Minecraft clone FortressCraft declared fastest-selling XBLIG title

According to indie dev ProjectorGames, its Minecraft clone for Xbox 360 has become the new fastest-selling Xbox Live Indie Games title.

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Indie developer ProjectorGames has declared its Minecraft clone FortressCraft: Chapter 1 "the fastest selling Xbox Live Indie Game of all time," dethroning I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1 by Ska Studios.

Projector announced that FortressCraft sold 16,000 units on its April 8 launch day. It was the best-selling game across all of Xbox Live in Canada, taking second place in the UK and hitting the third spot in the USA.

Impressively, around 70% of those who played the trial version of FortressCraft during the first week went on to purchase the full game. Projector points out that the usual expected conversion rate for XBLIG titles is only about 5%. Of course, it helps when you're copying a game that's widely-known and has sold almost two million copies.

It's difficult to judge Xbox Live Indie Games sales objectively as Microsoft does not reveal figures, but many developers share their data publicly.

FortressCraft is available from Xbox Live Indie Games for 240 Microsoft Points ($3). The initial chapter focused on providing a simple multiplayer building environment, with more advanced features planned for later Chapters.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 18, 2011 7:00 AM

    Comment on Minecraft clone FortressCraft declared fastest-selling XBLIG title, by Alice O'Connor.

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      April 18, 2011 7:02 AM

      [deleted]

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        April 18, 2011 7:10 AM

        [deleted]

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        April 18, 2011 7:11 AM

        That's the joy of getting lawyers involved...if he bothered. Why should he come out looking like a dbag to the masses (as that's the public perception).

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        April 18, 2011 7:13 AM

        Is Minecraft a particular game? Or more a type of game?

        When Duke3D came out people weren't saying "I'm curious to know how id Software allowed another company to blatantly rip off DOOM and profit from it."

        Minecraft got beat to the XBLA market by this game, plain and simple

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        April 18, 2011 7:19 AM

        what makes you think Notch would have to "allow" this?

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          April 18, 2011 7:21 AM

          and whatever argument you provide, please also provide an explanation of how your argument applies to Minecraft but NOT to Infiniminer

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            April 18, 2011 7:39 AM

            In you're pointless little world, Megaman is the same as Mario because they're both platformers.

            FortressCraft is a complete rip. It even has bookcases.

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              April 18, 2011 7:40 AM

              lmao @ It even has bookcases.

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              April 18, 2011 7:41 AM

              you don't understand. it doesn't matter if FortressCraft is a complete rip. making clone software is totally legal and is practically The American Way(TM). many businesses are built on cloning software.

              my "pointless little world" is the real world that we live in. go google for the "look and feel" lawsuits of the 80s and how well (or, in this case, how poorly) they worked out

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                April 18, 2011 9:46 AM

                Well, to an extent. If you patent something in your software then no one can make something using it. Not that I agree with that but it's possible.

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                  April 18, 2011 9:51 AM

                  are you suggesting that Notch holds patents for algorithms used in Minecraft?

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                April 18, 2011 11:02 AM

                I used to be very interested in this because I made a few iphone games that were basically tetris attack and was a bit paranoid.

                There was one by those puzzloop guys that wanted to sue popcap for ripping off puzzloop with zuma, but that went nowhere. But there was another lawsuit by Sega on FOX for simpson's road rage similarity to crazy taxi. and I believe they settled. I wonder though if fox didn't settle and went to court if Sega had a case.

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                  April 18, 2011 11:22 AM

                  Tetris in particular is touchy; The Tetris Company is a big nuisance and tends to send out Cease & Desist letters regardless of whether the claimed violation would hold up in court. if they send the C&D to Apple instead of you directly, Apple will probably just yank your app from the store

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              April 18, 2011 8:26 AM

              amazing

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        April 18, 2011 7:22 AM

        Minecraft is itself a clone of another game. There's nothing wrong with cloning games, especially when the original implementation kinda sucks.

        I wish some of the people constantly whining about Notchs incompetence would just make a better implementation. The game is basically perfect to remake. There's no story and very little art. It's more of a simplistic simulation than a game.

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          April 18, 2011 7:26 AM

          What a load of shit. Lots of people have proposed that there's nothing to it, and never get further than copying the basic rendering engine. Much like this project. Somebody once said you can steal ideas, but you can't steal making it good, and I guarantee you're not going to find someone do it better than Mojang in a rush to make a buck.

