Why Did Bethesda Make Fallout Shelter, Here’s Five Million Reasons

Strategically stuffed into Bethesda’s highly anticipated E3 press conference where we’d hear our first concrete details on Fallout 4, was a mobile game Bethesda Game Studios had been working on.  Fallout Shelter, the mobile tie-in for Fallout 4, was revealed mid-way through Todd Howard’s incredible all-encompassing first look at their new RPG.  Turns out that was a pretty smart move.

Fallout Shelter has made over five million dollars in its first two weeks on the iOS App Store, according to Super Data via Games Radar.   Apparently this move generated enough buzz to make this much money on a game that is advertised as entirely free to play.  At launch, the free-to-play title outgrossed iOS mainstays like Clash of Clans and Candy Crush.

So what are they making all that money on?    There are no paywall timers, and the only thing you can purchase in the game are lunch boxes which contain different items that can help in managing your vault.  This includes weapons, outfits, in-game currency, and new dwellers.  That said, these lunch boxes can also be earned in-game, so the purchases are definitely optional.  Fallout Shelter doesn’t have that stench of greed that many so called free-to-play titles do.

Bethesda’s success in the space is certainly promising when we see a free-to-play landscape that is packed with divisive titles.  Hopefully they don’t give up on making the RPG that spawned this massive success, and maybe we’ll see others taking a note from their book.