Surprise! Infinity Blade has made a lot of money. The other afternoon, Epic Games announced that, overall, the franchise has earned $30 million since the debut of the original Infinity Blade [$5.99] in December 2010. An astounding $5 million of that comes from the earnings of Infinity Blade 2 [$6.99], which released November 30th, 2011. A month or so ago.

Here’s some boilerplate for your eyeholes:

“The success of the Infinity Blade franchise is testament to our talented team who is devoted to making games we want to play, all while using Unreal Engine technology to redefine what is expected from games on iOS devices,” Epic Games President Dr. Michael Capps says in a statement. “We have so much more in store for players, and will continue to make great content for Apple’s evolving platforms.”

The thing to take away from this isn’t exactly “wow, that’s a lot of money." Nah, it’s that big-budget, AAA-quality releases on the App Store can make money. Not everything needs to be $.99 and require a razor-thin development budget to see ridiculous returns. Also, there’s a significant audience out there who wants to play great, deep games with superb visuals — and for us, that’s the most heartening news.