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            April 18, 2011 7:35 AM

            Unlike minecraft, infiniminer actually sucked as a game. So yeah, you can sure as hell steal a concept and make it a hell of a lot more fun.

            And I'm not talking about the people who want to do this as easy money, but the people who *PLAY THE GAME* and yet can't stop complaining about Notchs incompetence because he uses a backwards way of storing the level etc. etc.

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            April 18, 2011 7:35 AM

            to be fair, most people purchased minecraft because they thought of all the possibilities of what it COULD become, and we are still waiting for that to pan out. . .

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              April 18, 2011 7:51 AM

              I definitely fall into this category. The updates were fast and hinted at more until the game hit it big.

            • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
              reply
              April 18, 2011 8:18 AM

              I bought it because you could mine, and you could craft, and there were exploding cactuseses.

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              April 18, 2011 8:41 AM

              to be fair, you just made that "statistic" up...

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                April 18, 2011 9:51 AM

                i didn't intend for it to be a statistic, just my perception of the whole shackhype of minecraft

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                  April 19, 2011 10:56 AM

                  This is the same as that "not intended to be a factual statement" line.

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                    April 20, 2011 7:40 AM

                    his perception of the shackhype (and subsequent diminishment thereof) is a lot more spot on than yours

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          April 18, 2011 8:05 AM

          Notch made something simple and made it (mostly) work. That's more than most can brag about.

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          April 18, 2011 5:40 PM

          Here you go: http://www.ace-spades.com/
          Still needs a lot of work, but it's coming along rather nicely. The voxel-usage is an especially nice touch.

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        April 18, 2011 8:02 AM

        What about all of those blatant Robotron ripoffs? Or the blatant Commando ripoffs (like Ikari Warriors)? Or the blatant ...was it Night Driver?...clones like Outrun and ... That one with the cops? Or the blatant Doom clones (especially the ones with shotguns!)? Or the blatant Pac Man clones like Lock n Chase? How about those Counter Strike clones? Call of Duty clones? Etc?

        • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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          April 18, 2011 8:53 AM

          You're not understanding his point.

          SOMEONE RIPPED OFF MINECRAFT!

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            April 18, 2011 8:56 AM

            Minecraft ripped off another game. Notch flat out admits that he borrowed his idea of another game and made it his own. This dude may very well do the same.

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              April 18, 2011 10:42 AM

              I'm wondering what this other game was called. OtherGameCraft?

            • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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              April 18, 2011 11:20 AM

              (Yes, I was being sarcastic)

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              April 18, 2011 11:44 AM

              Call of Duty outright ripped off of Medal Honor and I dont recall any credit being given to Dreamworks Interactive in the manual/copyright/credits

              Darkwatch was a reskinned Halo clone but no one cared.

              God, and don't even get me started on Gameloft and Popcap. Zuma didn't even try to be different from PuzzLoop.

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                April 18, 2011 1:32 PM

                Juuuuust going to throw this out there, but CoD was the vision Zampella had for MoH when he was DD for 2015 (the developers of MoH:AA). EA marketing types wanted the player to be a singular "hero" in the MoH games and not a part of a larger platoon or team, which is what eventually led Zampella and West to leave 2015/EA, form Infinity Ward, and develop CoD. It wasn't really a rip-off, but more of the vision of what the developers thought MoH should have been all along. When the marketing geniuses at EA said said they weren't interested in taking the game in that direction, Zampella and West basically said "F-you, we will go make our own then." And we all know how it turned-out for them, at least for a few years anyway...

                Oh EA, if you had just listened to your developers instead of your marketing folks once in awhile, you'd probably still be churning out crap, but the crap would sell enough for you to invest more in the new IP's to foster and make those better.

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                  April 18, 2011 1:46 PM

                  Just throwing it out there but 2015 didnt create medal of honor, they were creating a followup to an already successful series built on a strong focus on the individual characters and how their stories intertwined through the games.

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                    April 18, 2011 1:57 PM

                    Well, to be fair, I never stated that 2015 created MoH. I said they were the developers on MoH:AA, the franchise's debut on the PC (it had been a console title until that point). Was just trying to point out that CoD wasn't an outright rip-off of MoH but rather was the direction that developers had wanted to take MoH and were denied.

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          April 18, 2011 10:11 AM

          best answer.

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          April 18, 2011 1:58 PM

          Except FortressCraft does absolutely nothing different at all. It barely even tried to come up with a different name. And clones usually do suck, they're boring as shit, like this game is.

