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Nah if we talk about money spent behind a single title then there are not as many as other famous companies, which also usually release more content since they can develop and bugfix way more stuff considering the difference in numbers. The only company that is in the same “league” of paradox and did a triple A imo might be cd project red and when they did their triple A they had 300 and more people behind the project, which basically was the whole studio, and the game was still bugged as hell upon release cause they couldnt hunt all the bugs probably cause of their size, still thankfully it didnt hurt sales and instead they even showed that they made a super product. Paradox games have like 1/6 of the numbers behind and really arent targeting to be in a perfect shape upon release but lets say after 2 years they reach maturity. There have been way worse games around ofc and in my personal opinion many so called triple A titles have only the money and the assets behind them (read: anthem) but otohi its the third time i am not buying 3 1 year old dlcs for stellaris cause for the same price (total of 24 euros for a bunch of buttons 1 ship type and some structures) i can get deluxe edition of an AAA game that got released in november or so, and i cant help but spend my money on the product that gives me more content. I own my good share of paradox products but i cant pay the same amount i paid for eu4 for every single game released by them without getting a ton of content for that.
Edit: heartsone is triple A cashgrab, i wish people would give me money for printing them digital cards or setting up some AI enemies and call it a “campaign”
tldr
no but if you play your games 2 years after they are released and they arent called steel division then maybe
Edit: heartsone is triple A cashgrab, i wish people would give me money for printing them digital cards or setting up some AI enemies and call it a “campaign”
tldr
no but if you play your games 2 years after they are released and they arent called steel division then maybe
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DLC ;-)
But for what they are doing they are AAA
Cities Skylines - best city builder around (and I'm just talking about release here) thanks to EA being unwilling to make a proper successor to Sim City 4
Stellaris - is there a real time alternative? (Star Wars - Empire at War and Sins of a Solar Empire sadly aren't continued)
HOI4 - no competition I know off (that's with lots of things needing a rework/not being part of for a long time - WW2 without FUEL!!!)
Surviving Mars - bit barebone release but really nice overall, I would love that style for other builders - castles (Stronghold), lairs (Evil Genius, Dungeon Keeper), space stations, city builders (Tropico)...
Bonus: they run on older/economy computers.
But for what they are doing they are AAA
Cities Skylines - best city builder around (and I'm just talking about release here) thanks to EA being unwilling to make a proper successor to Sim City 4
Stellaris - is there a real time alternative? (Star Wars - Empire at War and Sins of a Solar Empire sadly aren't continued)
HOI4 - no competition I know off (that's with lots of things needing a rework/not being part of for a long time - WW2 without FUEL!!!)
Surviving Mars - bit barebone release but really nice overall, I would love that style for other builders - castles (Stronghold), lairs (Evil Genius, Dungeon Keeper), space stations, city builders (Tropico)...
Bonus: they run on older/economy computers.
All of their major games are in the top 50 list on steam at the moment. Make of that what you will.
Fortunately no not AAA.Most of their GS games does target niche audience.Strategy genre as it stand nowadays is quite a bit niche compared to other genres but grand strategies are even more so.And the budget spend in each game is not enough IMHO for it to be called a AAA studio.
Generally AAA games are a lot less innovative and a lot of other AAA studios generally make the same type of games to milk that cow.
Generally AAA games are a lot less innovative and a lot of other AAA studios generally make the same type of games to milk that cow.
Steel Division is a published game not directly developed by Paradox. The Paradox publishing arm tends to give developers it partners with a very large amount of leeway, so any post launch support or lack thereof is on the developer of Steel Division, not Paradox. Add to that Steel Division II having already been announced, and that's probably the reason work on the first one was stopped.
Ok its not directly developed by paradox, they are actually giving way more attention to their main titles and are more inclined towards releasing dlcs instead of releasing another title directly (or they just shut it down if it isnt good at all).
Look anyways since everytime i try to answer this post i find myself writing 84373829 rows of stuff these are the recent pdx titles that for me are AAA, and prolly could have been called so also on release (ugly or not they had their stuff)
Europa Universalis 4 (duh)
Crusader Kings 2 (this one should be ranked first but i like eu serie more e_e)
Cities Skylines (i dont own it cause i’m not in the genere, seen some videos and tbh its very good)
Honorable mentions are either too old (sry vicky) too similar (sry not sry rome) too short (hoi4) to rate for me e_e
And i know its not theirs per se but for price tag and concept surviving mars has been a super cool game, maybe a bit short aswell so Aa
Look anyways since everytime i try to answer this post i find myself writing 84373829 rows of stuff these are the recent pdx titles that for me are AAA, and prolly could have been called so also on release (ugly or not they had their stuff)
Europa Universalis 4 (duh)
Crusader Kings 2 (this one should be ranked first but i like eu serie more e_e)
Cities Skylines (i dont own it cause i’m not in the genere, seen some videos and tbh its very good)
Honorable mentions are either too old (sry vicky) too similar (sry not sry rome) too short (hoi4) to rate for me e_e
And i know its not theirs per se but for price tag and concept surviving mars has been a super cool game, maybe a bit short aswell so Aa
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With the Whitewolf games, Paradox could potentially go into the AAA category. I think they already said that they have decided to invest more into Bloodlines 2 than they traditionally have into their games.
