{"id":31475,"date":"2012-01-26T12:44:04","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T10:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=31475"},"modified":"2012-01-26T12:57:28","modified_gmt":"2012-01-26T10:57:28","slug":"xbox-live-arcade-banked-144-million-in-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/31475-xbox-live-arcade-banked-144-million-in-2011","title":{"rendered":"Xbox LIVE Arcade banked $144 million in 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in the olden days, times of economic crisis were usually associated with corresponding increases in sexual activity and birth rates. Now, apparently people play more video games, which is a good thing because girls and boys have cooties and the planet is totally over-populated anyway.<\/p>\n

According to market research firm Forecasting and Analyzing Digital Entertainment (FADE), the Xbox LIVE Arcade service saw an 18 percent growth in 2011, with record-breaking revenues of over US$144 million for Microsoft.<\/p>\n

Sitting at the top of the pile, appropriately enough, is Ubisoft and Eric Chahi’s god \/ killer volcano sim, From Dust, which sold 308,000 copies and cashed in around $4.6 million.<\/p>\n

\"\"

From Dust screenshot<\/p><\/div>\n

Maybe more impressive than that even, and sitting right next to From Dust, is Behemoth’s Castle Crashers – with 335,000 copies sold and $4.6 million in the bank, three years after its launch.<\/p>\n

To date, the game has sold over 2 million copies on XBLA and PSN, making it the biggest downloadable console game ever.<\/p>\n

“Downloadable formats have proven that every genre can succeed, when users are met with quality content at a favorable price point” said Benjamin Schlichter, Director of Research & Analysis at FADE.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Castle Crashers screenshot<\/p><\/div>\n

The top ten by units sold for 2011<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Full House Poker (Microsoft Game Studios) – 375,000 Units \/ $3.6 million<\/li>\n
  2. Castle Crashers (The Behemoth) – 335,000 Units \/ $4.6 million<\/li>\n
  3. Fruit Ninja Kinect (Halfbrick Studios) – 324,000 Units \/ $3.2 million<\/li>\n
  4. From Dust (Ubisoft) – 308,000 Units \/ $4.6 million<\/li>\n
  5. Trials HD (RedLynx, LTD) – 286,000 Units \/ $4.0 million<\/li>\n
  6. Magic: The Gathering (Stainless Games) – 278,000 Units \/ $2.7 million<\/li>\n
  7. Torchlight (Runic Games) – 272,000 Units \/ $4.0 million<\/li>\n
  8. Toy Soldiers: Cold War (Signal Studios) – 241,000 Units \/ $3.6 million<\/li>\n
  9. Bastion (Supergiant Games) – 241,000 Units \/ $3.6 Million<\/li>\n
  10. Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale (Bedlam Games) – 210,000 Units \/ $2.8 million<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Related review<\/h3>\n

    From Dust review (Xbox 360)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    From Dust is the best earning title of 2011; Castle Crashers is still making heaps of cash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":28861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[31,2143,1371,1933],"class_list":["post-31475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-xbox","tag-active","tag-castle-crashers","tag-from-dust","tag-xbox-live-arcade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31482,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31475\/revisions\/31482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}