This copies a post by grailly on Reddit.
Most games have adopted popular RPG mechanics and it’s widely accepted that “everything’s an RPG now”. RPGs are also some of the biggest and most popular games around.
I’d argue that Puzzle Game mechanics (aka puzzles) are even more widespread than RPG mechanics throughout the media. However, Puzzle Games themselves are pretty niche and basically never get any big budget titles. This gets more surprising when realizing Puzzle Games are very popular; Tetris might just be the most recognizable video game, Portal (Portal 2 might be the only AAA puzzle game?!) is insanely beloved, wordle took the world by storm last year, sudoku and crosswords are still in the newspaper every day, Candy Crush…
Why do you think Puzzle Games are relegated to being indie or AA?
I thought about it a bit and came up with some unbaked responses which I hope you will add to:
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People want to kill stuff in AAA games. To which I answer, can’t we kill stuff in puzzle games?
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There’s little point to making Puzzle Games more expensive. Would having The Witness or Talos Principle pushed to AAA status make them any better?
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“Puzzle” is a recessive genre. Add anything to a puzzle game and they aren’t considered puzzle games anymore. So making a AAA Puzzle game will basically remove its Puzzle Game consideration. Puzzle + exploration = adventure. Puzzle + fighting = Action adventure. Puzzle + story = walking simulator, etc.
The answer is simple. Games are categorized as AAA when they’re built by large teams with large budgets at large companies. Puzzle games usually don’t require a team of hundreds of people and tens (or hundreds) of millions of dollars to produce. The gameplay and asset scope is tiny in comparison to a typical AAA game. Most games with puzzle elements that do end up getting made by AA and AAA studios (like Portal) have the puzzle aspect merged with some other genre (like FPS, in Portal’s case), and those other genres do require more resources to produce.