iPhone 15 Pro series
Game Developer
SEPTEMBER 14, 2023
Apple revealed the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro series, powered by a redesigned GPU, with exclusive ports of AAA console and PC games. This insight explores its importance, and why meaningful gains for publishers are far from guaranteed.
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Mastering the Art of AAA Game Development: Our Approach
Starloop Studios
AUGUST 17, 2023
AAA game development is a complex process that requires well-oiled teamwork from an experienced team. The AAA game development process is an intersection of art, technical skills, writing, and many more disciplines.
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Everything to know about AAA Game development
Juego Studio
FEBRUARY 12, 2024
In the simplest form, AAA games have a high development and marketing budget. For avid gamers, subtle nuances beyond the gameplay matter more than anything else. The graphics quality, sound effects, and framerate all influence the gamer’s psyche.
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Virtuos acquires British indie game developer Third Kind Games
GamesIndustry.biz
AUGUST 20, 2024
Virtuos has acquired British indie game developer, Third Kind Games. Virtuos says the acquisition will enhance its "AAA co-development capabilities and establish a new foothold for Virtuos in the UK."
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Netflix closes its only AAA game studio
Game Developer
OCTOBER 22, 2024
The Southern Californian developer was around for less than two years.
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Godot for AA/AAA game development - What's missing?
Mircosoft Game Dev
JANUARY 15, 2023
The features offered are also a lot more reminiscent of AAA games, such as far more material options and advanced visual effects (including circle DOF , volumetric fog, AMD FSR, etc.). Is solving these problems enough for Godot to become a top AA / AAA game engine? Rendering is significantly more efficient in Godot 4.0,
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How to optimize AAA games for performance
Juego Studio
AUGUST 22, 2024
AAA games often face performance challenges. CPUs can struggle with complex game logic and AI, GPUs are taxed by demanding visuals and effects, memory is strained by large game worlds and assets, and slow storage can cause lengthy loading times.
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PlayStation to acquire AAA multiplayer developer Firewalk Studios
GamesIndustry.biz
APRIL 20, 2023
PlayStation has agreed to acquire Firewalk Studios, the AAA multiplayer developer that is working on a live service game for PS5 and PC. If the name sounds familiar, it's because Sony had already announced it would be publishing Firewalk's first game back in April 2021.
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How to Seamlessly Integrate Stories Into AAA Console Gameplay
Starloop Studios
AUGUST 29, 2023
With AAA console game developers focusing on ensuring their games are more immersive than ever, intersecting gameplay and narrative has never been more crucial. Though the vast majority of games have a story, very few of them allow for meaningful gameplay and story integration.
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The 7 Stages of Game Development
Starloop Studios
NOVEMBER 24, 2022
The game development pipeline is a lengthy process. In our experience working on everything from AAA titles to smaller-scale projects, a common thread are the stages of game development.
How to Create a Game-Ready AAA asset
Logic Simplified
AUGUST 5, 2024
At Logic Simplified , a leading game development company , we created an FPS game Mr. 45. This is the workflow for creating a AAA model of an AK-47, using Maya, Substance Designer, Substance Painter and Marmoset. We are a sought after Unity and Unreal game development company.
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What are AAA Games and Mobile Games?
iXie gaming
FEBRUARY 17, 2023
With the rise of the gaming industry, two distinct categories of games have emerged: AAA games and mobile games. These games offer different gaming experiences, target different audiences, and have unique testing requirements for game QA. Games that require a large budget.
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Playground Games leaders form new AAA studio Maverick Games
GamesIndustry.biz
JANUARY 10, 2023
Some of the leaders behind the Forza Horizon series have formed a new AAA games studio in Leamington Spa called Maverick Games. The team is led by studio head and creative director Mike Brown, who was previously the creative director on the Forza Horizon franchise.
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Why Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s absence of DLC bucks AAA trends
Game Developer
SEPTEMBER 22, 2023
This decision marks a notable departure for both a blockbuster game and a major first-party Nintendo release. Eiji Aonuma recently revealed that Nintendo currently has no plans to release additional content for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
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Why You Can’t Objectively Build Great Games
Game Wisdom
NOVEMBER 8, 2024
Why You Can’t Objectively Build Great Games Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com I was reading a piece over on Game Developer that gave me pause for a second about whether this is what game design at the AAA level is about now — focusing on analytics and trying to “math” the perfect … The post Why You Can’t Objectively (..)
