VG Insights: Fallout TV Series generated over $80M in Incremental Revenue for Bethesda
A little bit of transmedia study.
VGI analysts have calculated the growth of gaming metrics for the Fallout series and forecasted a tail until September (in their opinion, the situation will stabilize by then). Fallout Shelter was not included in the analysis.
It is expected that after the series' release, Bethesda will sell additionally two million copies of Fallout 4 and 1-1.5 million copies of Fallout 76. This translates to $35-40 million in revenue after platform fees.
The daily active users (DAU) in Fallout 76 increased from 100-200 thousand users to over 1 million after the series' release. VGI analysts expect this to bring Bethesda an additional $10-15 million. However, they note that the new audience is more casual, which means the average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) will be lower.
VGI estimates the IP licensing deal with Amazon at $30 million, drawing parallels with The Lord of the Rings licensing.
❗️ Here, I would refrain from making any assumptions.
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VGI estimates the total economic impact of the series' release on Bethesda's gaming products to be $80 million. Including license fees, which size we do not know.
To understand the influence, Fallout 4 sold copies worth $750 million on the first day after release. Over its lifetime, it has earned around $1.5 billion on all platforms. Thus, the TV series release impacted game sales by 1.5% of the total amount. Here we’re speaking of Fallout 4 only.