What is the difference between AAA and indie games?

AAA and indie games occupy two different spaces within the gaming industry. While there‘s no definitive criteria, AAA games usually refer to big budget titles made by major game development studios and publishers. Indie or independent games are typically made by small teams or solo developers on a much smaller budget. Let‘s break down the key differences between the two in depth.

How Are AAA and Indie Games Defined?

AAA Games

AAA refers to games produced and distributed by large publishers like Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive and Sony. They invest millions into development and marketing and target the mass market. Some key examples of big budget AAA franchises include:

• Call of Duty (Activision)
• FIFA (EA)
• Grand Theft Auto (Take-Two)
• Assassin‘s Creed (Ubisoft)
• God of War (Sony)

Indie Games

Indie games come from small independent creators and studios. They usually rely on digital distribution and word of mouth over big marketing campaigns. Well known indie hits include:

• Minecraft (Mojang)
• Stardew Valley (ConcernedApe)
• Shovel Knight (Yacht Club Games)
• Journey (ThatGameCompany)
• Cuphead (StudioMDHR)

There can be ambiguity around mid-tier studios like Devolver Digital, but generally indie games have smaller budgets, team sizes and target niche audiences initially.

Development Costs and Team Size

The scale of AAA games leads to exponentially larger budgets and team sizes compared to indie developers.

Budgets

• $80-$250 million for AAA games. Recent examples:

  • Destiny ($500 million)
  • Star Citizen ($300+ million)
  • Cyberpunk 2077 ($316 million)
  • Call of Duty games ($250 million+)
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic ($200 million)

• Under $5 million for most indie games. Often under $1 million.

  • Stardew Valley ($60k)
  • Papers Please ($30k)
  • Shovel Knight ($311k)
  • Super Meat Boy ($170k)

Higher costs for AAA games come from having larger, paid development teams as well as massive marketing budgets which can exceed $60 million alone.

Team Size

• AAA teams range from 300 to over 2000 developers.

  • Assassin‘s Creed Unity had over 1000 devs
  • Red Dead Redemption 2 had 2000+
  • Cyberpunk 2077 had over 500
  • Later Call of Duty games had around 350

• Indie teams are usually under 50, often less than 15 developers.

  • Stardew Valley was mostly done by 1 person.
  • Shovel Knight was 8 developers.
  • Journey had a team of 14.
  • Minecraft was initially developed by 1 person.

For AAA games, huge teams are required to create enormous worlds, complex systems, detailed assets and lots of content. Indie developers work with major limitations on manpower.

Having delved into the massive differences in budget and team size, let‘s explore how this impacts creative freedom, innovation, game genres and more.

Creative Freedom

With huge investments on the line, AAA studios prefer lower risk options that build on proven…