What is a B game?

To me, it's more of a holdover form the ps2 era, before digital distribution made it easy to release any size of game at any price point.

I usually think of lower budget games from established studios/publishers with reasonably big teams that, for whatever reason, end up being of a smaller scope and/or less polished.

It's less clear now. Maybe it's just a game that gets a physical release on consoles, but not a big marketing push; the type of game that somewone who buys 5-10 games a year wouln't be likely to pick up. A lack of polish is also something that, for me, gives a game a B feel.

Especially now, I think it's just a feeling you get rather than anything like strict criteria.

@brunothethird: B Game is not a qualitative judgment, just based on budget constraints and so on; though occasionally a B Game/Movie becomes bigger than the sum of its parts and would probably no longer be referred to as a B game. Technically with the smaller studio/budget The Witcher 3 isn't quite triple A since it's still Eastern European; it just happens to be way better than everything that isn't Nioh. There's definitely some middle ground to be had.

Quite many just bring out the budget part as being a definition of a B game. I'd go a bit farther and say that a B game is a game where ambitions don't match with the budget OR/AND skills of the development team. The latter may be seen as wonky animation, glitchy hitboxes or apparent flaws in overall design of the game that are not necessarily a result from budget constraints. For example Katamari isn't a B game because it doesn't strive to be more than it is. It's reasonably budgeted for what it is.

Think Deadly Premonition. If you have ever played it then you know it is the perfect example of a B game. It didn't feel bad to play but it had it's problem areas.DP has a lot of heart but it lacked some polish in parts and didn't execute it's ideas perfectly all the time.

D4 (Dark Dreams Don't Die) Is another good example of a B game. It felt a bit like DP but with a bit more polish.

In not so many words B games feel mediocre

Yes they do. And I think that's exactly the point most people are missing.

Sure, budget and marketing can be related, but in the end that's not the main reason, there's more to it.

B-Games are pretty much a type of games that barely exists nowadays.

Also, people who think Force Unleashed wasn't a B game really need to go back and play it.

I can tell you what isn't a B game; that nonsense that Dan Ryckert was spewing about what makes a B game.

But this might be the best explanation in the thread on what a B game is.

@spwn said:

B games and obscenity are the same: you can't define it, but you know it when you see it. While I enjoyed the extended look at SW: The Force Unleashed--a game I kind of always intended to play, but never got around to--this week, I would say it does not reach B game status. I am glad I never played it, though, after seeing it. It doesn't look great, or even particularly interesting.

Also, to whoever brought up The Witcher 3, c'mon now. Just because CDPR publishes their own games does not even remotely equate to them to indie developers. The development is reported to have involved as many as 1,500 people worldwide. That's as AAA as it gets.

A B game is a flawed game with heart.

A B-movie is a low-budget commercial movie, but one that is not an arthouse film (think indie). In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood. However, the term B movie continues to be used in the broader sense today as a low-budget movie that might be "direct to video" or "direct to Netflix".

In the same way B Games are low-budget commercial game, this just like a movie -NOT an indie game. Because a "B-game" was often thought to have a "known" but budget publisher. There are not really any "b-games" anymore since THQ, Agetec, Acclaim, etc are no more. Unlike movies where cheap to video has remained a viable business model, the B-game just does not fit anywhere most of the people employed at such publishers or developers have moved into smaller teams with very small budgets making might smaller games - indie games.

To answer what a B title/B game is, its important to understand what "AAA" means (as its the reason we have this seperation):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_(video_game_industry)

To make things short, the A's stand for "A lot of time/money/resources". This means what a considerable amount was spent to create the product.

According to Wikipedia, there isn't exactly a "B Game" term available, the term "B/Z movies" do exist. However, Wikipedia refers to something called "Bargain Bin" titles which seems like a very accurate term (the "B" can stand for Bargain which probably makes sense from a marketing standpoint).

Consider the following, back when games couldn't be purchased digitally, were the games you've bought from a "exclusive" shelf? Or were the games put in a shelf with a lot of other games? Seemingly chaotically? Thats where the B Games were.

Dan bought up Command and Conquer as a potential B Game for instance. Now if we take my example at heart and compare CC1 with a game like Warcraft 2, you will see that both were booth AAA games or B games. Why? A similar production effort have been put into bothgames. Remember both games came out in 1995 and were placed in similar positions on their shelves (if you bought them back in the day you can probably concour). You probably seen Both Warcraft 2 and CC1 in the bargain bin around 1 year later when the next CC came out. So there is a time during the lifespan of a commercially available game (from its time) where an AAA rated games turned into a B game to make room for the next "hot thing", which is just another marketing stunt of course.

