[everforward]

Isn’t AAA vs AA about the funding of the project, and AA vs indie is about the publisher?

I don’t care for scope as part of this because scope is so heavily influenced by the type of game. Eg Call of Duty is the poster child for AAA games and has a pretty unimpressive scope compared to virtually any RPG. Even indie RPGs tend to have a broader scope; CoD has basically nothing outside of combat mechanics.

Then there’s weird questions about what counts as scope too. Tabletop Simulator has a much broader scope than MTG Arena, but Arena is far closer to AAA or AA.

[iLoveOncall]

I specifically said scope of the "project" instead of the "game".

You're right that CoD is simple, but it's still a massive project where most areas (graphics, networking, game engine, etc.) are infinitely more developed than a game like Stardew Valley which is a much broader experience _as a player_.

[everforward]

Star Citizen must be AAAA then with all that feature creep!

Jokes aside, it still feels very subjective to me. Eg I wouldn’t point to CoD as a shining example for any of that. Their in-game launcher sucks, the voice chat is 2003 cell phone quality, the graphics are nice but not groundbreaking, and the stability of the game/servers is worse than most of the indie games I play even after installing mods.

CS:GO has better voice, better stability, and now you can shoot holes through the smoke from grenades. Servers are also 128Hz, where CoD just went from 20Hz to 60Hz (just in time to be out of date again).

COD is the poster child of scope creep to me. It has half-assed support for just about everything under the sun. I wouldn’t really call any part of it “developed”, though.