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Minecraft earned $350,000 in a single day
As it turns out, the server troubles experienced by Minecraft last week -- which led to an impromptu free-to-play weekend -- might have served as a perfect marketing technique for the indie world-building title. When combined with exposure from Penny Arcade, this free weekend apparently served to make its players hungry for a legit version of the game. According to a Minecraft sales-tracking site, the game was purchased 25,936 times within the 24-hour period after it came back online last Wednesday, netting its creator, Markus Persson, somewhere in the neighborhood of $350,000.
The game's sales dropped off a bit since the servers' revival, but have remained significantly higher than before the free-to-play weekend. That's a whole, whole lot of money -- but nothing compared to the paychecks the game's players have lost due to sinking entire lifetimes into their DIY projects. We just want to redo our palace's marble floors, finish the diamond tower and dam up this lake, and then we're done. We mean it this time!
