he games expected to be GotY contenders would be marked AAA, AA for otherwise decent games, A for more niche games and B for “this is a starshot, we’re hoping it will sell enough to justify production costs”.

Is there any evidence of this being the case? Personally, I don’t remember anything other than “AAA” back in the day, with other variations coming about much later as budgets grew and people wanted more specific delineations.