What makes a game  AAA exactly?

Top level sized budget.  It's not a grading system of quality to my understanding.

High budget.

Some will argue "high quality game with a huge budget" but money doesn't always equal greatness.

However, the kicker is that games WITH a high budget have less restrictions. They have a wealth of staff, they can afford the most talent and they can innovate a lot more.

Neverwinter Online is the best example of a title that isn't AAA - and frankly from the graphics and general things they've had to exclude, you can tell it's not gonna be a big hitter in the industry.

That's not to say indie companies aren't doing a lot of great things - it's just  when it comes to MMOs that is the exception and not the standard.

so its just a budget thing.

The truly groundbreaking games in history had little to no budget, they were made by a couble guys in a basement.

That's because games didn't have big budgets until basically the late 90s - of course the 'groundbreaking' titles were made with small budgets. Hell, games made in the 1980s didn't even have QA teams; the developers did all the QA work themselves and often released steaming heaps for games.

It was a flourishing time in the games industry where there was a very "anything goes" mentality. It was also a time for innovation because concepts and genres were still basically emerging.

Sure, Doom and Quake were revolutionary games but it's not like ID have enjoyed continued success since then.

These days.. well, genres are pretty set in their ways. The only real innovative titles to spawn as of late are DayZ and Minecraft and they haven't exactly sky rocketed into staple genres of the industry.

As others have said, "AAA" corresponds to production values and polish, which usually corresponds to money. The "AAA" game market is owned by big name publishers, Vivendi, Microsoft, and others.

EVERY ground-breaking game was made by a garage-shop operation or a "few guys in their basement" as was stated earlier. Publishers don't make games, they own the distribution channel.

If a bunch of guys create the BEST game in the world, EVER, in their basement; they can't just call up Best Buy or Gamestop and expect them to provide shelf space for the game. They have to go to a publisher. Whether you're selling canned vegetables, music CDs, or video games, you have to LEASE shelf space from the retailer. The more shelf space you lease, the more titles you can display. Eye-level shelf space will cost you a bit more than knee-level shelf space. Oh, and one more thing, if you want a cardboard display of Diablo or Master Chief, you'll have to LEASE the floor space for that as well.

This is one of the benefits of the Internet and social media. It allow independent artists and developers to get around the publishers and retail outlets. It is still in its infancy though.