By the Way, What’s a AA?

The video game industry currently lacks a standardized, objective framework for classifying production scope, often relying on ambiguous terms like "indie" that conflate development scale with creative intent or business models. To address this, a new classification system—the Hushcrasher Classification System (HCS)—has been developed using data science clustering techniques. By analyzing all games published on Steam since 2006 and integrating credit data from MobyGames, the research identifies that credit length and disk size are the primary indicators of a game's production scope, far outweighing other metrics.

The HCS categorizes games into four distinct tiers: Kei (small-scale, often solo or micro-team projects), Midi (small to medium studios), AA (multi-million dollar budgets with large, structured teams), and AAA (massive, high-resource productions). This methodology reveals significant market shifts over the last decade, most notably the "Keipocalypse," where the number of Kei game releases multiplied by 16 following the introduction of Steam Direct. While Kei titles now account for over 70% of new releases, their collective share of total market reviews has remained stable at approximately 25%, indicating that the market has become increasingly saturated without a proportional increase in sales volume for smaller titles.

The findings demonstrate that production scope heavily influences creative output, with smaller projects more likely to feature experimental elements, while larger studios lean toward safer, established intellectual properties. Furthermore, the analysis highlights that the median revenue per game collapsed by 97% between 2012 and 2018, underscoring the intense competition within the Kei segment. By moving away from subjective "vibe-based" definitions, this framework provides a more rigorous basis for evaluating the financial and creative health of the global video game industry.