There's no definition so anyone pretending to tell you what's what is wrong. In my opinion, AAA speaks to the game, not the developer. CDPR isn't a huge studio but Witcher 3 was undoubtedly a AAA release. From there, you go to various factors like target audience, investment in the project, and advertising levels. AAA projects usually sell enough to make a profit no matter what, because so many people will buy on release at full price. So that gives you a rough idea.
Popularity after release is not relevant. There are plenty of successful indie games that are not AAA just by common sense.
Popularity after release is not relevant. There are plenty of successful indie games that are not AAA just by common sense.
There might be a genre component to any definition of AAA which excludes most Paradox franchises. A big budget usually means a big audience, and I've met only one other person in my line of work who didn't insist on a comparison to Starcraft or Civilization while describing HOI or CK or EU. "Starcraft with logistics, a map which spans continents, and granular resources and mechanics. Also, you control divisions, not individuals." "Oh, so it's like Risk?" "Sure." I've had more luck describing the spirit of the games: "Here's a country. See how far you can get before they stop you."
Some of their games are triple AAA games in terms of these are Paradox's biggest titles but Paradox itself only makes I suppose you could call them basic games because they don't have proper graphic engines like the TW series or Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth for example.
There are exceptions though, Stellaris I would say is the equivalent of a triple AAA game in the 4X genre but then the 4X genre isn't really a triple AAA game category because they all use basic graphics.
Surviving Mars is probably the closest to a triple AAA game that I can think of but unless I'm mistaken it's only published by Paradox not developed by them.
There are exceptions though, Stellaris I would say is the equivalent of a triple AAA game in the 4X genre but then the 4X genre isn't really a triple AAA game category because they all use basic graphics.
Surviving Mars is probably the closest to a triple AAA game that I can think of but unless I'm mistaken it's only published by Paradox not developed by them.
As I'm sure more have stated numerous times, Ubisoft, EA/Bioware, Activision/Blizzard, 2K, are all examples of AAA publishers. Paradox in the past few years has jumped into AA tier if you want to break them down like that. Admittedly I never understood the notion of calling major publishers AAA companies when you never hear about any other ranking and what falls where. I think it might've just been a play on the viability of a company just like bond ratings originally? Not sure, haven't really cared to think about it too much, considering aside a few EA Sports games I don't really buy from any of them much.
Back in the 2000s when I found Pdox Seeing a copy of HOI2 and VickyRev in terms of perception they might've been akin to a large indie dev, no idea for sure how many people they had back then pre EU3 working there in mid 2000s. I do know EU3 was being sold in retail in big box stores like Walmart (where I picked up my copy, lol) so they've been a solid company able to do that for quite a while. The number of games they publish and have published for years now under their label is definitely noteworthy, but not at the scale of "AAA" companies which buy and acquire other studios on a whim (probably a good thing given how badly the AAA companies have a track record of ruining smaller companies they buy, Pdoxs model seems to be a LOT better that way).
Back in the 2000s when I found Pdox Seeing a copy of HOI2 and VickyRev in terms of perception they might've been akin to a large indie dev, no idea for sure how many people they had back then pre EU3 working there in mid 2000s. I do know EU3 was being sold in retail in big box stores like Walmart (where I picked up my copy, lol) so they've been a solid company able to do that for quite a while. The number of games they publish and have published for years now under their label is definitely noteworthy, but not at the scale of "AAA" companies which buy and acquire other studios on a whim (probably a good thing given how badly the AAA companies have a track record of ruining smaller companies they buy, Pdoxs model seems to be a LOT better that way).
I don't know if Triple AAA, but I consider Paradox to be one of the major video game developers of the current time, especialy on PC. I don't think they stand much beneath companies like Bethesda or Activision.
Look at the income of Bethesda or Activision and then compare it to Paradox.
That may be right, but I consider it based on popularity. Quite frankly, look at how many people I see on Steam playig things from Paradox and then from Bethesda. But you're probably right, I forget how many console players still exist nowadays. A relic of the past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_(video_game_industry)
Afaik it was just based on the level of funding / input they were putting into the game / content. The term was originally for just in-house designation (eg the big titles were AAA, smaller were AA, Expansions were A or B, map packs were C), but like everything on the internet its kinda morphed into some strange derogatory term when people dislike a game with a higher-than-normal profile.
The term never really applied to actual studios, but again, its the internet.