Author: Trafficblast

Free games can make a lot of money.

Bethesda’s popular free-to-play mobile title Fallout Shelter has now brought in more than $90 million from its microtransactions across iOS and Google Play, according to a new report. Research company SensorTower (via Gamasutra) says the first Fallout mobile game has now made $93 million from the sale of its “lunch boxes” and other items that players can buy with real money.

The firm also stated that Fallout Shelter microtransaction revenue was around $212,000 on June 15 this year, which marks the highest single-day since September 14, 2015 (~$237,000). The revenue was almost evenly distributed between iOS (49%) and Google Play (51%). It was also estimated that 59 percent of Fallout Shelter’s revenue has come from the US.

If Fallout Shelter can hold its current revenue patterns, it could reach $100 million by the end of the year. The game reached 100 million downloads in September of last year.

The $93 million revenue figure only applies to Fallout Shelter’s iOS and Android versions. The game is also available on PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4, so the title has surely made much more than $93 million when all platforms are combined.

Given the immense popularity and profitability of Fallout Shelter, it makes sense that Bethesda is continuing down the mobile game path with The Elder Scrolls: Blades later this year. While details have not yet been announced, the game is likely to have microtransactions in some form. For more on Blades, you can check out GameSpot’s interview with Todd Howard.

In other news, Bethesda parent company ZeniMax is currently suing Warner Bros. over claims that the new Westworld mobile game is a ripoff of Fallout Shelter.

Home Alone actor Macaulay Culkin has revealed one of the roles he turned down–and it’s a very big one. Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Culkin said he was relentlessly pursued for The Big Bang Theory, which is one of the biggest, most popular, and enduringly successful modern TV shows.

Culkin told Rogan that he passed on the show at least three times. It’s not exactly clear which role Culkin was apparently being eyed for, but it sounds like one of the leads.

“They pursued me for The Big Bang Theory,” Culkin said. “And I said, ‘Noooo.’ It was kind of like, the way the pitch was, ‘Alright, these two astrophysicist nerds and a pretty girl lives with them. Yoinks!’ That was the pitch. And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m cool; thanks.’ And then they came back at me again, and I said, ‘No, no, no; again, flattered–but no.’ Then they came back at me again, and even my manager was like twisting my arm.”

Culkin said he lost out on lots and lots of money by passing on The Big Bang Theory, but decided against it because the process of making a TV show didn’t strike his fancy. On the podcast he said he’s living comfortably today, owning properties in America and abroad, and living “a life of leisure,” as he calls it.

“I’d have hundreds of millions of dollars right now if I did that gig,” Culkin said. “At the same time, I’d be bashing my head against the wall.”

The five original actors are set to make around $900,000 per episode for the upcoming 12th season, according to Variety, so indeed, Culkin passed on what could have been a large sum of money.

Culkin, 37, played Kevin McCallister in the 1990 Christmas classic Home Alone and its 1992 sequel. He’s also known for his parts in 1994’s The Pagemaster and Richie Rich. In his adult life, Culkin played in a pizza-themed band called The Pizza Underground and, more, recently launched a new, totally absurd project called BunnyEars. He recently traveled to Thailand to film his part in the Seth Green movie Changeland.

The Big Bang Theory, which airs on CBS (whose parent company CBS Corp. owns GameSpot), recently wrapped up its 11th season. It is confirmed for Season 12, which debuts in September, and discussions are underway for Season 13. The ensemble cast includes Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Melissa Rauch, Kunal Nayyar, and Mayim Bialik.

Season 11 averaged 14 million viewers per episode, making it one of the most popular shows on TV, according to Variety. A spinoff, Young Sheldon, premiered in 2017.

The controversy and debate stirred up by Star Wars: Battlefront II‘s microtransaction system was one of the biggest stories of 2017. The news made international headlines. People outside of gaming circles were even talking about it.

In the wake of this, EA is moving away from loot boxes, and now an EA executive has spoken about how the drama is changing how the company makes games.

EA’s vice president of strategic growth, Matt Bilbey, told GI.biz that the situation was so dramatic that EA decided to re-think the framework of how it designs and tests games. This is part of a directive called the “EA moral compass,” Bilbey explained.

“I ran a team internally with [EA chief design officer Patrick Soderlund] post-Battlefront to actually redesign our game development framework and testing platforms to ensure we’re giving our game teams the right guidance–we’ll call it an EA moral compass–at the beginning of development so that we’re designing our live service early, we’re testing it early, testing it with gamers who are giving us feedback so we ensure those pillars of fairness, value, and fun are true,” Bilbey said.

At E3 this year, EA talked about how Battlefront II was a big learning for the company no doubt due in part to the response about its monetisation methods.

“We launched our game in November of last year and clearly we didn’t get it quite right,” Battlefront II design director Dennis Brannvall said. “Instead of coming out of the gate and sprinting like we really wanted to, we had to take a step back and make sure that we were delivering a game that players really wanted.”

Looking ahead, EA’s next big game, Battlefield V, will not have loot boxes or a season pass. That being said, the game is still expected to make mountains of money beyond the initial sale through cosmetics that players can spend real money to acquire.

Microtransactions are big business for EA and other publishers, so you should expect these companies to continue to push in this area. The problem with Battlefront II was that the items contained inside its loot boxes included perks that affected gameplay, so it became a pay-to-win scenario. Today, the game only lets you buy cosmetics.