Published on December 7th, 2011 | by Dan

Terraria Shows the Power of Indie

Terraria is the 2D Minecraft type game that has been an indie phenomenon. Recently it was only $2.50 on Steam (currently $9.99). This means many people purchased it, even if they weren’t going to play it, as it goes with Steam sales.

But then a strange thing happened. They did play it. And kept playing it.

Now it looks like Terraria has been fighting Modern Warfare 3 for the second spot on Steam since that sale with close to 60,000 concurrent players. Skyrim boasts first place by quite a bit. Terraria has faded off a bit in the last 24 hours but this is still an amazing accomplishment considering what they are up against. Consider Terraria has really no publicity beyond word of mouth, whereas Modern Warfare 3 has a multi-million dollar ad campaign with famous actors in it. This just goes to show what word of mouth and a great product can do. Obviously Activision will make more money, but really, who made the better product?

Indie games and free-to-play are something that are very important to the PC gaming world. They make the platform attractive with cheap prices and great game play. Kudos to the developers of Terraria for making a great game that speaks for itself and loudly at that. Sometimes if you do things right you don’t need all the fluff to get your name out there.

Source: MaximumPC – Terraria Nearly Dethrones Modern Warfare 3 on Steam

Tags: minecraft, mw3, sandbox, steam, terraria