Fallout Shelter is a massive success

[JoshuaHem]

Just ahead of E3, Bethesda dropped a bombshell on the gaming world: Fallout 4 was officially announced. Fallout fans around the world rejoiced, eagerly anticipating the latest installment in a game series that captured their hearts and minds for hours and hours at a time. As Bethesda attempted to sate fan hunger for post-apocalyptic action in their first conference at E3, they announced the release of a companion game for iOS: Fallout Shelter.

Fallout Shelter is a free-to-play game with microtransactions, though without the cooldown timers endemic to the genre. In it, the player manages a Vault from the series, going through various management tasks such as resource collection, base building, defense, etc.

Fallout Shelter puts a twist on the Freemium model, allowing players to play as much as they want with no restrictions. Microtransactions only allow players to purchase "lunch boxes," the Fallout equivalent of a treasure chest, which are regular and random rewards for gameplay. In effect, the game is completely playable in a reasonable time without paying money.

And yet the desire for random loot rewards is insatiable. As CNET notes, Fallout Shelter was the third-highest grossing app on the iTunes App store on June 16 and 17, beating out Candy Crush. The only titles grossing higher were Clash of Clans and Game of War: Fire Age.

Bethesda appears to have opened a goldmine early. Player response to Fallout Shelter is positive, both in the critical and monetary sense. To the dismay of many, Bethesda announced on Twitter that the Android version of the game would likely be out within a few months.

Yes, we're also working on Fallout Shelter for Android. Hopefully out in a few months.

— BethesdaGameStudios (@BethesdaStudios) June 16, 2015

More and more video game series and titles are receiving companion apps. Some are simply utilities, others are minigames, and still others are cut-down ports. Not all apps are well received, but as time marches on developers and publishers are finding success more common on mobile platforms.

With Bethesda's success and even gaming giant Nintendo turning eyes toward mobile, the future landscape of video gaming is changing. To those developers adept enough to adapt, that landscape seems very profitable as well.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/61059-fallout-shelter-game-massive-success.html

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

"Fallout Shelter is a massive success"
I can imagine in the wake of a nuclear catastrophe a "Fallout Shelter" would be what the doctor ordered... as for the game itself, I dunno, it doesn't strike me as the type of game I'd play so I'll just wait for Batman.

 

[Tibeardius]

Can't wait for this to hit Android. Pretty disappointed that they staggered the release.

 

[Burty117]

I like it but seems pretty damn buggy, it crashes all the time on both mine and my Girlfriend's iPads. Which is quite annoying and it's quite a lot as well, I'm talking every 15 minutes or so!

 

[syraphx]

I'm glad I had a spare iPhone from the job that I use offline to play this game. Can't wait for the droid version.
I don't totally agree with the statement that it let you play as much as you wants, since there is alot of downtime waiting for stuff to happen. Once you've rushed all your facilities a few time, there isn't much to do.

The game never crashed on me so far.
Since it's a goldmine, they will most likely improve the game somehow. The best thing about this game is that you can play offline.

 

[Skewed Input]

It's clearly not a massive success if you didn't create the game for the majority of smartphone users.

Globally android holds nearly 80% of the smartphone market share. Yet you just made a game for less than a quarter of that share.

 

[Hexic]

It's clearly not a massive success if you didn't create the game for the majority of smartphone users.

Globally android holds nearly 80% of the smartphone market share. Yet you just made a game for less than a quarter of that share.

This ^

/isDissapoint

 

[Adhmuz]

It's clearly not a massive success if you didn't create the game for the majority of smartphone users.

Globally android holds nearly 80% of the smartphone market share. Yet you just made a game for less than a quarter of that share.

That's what happens when Apple pays for early access or availability. The majority of the population gets screwed.

 

[davislane1]

It's clearly not a massive success if you didn't create the game for the majority of smartphone users.

Globally android holds nearly 80% of the smartphone market share. Yet you just made a game for less than a quarter of that share.

Bethesda releases game on iOS.

Bethesda fans with iPhones/iPads download said game en masse.

App becomes third highest grossing app in App Store.

Not a massive success because Android market share.

Revive logic for 500 caps?

 

[tonylukac]

Why don't they build homeliss shelters saying they're fallout shelters. Did you know they built the interswtates say we need to escape fom nuclear holocost?

 

[theruck]

The game is buggy, slow, has troubles with controls and gets on nerves after half a day of playing. it is another version of farmville!

 

[Skewed Input]

Bethesda releases game on iOS.

Bethesda fans with iPhones/iPads download said game en masse.

App becomes third highest grossing app in App Store.

Not a massive success because Android market share.

Revive logic for 500 caps?

Children who see cute game with cool pictures download said game en masse.

Apps become high in grossing due to automated downloads as well (Read into why Flappy Bird became popular in the first place) 26k reviews trumping nearly the entire top 10 free games? Sound a little fishy to you?

Not a massive success because you're still not even near the global market shares majority figures.

Replace ignorance for free, please.

 

[davislane1]

Fallout Shelter serves two purposes:

1. Generate revenue via micro transactions (lunch boxes)
2. Increase the exposure of the Fallout franchise

In less than one week the app has accomplished these two objectives in spades, according to the article.

Not a massive success because you're still not even near the global market shares majority figures.

This is fundamentally wrong. The success of a product is measured by the difference between its actual and targeted ROI. Global market share only becomes a part of that when a product is being used to strategically place the company against a significant competitor. Last I checked, Bethesda wasn't trying to take over the mobile market for post-nuclear apocalypse Sims knockoffs. They're after brand exposure, which being on the front page of the App Store and grossing top lists achieves.

 

[NeurotechHD]

It's clearly not a massive success if you didn't create the game for the majority of smartphone users.

Globally android holds nearly 80% of the smartphone market share. Yet you just made a game for less than a quarter of that share.

Android holds 80% of the market because they flooded the marked with cheap crap, and the platform is fractured to bits. Apple is the most stable platform to develop for, plus Android users are all pirates and hardly any of them pay for their apps. So put that in your pipe.

 

[NeurotechHD]

This is a great little game - I check my vault like once an hour to see how my little people are doing. Sweet, sweet Bittercup.

Really the only problem I have is that the game was apparently made for tablets, so on my iPhone 6 it can be really difficult to tap directly on a dweller, and you'll be doing a LOT of that.

Other than that, there needs to be a few tweaks to the way information is displayed. You can see the player's stats, or the time to their next level, but not both at the same time. It would have been nicer if the entire left half of the screen contained every stat on that dweller at one glance.

I'm up to 70 dwellers now and it's becoming a chore to keep track of them, and if you put a power weapon on one of them and have moved them around, you either need to rename them to "Sniper Jones" or dress them in something that is easy to spot. My next mission, when I'm not feeling so lazy, is to name them depending on their importance. My top characters will get names like, Aa, Ab, Ac, Ba, Bb, etc. in order to keep them at the top of the list.

 

[Guest]

I would rather pay $5 on steam to play it then use a phone especially a ****ing apple