Maybe another example helps to further argue my point.

Doom, which came out in 1993 which also was another game that Dan mentioned, looks like a B title in comparasion if we compare the credits. Its easy to see that time plays a very important role when it comes to seeing the differences about AAA and B Titles. Lets compare it with a B Game, for its time.

And if compared to a game like Starcraft, all these previously mentioned games will look like B Titles if we compare the credits, which is one of the sentiments on why we have to consider the age of the games also when we're talking about these sort of topics. Since I've written that any game can become a Bargain Bin game, any AAA title can eventually become a B Title as time goes by. Only a few games will forever be a AAA Title, those with massive amonts of marketing for instance, or just plain fantastic games, killer apps if you will.

However, the times of Bargain Bins and AAA Title shelves are in the past, which leads me to believe that we're hit a new era where there are no real AAA Titles or B (Bargain) Titles anymore, rather than the marketing and production value of the games and their potential lifespans we now have dozens of games coming into the market every day. In my opinion, the term "AAA" therefore can only mean what Wikipedia tells us about, that there has been significant amounts of Time, Effort and Resources been put into the games if compared to another game that came out during the same timeframe that has smaller teams invovled during production and marketing.

Now the question is. Does the term AAA only exist anymore because we allow it? I'd say that there really is no need to further say the terms AAA Game or B Game other than for marketing reason, which doesn't seem like its needed anymore.

@raven10: Fantastic post. Of course time goes both ways. Sometimes, these terms are important to tell how much "buzz" is around that game. Sometimes, the size of the production crew also. The way the game is produced also will tell a lot around how the game will can "feel" overall, as every game will always be deliberately designed.

As an example, I would say that a reiteration of old and similar gameplay (such as, a Super Mario type Jump and Run game) requires way less effort than lets say, the new Zelda did.

@fredchuckdave: Oh, I've read your text from an wrong angle :)! Edited this post too phrase it differently. You're still not quite correct by saying that The Witcher 3 isn't an AAA title, which it absolutely is. But you're right with assuming that the place of production and effectiveness of cost plays an important role in judging the overall effectiveness that played a part in production.

Though logically, by your own terms, that means any AAA games can't also never be judged as such, as budget constrains (or the lack thereoff) will still mean fewer expenses regarding the country where the game has been made. So a game produced on a lesser budget can still have comparatively the same effectiveness as lets say a game like Destiny, then its also an AAA (or AAA+) title. Which means that the "middle ground" you're talking about is to abolish the terms "X Game" and replace it with something else to be more accurate and telling about the value of production that has been put into the product and is both valid and insightful for every video game made.

Anyway, in this case of The Witcher 3, it uphelt similar standarts as AAA titles like Grand Theft Auto V.

A important complementary link with context about the situation in production regarding The Witcher 3, which puts things further into perspective: http://www.usgamer.net/articles/how-much-did-the-witcher-3-cost

If you think "the standarts of AAA" are bound in countries like the USA and that AAA titles of similar scale can't exist in other places then you're just plain wrong and theres nothing I can help you about it if you ignore bits and pieces of information and context, sorry.

Before I came to this site many years ago, and heard the guys talk about "the disappearing B Game", I never gave much thought to the idea of A and B games. There were the big games everybody knew about, and there were the "hidden gems". Once they said it though I knew exactly what they were talking about. Alter Echo is a B game. Matt Hazard is a B game.

To define it though, is hard. It's not entirely budget. It's not entirely quality. It's not entirely exposure and brand awareness. It is, when it comes down to it, mostly a feeling. Not just the in game feel, but the real world's reaction (or more often the case, lack of reaction) to it.

The Force Awakens is not a B game. It's an A game that's just not a great game. That happens. But it's their series and they can play whatever they want and put an arbitrary series name on it and I'll still watch.

Do you guys consider mass effect andromeda a 'b game'? It has about half the budget of say the witcher 3 but it is made by bioware and published by ea both considered AAA. Or is it just a mediocre AAA game regardless of smaller budget?

@ravelle: fuckin' A bro! That's the perfect definition

@mylifeforaiur: yea I would say so. Fucking loved that game. it totally was kind of a low level game with a lot of heart. Like a small game that wanted to be more. It's the kind of game I miss these days

Nope, a B game can B very close to perfect and still B a B game. (i'm so clever) Just as AAA can end up being utter trash. I don't know, I feel like there might be a generational rift going on here maybe, since people seem to think that the end quality of the product seem to decide if it's a B game or not. In my mind at least thats not the point.

