Its production budget record was later surpassed by Sega AM2's Shenmue (1999), estimated to have cost $47–70 million (inflation adjusted $73–109 million as of 2020 ). Its expensive advertisement campaign was also unprecedented for a video game, with a combined production and marketing budget estimated to be $80–145 million (inflation adjusted $129–234 million as of 2020 ).

One of the first video games to be produced at a blockbuster or AAA scale was Squaresoft's Final Fantasy VII (1997), which cost an estimated $40–45 million (inflation adjusted $68–76 million) to develop, making it the most expensive video game ever produced up until then, with its unprecedented cinematic CGI production values, movie-like presentation, orchestral music, and innovative blend of gameplay with dynamic cinematic camerawork. The term was borrowed from the credit industry's bond ratings, where 'AAA' bonds represented the safest opportunity most likely to meet their financial goals. The term 'AAA' began to be used in the late 1990s, when a few development companies started using the expression at gaming conventions in the US. The similar construction 'III' (Triple-I) has also been used to describe high-production-value games in the indie game industry. In the mid-2010s, the term 'AAA+' was used to describe AAA type games that generated additional revenue over time, in a similar fashion to massively multiplayer online games, by using games-as-a-service methods such as season passes and expansion packs.

In the video game industry, AAA (pronounced and sometimes written triple-A) is an informal classification used to categorise games produced and distributed by a mid-sized or major publisher, which typically have higher development and marketing budgets than other tiers of games.

Electronic Arts (left) and Ubisoft ( Ubisoft Montreal studio shown right) are examples of AAA companies in the video game industry.

Aaa pc games 2015 list