Adam Sawkins never expected FortressCraft to be a success. His studio, Projector Games, previously worked on ten other Xbox Live Indie games, with one selling less than 150 copies. He expected modest success when he launched FortressCraft, but began working on his next game in case it didn't catch on. Much to his surprise, FortressCraft exploded.

In less than six months, the title has sold over 500,000 copies. The game costs 240 Microsoft Points ($3), and even with Microsoft taking a third of those profits, that's well over a million dollars in revenue. The title is the highest-grossing Xbox Live Indie Game to date, and has been the number one Indie Game for 20 of its 23 weeks of availability."We've rewritten the rules of how Indie games sell," Sawkins told us in an exclusive interview. "Indie games are usually about being the new game on the market, being the new sequel, but we've broken that system."When Sawkins says "we," he's not talking about a large team. While the development team stretched to England, Holland, and the US, it consisted of only eight people at its largest point, and the game's only budget was $10 spent to set up the official website "I talked a bunch of friends into helping," Sawkins said. "Basically, I talked a friend from work into doing it, talked another friend into doing textures. A 17 year old kid from Brighton did our 3D modeling. He's starting college. He doesn't do this professionally."Thanks to his percentage, that 17-year-old will be making $40,000 from his share of the game. Numbers like that have helped Sawkins realize exactly how big FortressCraft has become."It hit me when I was talking to our shader," he said. "He got 10% of sales, which is six figures. Our sound effects guy gets 5%. It makes these the most expensive sound effects in the world, it turns out."That level of success has brought the game a huge amount of attention—most notably in the form of Minecraft comparisons. The game has been compared to Minecraft since its launch, and even Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson joined in, telling Ars Technica that "FortressCraft is an obvious attempt to just take something popular and clone it as closely as possible.""The Notch Defense Force said things like 'you even stole the name,' but the actual gameplay is nothing like Minecraft," Sawkins said.When asked if the upcoming Xbox 360 release of Minecraft would affect FortressCraft's sales, Sawkins was doubtful."Minecraft has been squeezed out of its own market," he said. "It might do well on the name alone, but if you want sexy graphics and shaders and the creative aspect, you have FortressCraft. If you want to fight monsters and share stuff with your friends, you have Total Miner. Nobody will pay for Minecraft when they can pay $3.00 for Total Miner or FortressCraft."As for the future of FortressCraft, Sawkins is optimistic that there's a place for it on other platforms."PS3, I would love," Sawkins said, "and we have a PC version ready. We're talking to digital distribution platforms."For now, Sawkins will be content to just receive the money he's owed. The developer has yet to see a cent of the game's massive profits, thanks in part to Projector Games being based out of the UK."Microsoft is an American company, so we had to jump through hoops to set up the company, get paid in the right currency, and not get hit with taxes," Sawkins said. "I just want to sit around and write code, not worry about the IRS."FortressCraft is currently available on Xbox Live. Follow the game's official twitter account for the latest news on added content and features.