I don't really think that quality should have anything to do with it. It's a combination of overall budget, marketing push, etc. - basically, a AAA game is one with a lot of weight behind it from a big publisher (an Elder Scrolls game, a Call of Duty, a Grand Theft Auto), an indie game is one that is developed by a small team, with a small budget and perhaps published by someone like Devolver Digital (having a publisher technically means it's not indie, but that's a longer conversation). A B game is just something in between that. Quality shouldn't be a part of the conversation when it comes to defining what a B-game is.

I do think this conversation is worth having, by the way. For a long time now, we've only had two "tiers" of games when it comes to budgets and such - indie and AAA, or at least it really feels that way. And only over the past few years have we really started to see games like The Surge and Styx: Shards of Darkness - games that clearly had more to work with than, I dunno, Cosmic Star Heroine, but were also far from getting as many resources as, I dunno, Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed.

I wouldn't classify The Force Unleashed as a "b-game", by the way. It had the Star Wars license behind it, it had plenty of advertising and money put into it, etc. The end product was maybe problematic, but again, quality isn't really a qualifier I think should fit. Still glad I got to see Giantbomb play it, though, they can call anything a B-game if it means I get to watch Vinny, Alex, and Dan play something that's maybe not on today's headlines.

I feel a B game is a video game that got a retail release, but its budget and/or marketing were no where near as huge as some of the other big time game releases of its time. The game itself was either a one off or spawned one more entry in the series if the sales weren't very good. Also maybe if that game gets into the bargain bin pretty fast or starts off at a price lower than $50-60, that can be a B game. Here's a few examples off the top of my head:

• Metal Arms: Glitch in the System- I think this game could very well be the epitome of good B games. It was a 3rd person shooter that came out in 2003 and maybe the only marketing I saw of this was in a magazine ad. I don't think it sold very well either, which explains why we haven't had any more Metal Arms games. It did review well however and many will claim this is one of the great hidden gems of the PS2/XBOX/GC era.
• Spartan: Total Warrior- Creative Assembly actually has a catalogue of B games on consoles, but this is what started the trend. Sure the Total War series is an A Game series as its still having new games released, recently with Total War: Warhammer. Shortly being purchased by Sega, CA had plans to create their own spinoff series of historically based action games called Total Warrior, and Spartan was the only title in that series. It seemed like if you had a GC, this made for an alright God of War substitute, but why bother on a PS2?
• Armed and Dangerous- In a time where Lucas Arts was all in on Star Wars games, some of their original IP's were overshadowed. Armed and Dangerous was certainly a prime example of this case and I only knew about this game thanks to X-Play and Judgment Day reviewing this title. Its actually a fun little bad B title as it takes notes from Ratchet and Clank with ridiculous weapons (there's a shark gun where a shark swims in the ground and eat enemies) but it can get hard later.
• Age of Empires: Age of Kings (DS)- Look Dan, the Age of Empires games on the PC are A GAMES. Many will call II in particular one of the best, if not the best, strategy game(s) of all time. The AOE game on the Nintendo DS, however, is definitely a B game. Plus you're reading this right, the Microsoft owned AOE series got an entry on a Nintendo system. It was Majesco who published it and Backbone developed it, not Microsoft and Ensemble respectively. It had little to no marketing behind it and its budget had to be pretty small because the graphics weren't great and had some technical issues. But when it played well, it was a decent mix of Age of Empires (management) and Advance Wars (the combat). There was also an Age of Mythology DS game too, and that was it for the AOE/M DS games.

Can age make a game that wasn't a B-game a B-game?

@mocbucket62: When the guys were describing this series in the first episode, Armed and Dangerous was the first game that came to mind for some reason. And I hadn't thought of it in years. I think about Metal Arms all the time. That was a cool game.

@jay_ray: I was just wondering this same question.

Remember that you will always be an A game in my heart

The B is for budget.

Also, Dan's opinion about what are and aren't B games can be ignored as they are sub-B opinions.

Fucking PC games aren't A games...

Love the GBE guys, but Dan and Alex completely sapped my will to care about what is or is not a B game.

Let's rigidly define genres next!!

Disagree wholeheartedly.

