10 Video Games That EXPOSED AAA Companies

10 Video Games That EXPOSED AAA Companies

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today, were taking a look at 10 incredible video games that exposed the shady business practices of the AAA gaming industry.

Shovel Knight (2014)

Prior to Shovel Knights debut, the indie gaming market wasnt as vibrant as we know it today. Sure, we had some gems pop up on Xbox Live Arcade, but when Shovel Knight launched in 2014, it opened up a lot of peoples eyes. Not only did Yacht Club Games deliver an exceptional 2D platformer with quite a bit of replay value, it was an exceptional game being sold at under twenty bucks. This caused some folks to begin questioning whether the bigger budget games were worth their time anymore, especially when most AAA games were charging fifty to sixty dollars for middling quality. And somehow, Dragon Age: Inquisition won Game of the Year?

Palworld (2024)

With so many Pokemon fans being burned by the low effort put forth by GameFreak and Nintendo, indie devs have been trying to eat their lunch with their own monster-catching games. Palworld took the world by storm at the very start of 2024 with its survival-based mechanics and more humorous approach in making a Pokemon-esque world. But the big draw was that it was a Pokemon clone with far better optimization than the series it was trying to parody! It wound up sparking an intense discussion around GameFreak and Nintendos possible complacencyand landing developer PocketPair in a lawsuit over patents with the House Mario Built.

Monument Valley (2014)

In the early years of mobile gaming, developers began figuring out how to design games using psychological tricks and a free-to-play system while implementing sways to nickel and dime users. This behavior was and still is common among the AAA companies that dabble in this side of the market. But once Monument Valley jumped onto the scene with its humble price tag of three ninety-nine, it made the mobile gaming scene look like a landfill. Monument Valley asked nothing more than a few dollars in exchange for twelve creatively brilliant puzzles with a surprisingly impactful story about mankind and its excessive use of natures resources. The game would win tons of awards, amass over fourteen million dollars within its first two years, appear in a small handful of TV shows and music videos, and spawn two equally successful sequels. Meanwhile, AAA companies still think the money is on free-to-play facades loaded with gacha mechanics and egregious monetization.

Yakuza / Like A Dragon series (2005-)

Initially, the Like A Dragon seems like the outlier for a list like this, especially since it's published by SEGA, one of the giants of AAA gaming. However, SEGA and developer Ryu Ga Gotoku are showing everyone how a AAA development model truly works. Have you ever noticed how often Ryu Ga Gotoku recycles assets across games? Really, a lot of mechanics, animations, minigames, and worlds across the Like A Dragon are recycled from the previous games. Because of this, Ryu Ga Gotoku can focus on implementing new spins on those assets, improving the visual fidelity and performance, and keep the story compelling, and they achieve this with flying colors every new release. It begs to question the other AAA companies and what exactly theyre spending hundreds of millions of dollars on for their own annual releases.

Stardew Valley (2016)

By 2016, it seemed as if the gaming industry only wanted shooters and cinematic games with realistic graphics. After all, this is what AAA gaming has built its foundation on and somehow still believes is the key to success. Farming sims were a thing of the past. In comes Stardew Valley, a game made by one person, Eric Barone, over the span of four and a half years, boasts pixel art for its graphics, and lets the player just live their own life on a farm with the only risk being how is Abigail going to be mean to me today? And since its debut, the game has sold well over forty million copies, turning Barone into a multimillionaire. Meanwhile, AAA gaming is taking almost double the amount of time with teams of hundreds of people and several outsourced studios just to belt out a single game, costing them hundreds of millions of dollars.

Vampire Survivors (2022)

Vampire Survivors went through a story almost similar to Eric Barone and Stardew Valley. With a small team of people and some fuel from his love for Castlevania, Luca Galante used his experience in the gambling industry to create Vampire Survivors in 2022. Though the success was not instant, sales grew exponentially in 2022 and well throughout 2023 as the game made its way to other platforms. And Galante was only charging a small asking price of five bucks, sometimes less if the game went on sale. You would think a game made on a shoestring budget like this would cause some AAA companies to abandon ridiculous live service trends. Alas, here we are in 2025 where companies like Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Games are in deep financial trouble.

Balatro (2024)

You would think that all this chasing for endless revenue and live service games would lead some AAA companies to developing card games like Marvel Snap. For some reason, that just isnt on the table even when you have a game like Balatro. Once again, we have a simple game made on a shoestring budget by one person within a small window of two and a half years. Basically, this was a game made in a similar time and budget as how PS1 and PS2 games were made in the late 90s and early 2000s. With its flashy visuals and different ways to break the game, Balatro saw critical and commercial success en masse, selling five million copies across console, mobile, and PC in less than a year. But sure, lets keep dismissing card games as a viable genre for AAA developers to delve into and keep chasing online FPS games that keep our players coming back!

Baldurs Gate III (2023)

If you want to talk about games that really keep players coming back, Baldurs Gate III is a prime example of how to do it well. Its not through rigged lootbox systems or psychological manipulation. Larian Studios spent years not only building the game, but refining it through early access with a dedicated playerbase. And within that time, they created a massive adventure with actually unique dialogue options, actually unique side quests that make every campaign feel different, and actually different endings that make you want to play the game again for a different conclusion. On top of that, Larian did not hold its staff to meeting shareholders expectations nor did they expect staff to work overtime to meet unrealistic expectations, practices that CEO Swen Vincke called out the AAA industry for at the 2024 Game Awards. He even gave some secrets on how to make a Game Of The Year, secrets that one of Sonys own studios followed in 2024.

Astro Bot (2024)

In the wake of Sonys disastrous Concord, an online FPS born from Sonys own live service fantasies, the corporates own Japanese studio, Team Asobi, launched the 3D platformer known as Astro Bot. The games reveal in May 2024 was a shock to everyone, too. A Triple-A game company making a 3D platformer? The only ones who do that are Nintendo! Indeed, it was the most anti-AAA game that a AAA company like Sony could ever fund and publish, and to almost nobodys surprise, it did very well in its first few months. Astro Bot has sold roughly two million copies at the time of this video, and while those numbers arent super impressive, it swept up awards like crazy across numerous outlets. Thats pretty dang great for a game made by only sixty to seventy people! Why do we need teams of hundreds again?

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025)

If none of our previous entries expose some of the lies the AAA side of gaming has fed us, then Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 should be the prime piece of evidence that not everything weve been told is true. With a small team behind this, we received an RPG that incorporates unique ideas in its combat mechanics, tells a touching and somber story about age, and boasts insanely detailed and refined visual fidelity in texture and animations to the same degree as your average Call of Duty or NBA 2K. On top of that, Sandfall Interactive and Kepler Interactive deliver a 40-hour adventure at fifty bucks. Now, we would love to hear the new excuses as to why we need near-decade-long development cycles, why we need headcounts of thousands of people for one game, why we need to burn hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing, and why video game prices need to be pushing a hundred dollars now. Well be here waitingright after another playthrough of Expedition 33.

Which of these games do you think defies all the standards AAA gaming has for itself? Let us know down in the comments, and dont forget to subscribe to MojoPlays for more great videos everyday!