The Ultimate SOMA Discussion Thread

[Macgyverthehero]

I'm also going to guess around $20-$25.

Please come out soon SOMA, I'll give you my money.

[Googolplex]

I think 30$ because of 5 years development.

[PathOS]

Yeah I'm thinking $30 because this is the biggest game they've made so far and they spent 5 years making it.

I would imagine there will also likely be some kind of pre-order discount potentially.

$30 for a 9-11 hour game with mod capabilities and potential replay-ability (if the story is as great and complex as Frictional believes, then I for one will likely need to replay it to catch all the cues I missed, in addition to perhaps doing so after watching "Depth") is a great deal.

Certainly better than the $60 you would pay if it was an "AAA" game. (and whatever "DLC" they stacked post-launch)

[Googolplex]

How much budget does a game need to be AAA?

[Slanderous]

How much budget does a game need to be AAA?

I guess it all rather depends on one's opinion. Someone can say that game with 15 milion bucks is an AAA production, while other guy can say that 60 milion dollars is what makes the game AAA. I'm not very sure though.

[MrSteve]

Well, according to Wikipedia

'In the video game industry, AAA (pronounced "triple A") is a classification term used for games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion. A title considered to be AAA is therefore expected to be a high quality game and to be among the year's best sellers. For a title to remain AAA post-launch, it must be both commercially and critically successful.'

And this

'An AAA title is intended to demonstrate the very best within a gaming company or franchise. Games not considered to be AAA have been referred to as "B titles", by analogy to B-movies'

Really, it's up to interpretation. If we went on the above, then a game like SOMA would be classed as a B title, purely on the fact that it's budget and promotion doesn't scratch the surface of other developers. BUT; You could argue that a five year investment from a team of of people that has tripled (at least) in size in the last five years and massively increased their revenues, production budget and sphere of influence in the gaming community has certainly created a product that is worthy of the title AAA.

You could also argue that SOMA will be a high quality game (fingers crossed) and may be one of the best sellers in the horror game genre (for 2015)

Obviously we haven't played it yet, to confirm the quality of the game but I think we are all in agreement here that the investment from the team at Frictional and all we've seen so far warrants a AAA.

[Slanderous]

Don't get too excited though, I wouldn't classify SOMA as an AAA game, which doesn't mean it can't be awesome!

[PathOS]

Usually AAA to me means something on the level of not only 10's of Millions spent, but also a team size over something like 80 people.

Frictional is only a team of 14, though of course we do not know how many Millions were spent for development.

And yeah "AAA" in no way means or has anything to do with "Quality". Assassin's Creed Unity for example was definitely a "AAA" game, but quality-wise it was shit.

[Googolplex]

What a bullshit Wikipedia article! AAA doesn't mean high quality!!! So many AAA games are extremely poor made and at the other side so many "B titles" and movies are designed very professional with high-level story telling. AAA is in most cases just mainstream/action shit which is comparable to low quality, where the best games were made with a small budget.

[MrSteve]

Agreed with most of the above posts comments.

I think the term AAA started off in the right mind set, but as usual people get hold of the title and twist it to make something more commercially successful.

Like many of you say; You could spend millions dressing up a turd, but in the end it's still a piece of shit.