Marketing budget does not equal dev budget, and it's CLEAR from how that game came out that's where the money went.

I didn't say anything about quality.

That was how I felt though, not what it actually means. I think even with B-Movies there's a big gray area.

A B movie is a low-budget commercial movie, but one that is not an arthouse film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature.

Which then later contradicts itself because there's a lot of B-movies with a big budget and big actors, they become B-movies in our eyes because because they're not that great.

Kingdoms of Amalur is a B game, Witcher 1 is like a C game Witcher 2 on release (not before all the patching) was a B game. Risen was a B game.

As a category a B game is something that clearly lacks in the developmental budget department while still shooting for a similar scope of a AAA game. A symptom of a B game is that it mostly misses the mark in alot of aspects but nails one thing really well that makes the player look at the game favorably due to the potential that is there.

I consider a B game to be one which is rough around the edges, it may have good ideas and grand aspirations but didn't have either enough time, budget or skilled enough developers to reach a certain quality. The game can be good, it can have interesting or admirable qualities, but it just feels like it's only 60-80% ready.
Red Faction is not a B game, Red Faction 2 is.
Max Payne is not a B game, Stranglehold is (i love Stranglehold).
Streets of Rage is not a B game, The Bouncer is, similarly despite loving Fighting Force that may also be a B game, i'm not sure there are any 3D brawlers which truely figured it out.
Syphon Filter is not a B game, C-12: Final Resistance is.

Anything published by Focus Home Interactive or Kalypso and anything made by Germans.

Also Deadly Premonition isn't a B-game, it's like a Z-game. Nothing about it is even remotely good, people just like it because the guys played it.

How many folks bending over backwards to try and force this undefined thing into a rigid definition have actually WATCHED the video?

"We'll know it when we see it"

"If you need that much rigidity in your life, we can't help you."

"Has nothing to do with budget, Battlefield Earth is a $120,000,000 B-Movie.

STOP trying to play this weird gatekeeping game and enjoy goofy video content.

There's a fun, goofy discussion to be had here, but seriously: people in this thread are getting SALTY.

@alexw00d: It's somewhat condescending to assume people enjoy something because the GB guys played it. I of my own recognises love the story of Deadly Premonition, I think it's fun and there is fun to be had in the broken janky world of that game.
I stopped watching their playthrough early on because I didn't want it spoiled and bought it and finished it for myself. Fairs fair if you think it's the most garbage of all the garbage, but putting peoples opinions on it, on the fact the guys had fun with it, is a pretty unfair/untrue statement.

I think the very best definition of a b-game is a game that gives us more Giant Bomb East content.
I literally wouldn't even care if they played Red Dead Redemption on this series because of some goofy reasoning one of them came up with. It's just all good fun stuff.

@alexw00d: That's not true at all. I played it before ever I ever saw those videos. Actually, I only played it because I was super hyped for Alan Wake coming out and heard it had similarities. That's also the only reason I ever watched Twin Peaks. Well let me tell you sir or madam. Alan Wake ended up being a fine game, but it ain't no fucking Deadly Premonition. Deadly Premonition sets a mood and a place far better than almost any game I've ever played. The townspeople are quirky and interesting. The music is catchy as hell. And York is one of my favorite game protagonists ever.

I'm not a big fan of the "people only like/dislike thing because of [reason]" talk. People like and dislike things for a lot of reasons. And if you can't find it in your heart to like something that's a little (or a lot) rough around the edges then that is your loss.

Isn't that right, Zach?

@zolroyce: RIGHT? And I'm also with Alex: just throwing out a game and discussing whether or not it meets whatever random definition of B-Game is fun, but the tone in this thread turned snarky by way of judgemental SO fast.

I would say Deadly Premonition and Alan Wake were going for VERY different things (I'd also say both fit B-game nicely), whereas Premonition was going for a more lived-in feel with the people having personalities and a TON more content, Alan Wake was much, much, MUCH more straightforward and linear. I think they both accomplish what they set out to do, jank and all. I think both could have benefited from better combat or much less of it.

To throw an opinion into the mix, I concur with people who think the primary distinguisher is budget/money. B-games are games that MSRP for less than $60. Period. Indie games are games that are independently published. The two terms therefore don't really overlap at all. You can have AAA indies (Witcher 3) and you can have B-games from big publishers (Grow Home).

You might could make an argument for a lower price cutoff (like $40, is Pillars of Eternity a B-game?), but it's definitely a budget thing, just like the original movie distinction. It doesn't have anything to do with how good or fun the game was, or how fondly it was remembered.

