I just went quickly down Wikipedia. Half jest post but still I wouldn’t consider them a AAA studio by any stretch of the imagination.
Well, the post says it's a "a triple-A title", meaning the franchise and the budget in the publisher's portfolio is AAA, not that the studio labels itself a "AAA studio". People can argue over what the definition of the term "AAA" means (it's a bogus term, in most respects, but it's more about budget and production value investment than quality,) but getting picky about "not
my triple-A" when we don't know the franchise misses the point here.
But also, it's something useful IMO to understand the difference between a pedigree studio and a work-for-hire studio. These "AAA studios", as some would call them, that can keep to a pedigree reputation of very specific IPs, who can call their own shots, they have perfect CVs because of the way they are designed and the relationships they have been able to cultivate. A work-for-hire studio doesn't have that luxury, for one reason or another. They take the jobs they find, under the schedules that the publishers lay out for them, working on projects that hopefully are interesting or unique but mostly play into strengths they've already cultivated, and they live their lives based on their reputation as a good hire more than as creative elites. Some of these studios are really, really good at it, and remain independent to maintain a diverse and secure portfolio on their own terms. Ideally, the company remains strong and healthy enough to be able to accept/reject jobs based on the timeline, the budget, the brand, and the publisher demands. But ultimately, a job is a job, and it's the publisher's reputation on the line more than theirs (smart gamers look at the label to see who made it, but that's becoming less and less the case these days...), so a workhorse studio has to pick and choose what's best for their future as a company. As long as they pick well and spend the majority of their time on the right side of the line making good titles where it counts, a workhorse studio can be a great company to follow (and a nice company to work for) because you never know what surprises they might come up with next. Might be another racer, might be a LBP, might be a Crackdown, might be it's own little independent project like Snake Pass or HELP: The Game...
The video game development industry can't just be Naughty Dogs and Bungies. Those companies are great when they're great, but they can never be enough. Somebody has to do the rest of the work of making a variety of good games to choose from.
