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Xbox Live indie games earn six figures

More than just a home for prototypes?

Dark blue icons of video game controllers on a light blue background
Image credit: Eurogamer

Despite cries of "woeful" marketing and a service that's "not financially viable", developers are making decent money on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel.

The teams themselves reported revenues ranging between $21,000 (£13,000) and $129,500 (£80,200), and revealed a strong rate of converts from trial to full-game purchase.

GamerBytes deduced that best seller "I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES 1NIT!!!1", which has been downloaded 160,000 times, made around $112,000 (£69,366) after Microsoft's cut. Avatar Drop and RC-AirSim were the second and third best sellers in 2009, but only converted a small number of their 400,000-plus trial users.

Avatar Drop made $81,900 (£50,714) and RC-AirSim made $129,000 (£79,880).

Titles outside of the top 20 best-seller list made a lot less, taking home between $500 (£310) and $17,500 (£10,835).

Today, the list of best-selling Xbox Live Indie Games has two new leaders: The Impossible Game and Soul. Have you played them? Are they good? Do let us know! We won't laugh.

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