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        April 18, 2011 8:53 PM

        Uhm, you do know, Minecraft was also based off of something else... also read all these other comments.

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      April 18, 2011 7:03 AM

      [deleted]

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        April 18, 2011 8:02 AM

        I bet Lego is kicking themselves right now.

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          April 18, 2011 8:02 AM

          Blockland kicked ass back in the day

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          April 18, 2011 8:41 AM

          I'm sure Lego is too busy making loads of money from the Star Wars games.

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          April 18, 2011 11:49 PM

          What ever happened to Lego Universe? I wasn't too interested in it, but a totally sandbox, Lego MMO would rock! (if done right and no lame themepark crap)

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      April 18, 2011 7:17 AM

      Man high-resolution textures just look so weird to me in that kind of game.

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        April 18, 2011 8:50 AM

        [deleted]

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          April 18, 2011 9:00 AM

          Yeah I like the avatars, and high-res textures makes more sense with avatars and high-res object models.

          Maybe I'd like the blocks more if they were, say, chipped or had rounded / worn edges on exposed surfaces...? Whatever.

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        April 18, 2011 8:54 AM

        I agree, I went all out and installed the Misa 64 textures + shaders last week to try to play, but I ended up going back to default textures.

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      April 18, 2011 7:22 AM

      Someone needs to make a minecraft/Cubivore hybrid.

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      April 18, 2011 7:35 AM

      Infiniminer clone Minecraft clone FortressCraft declared fastest-selling XBLIG title,

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      April 18, 2011 7:55 AM

      [deleted]

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        April 18, 2011 8:00 AM

        Well... the problem is.. I don't think spheres stack quite as neatly.

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          April 18, 2011 8:00 AM

          [deleted]

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            April 18, 2011 8:20 AM

            into the ground.

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            April 18, 2011 9:47 AM

            I was mostly joking.. but seriously, once you add rounded edges and different shapes... destroying and creating things block by block gets a lot more complicated. There are a lot of other improvements which could be made to this and minecraft itself which would excite me a lot more than better graphics. I want to see boss baddies which are huge and take multiple people to take down. A more guided and game-like single player would be excellent as well.

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          April 18, 2011 9:35 AM

          Someone should make a 3d version of the old terrain-tiling techniques from the 16-bit era.

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      April 18, 2011 8:43 AM

      Didn't like it. It's purely creative mode. You have access to infinite blocks of all variety. They give you a pickaxe which is kind of a joke. You just highlight a block then add or subtract it. It has a weird matrix green fucked up effect when you remove some blocks or it's loading more landscape.

      I'm sure you can build some neat stuff, but I enjoy actually crafting and finding materials. Makes any structure a lot more special.

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        April 18, 2011 8:51 AM

        [deleted]

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        April 18, 2011 8:56 AM

        So basically Minecraft creative mode?

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          April 18, 2011 8:57 AM

          Yes, which gets boring pretty quick. Only there are hidden relics every time a level is created. Like a jetpack and other weird shit. If you find it, you have it permanently. Although I searched and didn't find anything on the ground. I doubt you have to dig as there's no actual cave system yet. Just some recesses.

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            April 18, 2011 11:52 PM

            Ugh really? That's no Minecraft clone.....

            More like Blahkland clone : /

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          April 18, 2011 9:49 AM

          Yup.. and I think mining with limited resources together with fear for your life a what pushed the game beyond a cool tech demo into something we could play for hundreds of hours (crafting giant penises...).

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      April 18, 2011 8:59 AM

      Are there monsters and such in this game?

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      April 18, 2011 9:03 AM

      This is not even close to worthy of dethroning IMaGWZiI. You sons of bitches.

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      April 18, 2011 10:13 AM

      I played it and its not that great to be honest. Quite broken.

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      April 18, 2011 11:37 AM

      Any comment on how the controls are? A controller would seem to be really bad in this case...

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      April 18, 2011 11:51 AM

      They've actually sold 58K units over the first 6 days:
      http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/28044/487426.aspx#487426

      However, I'm not sure where they got detailed sales figures for "I MAED A GAM3", which at last report had sold over 300K units, so their claim of "Fastest evarr!" should be taken with a grain of salt.

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      April 18, 2011 1:57 PM

      That's sad. There's so many other games on the X-Box indie store that deserve the money more. Hopefully it at least brings more attention to the store and people check out some of the other games.

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      April 18, 2011 5:54 PM

      i played the demo and it sucked terribly

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      April 20, 2011 7:41 AM

      Manic Digger is the only true clone

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