Major Nelson released a list of the top 20 Xbox Live Indie Games more than three weeks ago, but self-reported sales data from the creator community puts the first full year of the service in greater focus.
While full numbers for sales, trial downloads and revenue are not available for all titles, the developers of some of the top 20 titles report (in posts to this forum thread) making between $21,000 and $129,500, and seeing trial downloads converted to full sales at rates ranging between 11 percent and 26 percent. Top seller I MAED A GAME W1TH ZOMB1ES!!!1 reported 160,000 downloads, which translates to about $112,000 after Microsoft's cut of the $1 price.
On the other hand, Avatar Drop, a $1 amusement that finished a strong second, only converted 117,000 of 433,000 downloads. On the Indie channel, trials are limited to 8 minutes before a player must pay to unlock the full version.
Avatar Golf, the Sports Indie Game of the Year, reported 259,000 trials but no sales figures. Other notable games profiled by Kotaku, like Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 and Rumble Massage, didn't divulge any data in the community thread. Developers of games outside the Top 20 reported making between $500 and $17,500 on games priced between $1 and $5.
GamerBytes did a full collation of the reported data, with its own analysis, available at the link below.
In-Depth: Xbox Live Indie Games Sales For 2009, Plus Some Perspective [GamerBytes]


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