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Solo developer Kaighen Finley: “It’s easy to lose myself in game development”
PreMortem.Games
APRIL 17, 2023
Fresh out of school Kaighen Finley started his own web & game development company Team iNtuition. Just to be on the safe side he mainly focused on web development, but his heart was not in it. Initially, I wanted to build games, but invested my eggs in web development first because I thought I was being pragmatic.
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The Top 10 Popular VR Game Development Tools
Logic Simplified
NOVEMBER 7, 2024
Similarly, in a game development setup, various virtual reality tools have become easily accessible to both creators and consumers to create and encounter immersive experiences. 10 Popular VR Game Development Tools There are a range of tools and frameworks that are being used for VR game development projects.
Shawn Layden's advice on making games faster and cheaper
GamesIndustry.biz
JUNE 18, 2024
It was back in 2020 when Shawn Layden began sounding the alarm around rising game development costs. Now, four years later, we have caught up with Layden as part of our new GI Sprint series of video, podcasts and articles, which is all around lowering the cost of game development. Read more
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AAA Game Development: Creating Next-Generation Games
Starloop Studios
MAY 4, 2023
With every new console generation comes the anticipation of next-gen games and the experiences they can bring to players. The arrival of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S was met with similar excitement and curiosity as to what the new console generation would bring. At Magic Media, we are well-versed in [.]
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Survey finds more than half of game developers experience crunch
GamesIndustry.biz
SEPTEMBER 5, 2023
A new union survey raised further concerns about crunch culture in game development, with more than half experiencing crunch in the past two years. 57% of those surveyed said they most recently worked on an AAA game. 57% of those surveyed said they most recently worked on an AAA game. Read more
Why external and distributed development is the future of AAA games
GamesIndustry.biz
MARCH 7, 2024
It’s no secret that game development has seen a massive expansion in scope in recent years. What would have once taken a development team three or four years to make now requires much more people, and four to six years to ship.
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What Resident Evil Village on iOS tells us about the future of AAA mobile game development
GamesIndustry.biz
OCTOBER 4, 2023
It feels like alchemy when considering the most recent port of the game to a handheld device was the cloud version on Nintendo Switch.
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PlayStation-backed Deviation Games closes
GamesIndustry.biz
MARCH 9, 2024
New AAA game developer Deviation Games is closing, the studio announced. It was formed in 2020 by Jason Blundell and Dave Anthony, two development veterans best known for the Call of Duty: Black Ops franchise. But the project hit challenges.
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A Year With Indie Cup
Game Developer
JANUARY 9, 2024
"If you find yourself a bit bored while playing the next AAA title, thinking something like “I’ve seen this so many times before”, open a search engine of your choice, type “indie games” and press enter."
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Epic’s Alan Wake 2 heralds a new dawn of digital-only AAA games
Game Developer
MAY 31, 2023
Epic Games, the publisher behind Alan Wake 2, a premium single-player game on consoles and PC, is defying consumer expectation by releasing the game as an exclusively digital release.
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Developer cohort unveils Fun Dog Studios
GamesIndustry.biz
FEBRUARY 22, 2024
Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox A team of game developers who have worked on various AAA titles such as Mass Effect, The Witcher, and Doom Eternal have unveiled Fun Dog Studios. The studio is a minority-led and completely employee-owned game developer. Read more
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Game Classification: Defining AAA, AA, and III Games
Tiny Hydra
JUNE 17, 2021
Then came the rise of the AAA game. Suddenly a game either was or was not AAA. The post Game Classification: Defining AAA, AA, and III Games appeared first on Tiny Hydra. Inevitably, other classifications followed. In this article, we try to dig into what those are and what they mean.
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AWS for Games debuts Guide to Generative AI for Game Developers, and more at GDC 2024
AWS Games
MARCH 27, 2024
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming industries, a seismic shift that was certainly felt at the 2024 Game Developer Conference (GDC) held last week in San Francisco at the Moscone Convention Center. Check it out , and follow the recap below for a full rundown of AWS for Games activities at GDC 2024.
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Video Game Development Trends That You Should Know
Moonmana
JULY 25, 2022
What are the fresh trends in the gaming industry? The last few years have been motivating the game development field quite actively. Game developers, designers, and artists had to be quite inventive and creative to move it forward. Video games development incorporates PC games and consoles.
