As you may know, two weeks ago marked the 2024 Game Developers Conference. A meeting of the minds within the games industry, this convention tends to foretell the next big trends of the fiscal year. This GDC was no different, though you may be surprised to hear the biggest draw of 2024: : AAAA games.

Coined by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot back in February when describing recent release Skull & Bones, a AAAA game not only stands higher than most in terms of quality and content, but it also deserves a $70 price point… or perhaps more.

When I attended the keynote on AAAA games at GDC – titled “From Citizen Kane to Citizen Game” – I never would expected to see so many developers onboard with this concept. What seemed like a silly Kotaku headline mere months ago had genuinely piqued the interests of mega gaming superstars like Phil Spencer, Hideo Kojima, and Ken Williams.

Picture it, all of these multimedia titans sitting in the same wood together, fawning over the fact that “if we put enough buzzwords into a video game, we can basically charge whatever we want!” I watched as they brought up ideas such as making the next Final Fantasy set in the Star Wars universe, to putting the entire cast of Glee into Fortnite. But perhaps the wildest thing was seeing Michael Bay get up on stage and announce a Twisted Metal reboot game starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

As I sat there, stunned, I started to realize what was happening. The world of video games turning into Hollywood before my very eyes. Game creators planning how they can drain the lifeblood of familiar intellectual properties and charge $70, hell, why not $90?! Some may call it the perfect crime, yet I came away feeling like this is the perfect plan.

But how does this make YOU feel? Are you excited for the future of video games in which Darren Aronofsky pens a new Uncharted trilogy, priced at nearly 100 bucks a piece? It may be closer than you think!

Note: I tried to catch up with Mr. Guillemot at GDC to comment on the movement he’s started, however he was extremely busy showing investors a build of Assassin’s Creed Nexus for the PlayStation Eye.