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2009's Highest Grossing Xbox Live Indie Games

Tom Ivan's picture

By Tom Ivan

January 26, 2010

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While some developers have questioned the financial viability of making Xbox Live Indie Games, new sales figures for the service’s biggest titles of 2009 add fresh perspective to the debate.

Earlier this month Microsoft released a list of 2009’s most popular Xbox Live content, including Indie Games. A recent post on the XNA forums (via GamerBytes) has revealed detailed sales data for many of those games, including the number of times they were downloaded, the conversion percentage from trial to full sale, and the money made by their developers, who received 70 per cent of total sales, with Microsoft taking the remainder.

Looking at the top 20 games on the service last year, revenues ranged between $21,700 (£13,370) and $129,500 (£80,000), with conversion rates between trial and full purchases ranging from 11 per cent to 27.02 per cent.

The most popular title, I MAED GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES 1NIT!!!1, sold 160,000 copies at $1, netting the developer $112,000 (£69,000). Avatar Drop and RC-AirSim placed second and third in terms of total sales, making their respective developers $81,900 (£50,455) and $129,500 (£80,000).

grognard66's picture
On January 27th grognard66 said:

Not bad, considering most of the offerings are by people looking to break into the industry or simply hobbyists. This gives them something to put on their resume with the added bonus of making a little money while waiting to land a permanent position with a developer.

Tom Ivan's picture
On January 26th Tom Ivan said:

Hi Wojtek. Third placed RC-AriSim sold less than half as many copies as GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES but was three times more expensive, hence it generated more money. Perhaps I should have made the pricing clearer - you can check out all the info in a handy table here: http://www.gamerbytes.com/2010/01/indepth_xbox_live_indie_games.php

Wojtek's picture
On January 26th Wojtek said:

Am I missing something or are the numbers wrong? By revenue:
1. I MAED GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES 1NIT!!!1 $112,000
2. Avatar Drop $81,900
3. RC-AriSim $129,000

Are the revenue numbers for #1 and #3 reversed?

Verbal_Oz's picture
On January 26th Verbal_Oz said:

I'm not entirely sure but I think the list is ordered by most copies sold whilst the revenue is dependent on the actual cost of each game, so RC-AirSim may have sold less copies but been priced higher and so generated more revenue. That's my guess anyway.

Edit: Oops - Tom beat me to it with a more detailed explanation :)