Am..am I a B-game?

No, you're ska.

@alexw00d What about games produced in Germany do you think makes them B-games? Is it because of overzealous censoring or just the lack of good games from there?

I'll bite, here's what I consider a B-game, a nice mix of PC and Console.

Steel Battalion
Privateer 2
Shadow Man
Rise of The Triad
Twisted: The Game show (3DO)
Po'ed
Three Dirty Dwarves
Vigilante 8
Star Control (Series)
Mario is Missing

Just everything made there is mid budget and made for a fairly specific crowd who really enjoy that specific type of game. The Gothic games, the myriad of simulations, the X games etc. Obviously good for what they are, but by being what they are they're niche as fuck.

@alexw00d: Gothic 2 alone sold millions, just saiyan. From what I know it was partially digital sales that boosted these numbers.

From what I know, the entirety of the Gothic franchise sold around 4 million. However, I don't know the percentage of people who finished it.

Its known that Gothic 3 sold like 300.000 copies in the first month when it was out. Since when were "millions of copies sold" called "niche as fuck"? Even gothic 1 had extraordrinary amounts of hype in certain parts of the world, excluding germany.

Also back in the day (Gothic 1 is 16 years old), games weren't that majorly marketed. If you didn't bought a game centric magazine (that platform doesn't matter) I usually heard about game related stuff through some strange marketing campaigns like promoting video games through kelloggs and stuff like that.

A B Game in the 80's would be games like Adventure Quest (compared to Super Mario Land) and ported games on a budget. I still stand with my Bargain Bin marketing arguement.

I think the best way view it is through the lens of finical credit ratings which I think is sort of the analogy.

• AAA: An obligor rated 'AAA' has extremely strong capacity to meet its financial commitments.
• AA: An obligor rated 'AA' has very strong capacity to meet its financial commitments. It differs from the highest-rated obligors only to a small degree.
• BBB: An obligor rated 'BBB' has adequate capacity to meet its financial commitments. However, adverse economic conditions or changing circumstances are more likely to lead to a weakened capacity of the obligor to meet its financial commitments.
• CCC: An obligor rated 'CCC' is currently vulnerable, and is dependent upon favorable business, financial, and economic conditions to meet its financial commitments.

There are variation between each of these ratings, but that is how I have always viewed it, a AAA game has a strong capacity to meet financial returns and do favorably. in others words, as safe bet as possible.

Indie games are independently owned.

I think people are mixing up Cult Classics with B Films\Games here.

Ok? Those Farming Simulator games sell shit tonnes of copies, doesn't make them any less of a B game.

Gothic 3 came out at the same time as Oblivion. Oblivion was AAA, Gothic 3 was B.

@alexw00d: According to what I've written previously, Gothic can be considered a B-game (production value, resource and personal management, etc, read my big post if you haven't already). Beth is way more coordinated than PB yet they worked with a skelleton crew ab about 9 - 12 or so people on Gothic 1 and 2 while still managing to create good games.

However, you've choosen to type things amongst the lines of "Gothic is a niche game", which is just untrue and not what I was on about (the game sold millions, you can even say that all RPG are somewhat niche, except the huge ones such as Beth or Squeenix). Didn't even care if Gothic is a B-Game or not (which it is, most likely). I didn't even mention that term.

@jonny_anonymous: People believe what they want to believe, same old same old!

@avantegardener: The term is normalized, there even is a Wikipedia article about it. This thread is about what people think marketing people mean when they say AAA. Even the GB staff was confused to what accounts as a B-Game but since its a normalized term it should not be a problem to read up about.

Your Dance Dance Revolution way of scoring the quality of the game is way better however.

This is a fun feature, which in true GB community fashion, has a few real sour pusses that are way too worked up about it. That being said, I find it interesting how if you asked me when The Force Unleashed came out if I thought it was a B game, I think I would definitively say no, but now it very much "feels" like a B game, if that makes sense.

Did anyone ever guess Alex's B-word B game?

What GB's discussion and this thread continue to prove is that the meaning of "B-game" is truly in the eyes of the B-holder.

@sethmode: That's because B-games being lower-budget games, like movies, they tend to be lower quality as a result. That being said, it is still quite possible for a higher budget game to be bad, and that's what imparts the low-quality feel.

As for a guess at Alex's B B-game, did anybody say Bastion yet? Didn't he say it was from his personal collection? That should narrow it down some.