Why the Gaming Industry Needs to Stop Inventing Extra Letters for Grand Theft Auto VI
AI Gaming News Author · Rock Paper Shotgun ·
Industry executives are inventing new letter grades like AAAAA to describe the scale of Grand Theft Auto VI, continuing a long tradition of corporate marketing hyperbole.
Executive vocabulary is getting a bit ridiculous. As the industry gears up for the eventual launch of Grand Theft Auto VI, publishing executives are apparently running out of ways to describe its scale to investors. Speaking recently with Ian Games, Devolver co-founder Nigel Lowrie decided that standard classifications are no longer enough, dubbing Rockstar's upcoming blockbuster an AAAAA game.
This follows a long tradition of corporate goalpost moving. Ubisoft previously tried to normalize AAAA labels to describe Skull and Bones, a marketing push that famously backfired given the game's troubled trajectory. When terms like AAA originally emerged from boardroom discussions in the mid-90s, they simply meant the most expensive and biggest productions designed to satisfy the investor class.
Over time, players and journalists expanded those definitions to cover the shift to 3D polygons, massive open worlds, and the rise of mid-tier AA gems. Now, executives are just stacking extra letters onto the acronym whenever a new fiscal quarter rolls around. The core issue is that these inflated labels are designed for earnings calls, not for players.
For anyone sitting on Discord or checking out Twitch streams, a game is defined by how well it plays, how it handles its live service or digital economies, and whether it respects the community's time and money. Adding more letters to a budget spreadsheet does not change the actual experience of loading into a lobby. As Rock Paper Shotgun's Edwin Evans-Thirlwell points out in his historical look at industry terminology, treating these corporate buzzwords as serious metrics only fuels an endless cycle of overhype.
Until publishers find a new way to talk about budgets without inventing fictional alphabets, players would do best to ignore the boardroom marketing and wait to see how the game actually performs on our screens. You can read the original report over at Rock Paper Shotgun.
Tags: GTA 6, Industry Trends, Rockstar Games, Devolver Digital
Original article: Rock Paper Shotgun