Major Nelson reveals list of top XBLIG purchases for 2011, and it’s quite crafty

While we’re busy creating a list for our favorite Xbox Live Indie Games of 2011, Major Nelson presented his own on his blog yesterday, showing the most purchased games of the year. After a quick browse of the top 20, three themes appear prominent: Minecraft, zombies, and avatars. Surprised?

Considering the success of Minecraft last year, it should be no surprise that five of the top ten purchases are creative offshoots (with FortressCraft Chapter 1 and Total Miner: Forge in the first and second slots, respectively). In addition, it appears that shooting zombies is still a worthwhile pursuit with games like I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1, Zombie Estate, and The $1 Zombie Game scattered through the list. And of course, no top XBLIG list is complete without the obligatory avatar games. What are this year’s poisons? It’s paintball,  RPGs, laser wars, kart racing, and falling down.

If you’re tired of reading an rudimentary analysis of the list, I won’t keep you anymore. Here it is:

  1. FortressCraft Chapter 1
  2. Total Miner: Forge
  3. The Impossible Game
  4. Avatar Paintball
  5. Toy Stunt Bike
  6. CastleMiner Z
  7. I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1
  8. Avatar Legends
  9. CastleMiner
  10. Miner Dig Deep
  11. Avatar Laser Wars
  12. Bird Assassin
  13. Voice Changer 360
  14. Nuclear Wasteland
  15. Avatar Karting
  16. Zombie Estate
  17. Avatar Drop
  18. Baby Maker Extreme 2
  19. College Lacrosse 2011
  20. The $1 Zombie Game

By at .

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Dylan Martin in XBLIG News
  • http://twitter.com/AlanWithTea Alan

    Wow, people have terrible taste.

  • http://www.armlessoctopus.com Mike Wall

    Probably about half of those games would have been in the list for top selling of 2010 too. 

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OFBYGPE2GE32KBDCSDOMUBJLLQ Viscious / Smiley

    I bet it has something to do with the vicious cycle of people confusing the most downloaded (popular) games for “Great” games. Self perpetuating & neverending. I also blame the little kids that buy anything.

  • http://www.armlessoctopus.com Mike Wall

    The Top Download section is definitely a perpetual cycle. If you don’t get a ton of downloads during your first few days, you generally slide away into oblivion…

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=661705495 Gabriel Reiser

    I can attest to that… My game Alchemist was released when the Top list was bugged and frozen and I was NOT allowed to resubmit it for placement in the “New” list… Because of that, my game was insta-buried.