A bit of a different question, but what does IT do in AAA? I feel like most game developers are pretty tech savvy.
Ask a Game Dev
JULY 8, 2024
While it's true that many game developers are tech savvy, there's more to IT than just keeping a workstation running. IT at game companies does the same thing that IT does at any tech company - they set up, maintain, and make decisions about tech solutions for an organization.
The Problem With Defining AAA Games (and How to Fix It)
Tiny Hydra
JULY 8, 2021
AAA games make up the minority of games released each year, but receive the vast majority of news coverage, consumer hype, and cultural mindshare. Because of that, you’d assume that anyone would be able to definitively say which games are and are not AAA, right? Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
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Four ways to build better indie marketing campaigns
GamesIndustry.biz
FEBRUARY 26, 2024
Getting your game noticed isn't easy, and it's particularly tough for indie game developers right now. But even then, indie games have a much harder time cutting through the noise.
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Firewall studio First Contact shuts down
GamesIndustry.biz
DECEMBER 22, 2023
As an AAA VR game developer, we are just not able to justify the expense needed going forward," the studio said. "[We] The Los Angeles-based studio shared a statement on social media , citing a "lack of support for VR within the industry" as the main reason for closing its doors. "As
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Is classic game porting/remastering becoming its own specialization? What I mean is, of course it’s happening more these days, so/but is space growing to be someone who specializes in these projects? Or is it still niche enough that the small number of teams/staff who do it will continue to do it?
Ask a Game Dev
SEPTEMBER 30, 2024
Here's the main issue - game development is expensive. AAA studios are expensive and cost a lot to run, assigning a AAA studio a remake/port project is not really worth it when compared to the estimated return on investment. First, it costs notably less than the publisher putting their own internal AAA studios on it.
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Testronic parent Catalis Group acquires Secret 6
GamesIndustry.biz
JANUARY 11, 2023
Based in Madrid and Manila, Secret 6 is outsourcing firm that provides 3D and 2D art, QA services, and full game development support. It has worked on a wider range of titles, from AAA blockbusters like The Last of Us: Part 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 to mobile hits such as Episode and Monster Train. Read more.
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Experience the Latest Breakthroughs in Game Development with NVIDIA at GDC
Nvidia
JULY 1, 2021
The Game Developer Conference (GDC) is here, and NVIDIA will be showcasing how our latest technologies are driving the future of game development and. The Game Developer Conference (GDC) is here, and NVIDIA will be showcasing how our latest technologies are driving the future of game development and graphics.
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Airship Interactive takes centre stage as the Headline Sponsor for Women in Games Awards 2024.
Game Development News
AUGUST 14, 2024
The MCV/Develop Women in Games Awards has announced that Airship Interactive is the headline sponsor for the 2024 event. Airship offer full end-to-end games art and implementation services to leading international game developers and AAA studios.
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How VFX Streamlines Player Experience
Starloop Studios
JANUARY 12, 2023
Visual effects in modern gaming can be a transformative process that brings a title’s presentation and immersion to the next level. It has become an integral part of game development, from small-scale indie gems to AAA blockbusters.
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EA reveals Cliffhanger Games, the new studio working on a Black Panther game
GamesIndustry.biz
JULY 10, 2023
EA has formally announced Cliffhanger Games and revealed its first project. The AAA developer is based in Seattle, and it's creating an original third-person single player game based on Marvel's Black Panther franchise. It follows news that EA's Motive studio is creating a game based on the Iron Man IP.
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ProbablyMonsters unveils Hidden Grove
GamesIndustry.biz
APRIL 9, 2024
ProbablyMonsters has had a long and eventful life for a company that has yet to ship a game.
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GTC 21: Top 5 Game Development Technical Sessions
Nvidia
MARCH 25, 2021
Check out our top sessions below for those working in the gaming industry: Ray Tracing in Cyberpunk 2077 Learn how ray tracing was used to create the visuals in the game, and how the developers at CD Projekt RED used extensive ray tracing techniques to bring the bustling Night City to life.
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Gavin Raeburn announces new AAA studio Lighthouse Games
Game Development News
MARCH 28, 2023
Playground Games’ founder and former studio head Gavin Raeburn has announced that he has set up a new game development studio
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