What would you consider to be the first AAA game?

[Wariat]

to be the first true AAA game? Find Fantasy 7? Or what? A game the defined a medium

 

[Yousef Yousef]

 

[fake-chan]

Consider what???

 

[MasterEn]

super mario bros 1.

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

Pingas

 

[Yousef Yousef]

Consider what???

 

[Your_Homie_Gale]

I think Wariat is asking what do we think is the first triple A videogame. I think it might be Super Mario Bros. 3 given that a whole movie was made for its advertisement

 

[Tonberry]

 

[bigstinkie]

i like your avatar artwork tonberry what is it from if i may do the great large ask?

 

[Tonberry]

i like your avatar artwork tonberry what is it from if i may do the great large ask?

It's Gandalf from an art piece for The Hobbit called 'Expulsion' by Donato Giancola!

 

[RageBurner]

Thread title edited for clarity.

 

[Tonberry]

to be the first true AAA game? Find Fantasy 7? Or what? A game the defined a medium

Sorry for the off-topic post.
I'm in the Final Fantasy 7 tribe on this matter.

 

[RageBurner]

Sorry for the off-topic post.
I'm in the Final Fantasy 7 tribe on this matter.

Same, I believe its reach and impact was unlike any other game, both within the franchise and at large.

 

[Your_Homie_Gale]

Damn I am too newgen to experience what that must have been like. Was it really that big?

 

[Tonberry]

Same, I believe its reach and impact was unlike any other game, both within the franchise and at large.

Also worth noting the economical/financial stuff and the marketing campaign, which, at the time was "unprecedented for a video game".

 

[bigstinkie]

Damn I am too newgen to experience what that must have been like. Was it really that big?

 

[Your_Homie_Gale]

View attachment 84024

Is that what Pepsi's used to look like?

 

[RageBurner]

Damn I am too newgen to experience what that must have been like. Was it really that big?

It certainly was, though it is difficult to put it into perspective nowadays. Presently a new release of a long running, venerable franchise on new hardware tends to elicit more trepidation than excitement.

 

[MasterEn]

Is that what Pepsi's used to look like?

yeah, for a while. soda companies change their brands every so often.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

The first huge AAA game was Pacman or Donkey Kong probably. Shit was massive same with Space Invaders.

 

[NotReallyHere]

I'll admit that this thread is giving me a lot to think about

One thing we have to go on, regarding FF7, is being able to "follow the money," regarding the development and advertising budgets. It was produced during a time when companies - especially in the tech area - were more than happy to tell you how much they had [over]spent to delivery a product as part of their overall marketing strategy. But Sega and Nintendo had plenty of their own marketing and merch throughout the 80s and 90s.

For example, I had this same Sonic Chaos window cling (brought to you by Hidden Valley Ranch??) when I was younger, as well as this same "GET CHERRYFIED" temporary tattoo:

Tying in video games with junk food was certainly nothing new

The biggest difference, I feel, is that Sony pretty much said "eff the budget," and went all out, spending much more to promote FF7 though print and TV than either Sega or Nintendo were likely to - at least, in regards to one single title. They needed the attention, and they needed to announce that they were here to stay. To make that much noise when you're the relatively new kid on the block, you have to spend.

Had I seen print and TV ads for video games before FF7? Absolutely! But something about Sony's marketing for that one game really felt suffocating and inescapable.

As far as my own little list of AAA games prior to FF7:

Daytona USA (for using incredibly advanced, expensive tech)
Super Mario 64 (for being visionary and groundbreaking in true 3D gameplay)
Wing Commander III (for having a massive budget and using Hollywood actors)

If we're going purely on advertising spending and media influence? Sure, FF7 probably wins the day. But if we're going into development costs and the challenge of the developers genuinely trying to produce something state-of-the-art, that no one had ever seen or experienced before? Then I think there's some room for debate

 

[χKai]

Super Mario Bros. Most people had never played a video game that had an 'end', a game you could 'beat'. It was substantial for its' time because it was a pioneer in a new age of gaming, having such depth for a platformer with the pacing and music, everything was so well presented and laid out that it was mind-blowing what video games had become capable of since the early days.

 

[Zerohour2k12]

Super Mario Bros 1

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Maybe Doom? Its impact and market share were so uncomprehendsingly humongous that Bill Gates himself was bragging that you could play that game on an operating system he had sold millions of copies of and that was so incredibly ubiquitous that it was basically synonym with computers as a whole.

 

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

Yeah FF7 checks out