Look there should be definitely difference between a medium game or a large/AAA game besides the cost. I have some ideas to make the difference: For large games, have multiple people working on a topic instead of just one (like a medium game). For a AAA game, you could have the ability to enlist help or make a publishing deal of the game. What’s your ideas?
I vote for a multiple plattform support for triple A games, because it’s a aim of them. That needs a feature to make game ports or to develope an engine with multiple plattform support. Maybe it’s easier to implement an outsourcing feature for ports to publish a triple A game at once on multi plattforms. But that should increase the developement time slightly, because the outsourced ressources can not have the same skills than the own ressources. And the bug count / testing time should increase in this case, because of skill differences and communication problems between teams. On the other hand multiple plattform support is an easy accessible feature for small games too today, see GDT. But maybe the colloboration idea for triple A is still a good one. Or a solution to scale the feature for ports is to make simple ports (engine features), e.g. with limited features, available for low budget games and increase the port quality up to AAA games, with full feature support. This might make ports more unattractive for small budget games, because the games wouldn’t get the same (high) rating than the original, or the cheap portable engine is limited in general in it’s features for all plattforms. The differences are costs too at the end, but the possibilities to set and get more money into/by a project are extended.
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The difference between medium, large and AAA is the amount of options you can put into your game. With a medium game if you add a lot of options your stats go down because you can’t compete with the work load. When you make a large game or a AAA game you can add more stuff without being tied down so much. Don’t know how many of you pay attention to the percentage amount above each option category but if you add to much and don’t put in the work load to implement those options your tech and design don’t reach as high. Also you spend more time on Large games and AAA games giving your more design and tech points. A large or AAA game needs more people as well. With a medium game I can make three people work with a large game I have to use at least two more people. AAA game you need the max amount of people to all focus on each part. Which is also why you have specialists in the game. So they can implement more features into the game. Also you have to keep people on certain stations through out the development time like the red bar you have to have someone with a high design or the blue bar has to have someone with a high tech. the green is high on both sides which is why the specialist stats for them are more in the middle then lopsided.
The diffrence between them is Options,Stress,Cost, And Time needed to make the title.