Players Purchased $5.1 Million's Worth Of Lunchboxes In Fallout Shelter

[compl3x]

Bethesda's Fallout-themed simulation of post-apocalyptic life in a vault is raking in a lot of bottle caps. The free-to-play Fallout Shelter made $5.1 million for Bethesda in the first two weeks of its release.

 

Bethesda first announced Fallout Shelter a month ago during E3 2015. The reveal of the game came as a surprise to fans, as did news that it would be available on Apple's App Store the same day.

 

The game lets players manage their vault dwellers offline and purchase lunchboxes filled with useful goodies via microtransactions if they choose. The game quickly soared to the top of the App Store.

 

Apparently, enough players have decided to pony up enough pre-war money to help Bethesda earn over $5 million dollars, and that's just the last half of June.

 

Android users will be able to step into the shoes of a busy Overseer when it hits next month. You can read our review of the game here.

 

[source: SuperData via IGN]

Our Take
Bethesda's release of Fallout Shelter during E3 may have been a surprise, but the sustaining buzz around the game since the show makes today's news of profitability less shocking. Fallout Shelter won the respect of fans thanks to its unobtrusive free-to-play model; players can play the game consistently without out being interrupted by obvious, insidious paywalls. The mobile title isn't my cup of tea (or Nuka-Cola), but I'm happy to see Bethesda's foray into the mobile space has paid off.

 

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2015/07/16/players-purchased-_2400_5.1-millions-worth-of-lunchboxes-in-fallout-shelter-in-two-weeks.aspx

[FunkyMike]

[jnelsoninjax]

How much is a lunchbox selling for? 5 Million in a month?! That's just crazy, but how many of them will be 'accidental' purchases?

[trag3dy]

How much is a lunchbox selling for? 5 Million in a month?! That's just crazy, but how many of them will be 'accidental' purchases?

 

Well I was watching a streamer buy some, they intended to get 40 but accidentally got 80 instead. They made it really easy to over purchase apparently.

 

Also from watching that same streamer buying a lot of the boxes pretty much breaks the game and makes it pointless to even play.

[123456789A]

I'm confused. Are these actual lunchboxes with food in them or is it some Farmville thing?

[perochan]

Crazy people out there. The game was fun and I played the games for like couple weeks and got bored, VERY repetitive and deleted.

I'm confused. Are these actual lunchboxes with food in them or is it some Farmville thing?

 

Farmville thing. No real lunchboxes here...

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

A fool and his money...

[statm1]

I've played it since it came out but paying-to-win is not very fun. There are enough ways to get lunchboxes for free that the only reason to pay for them is impatience. For those who don't know, lunchboxes come with 4 cards in them that either give you food, money(caps), water, outfits, rare/legendary dwellers, and weapons. They are in some cases the only way to get the rare/legendary weapons, dwellers, and outfits. I plan to play until I have earned all the different rooms. Maybe if they updated it with new things to do, ill come back afterwards.

[Gnome]

Fallout 3 had a mod that turned one of the buildings in to a brothel/strip club with dancing girls and a Motley Crue soundtrack.  Does that mod work with the mobile version?

[Buttus]

i wonder if they'll make as much now on the android version, since everyone sees that buying the lunchboxes hurts the game

[LaP]

Anybody got a quadruple facepalm picture?

[Osiris]

I don't know why anyone is surprised people hand over money so much easier on their phones and via apps...like a lot of things this represents a unique opportunity, seems clear to me we need to build an app for homeless people or arm them with wireless payment technology, problem solved!

 

Now if you will excuse me I'm off to brood some more about no WP version.

[Xerxes]

Not surprised at all. People are so impatient these days, they will readily pay money to get something now that wait for it. I have the game on my iPad mini and love it, haven't spent a cent mind you, but it's highly addictive and fun perfect game to play off and on in spare moments

[compl3x]

Initially, I was worried that you'd have to buy those lunchboxes to make any real progress but you can get along without buying them. The problem is there is no real end-game. Once you build everything and have everything running well, you train your dwellers and then it is just management. I hope they add new stuff. New rooms, new upgrades etc.

[neo1911]

I deleted that game once I realized that it is a never ending grind to a non-finish. It is worse than Farmville.

 

You can never have enough of anything. If you over-collect some resource, the game adjusts requirements that you are always short of it by the end of the day. Farmville 2 works on the same principle.

 

I will write one particular shameful incidence which happened to me.

 

My mom loves to play Famville 2.

 

She wanted to buy Farmbucks which was on offer 650 Farmbucks for $5. So I paid using my own credit card for her. But the game quickly adjusted and within 5 mins all her 650 Farmbucks were used up. So she begged me to use the same $5 offer to get her another 650 Farmbucks one last time. So I clicked on the same offer. and proceeded to make the payment. But when I got a txt message from my card provider, I was charged $102.

 

Tried contacting Zynga but nothing helped. Hard lesson learnt.

 

These Freemium games cannot get any penny from me no matter how hard they try.

 

 

:)