Fallout: The TV Series May Have Brought More Than $80 Million in Extra Revenue to Bethesda

The fact that the sales of the games of the Fallout series have received a strong push from Prime Video TV series it was clear to everyone, but VG Insights wanted to do the math, starting from the data available on its platform, to produce an estimate of the potential revenues received by Bethesda. In reality these are estimates that start from April and look up to September, and therefore also at the revenues potentially not yet made.

According to VG Insights, in the given period Fallout 4 is expected to sell 2 million more copies, with an estimated revenue of 22 million dollars, while Fallout 76 is expected to sell a total of 1-1.5 million more copies, with revenue estimated at $16 million. For Fallout 76 there is also talk of revenues from in-game purchases, which should be around 12 million dollars.

Growing data

Agreements between Amazon and Bethesda on the price of adaptation rights and expected royalties are unknown, but VG Insights noted that “licensing fees to exploit the intellectual property of games and physical assets tend to be 10-20% of turnover generated, normally”. Considering the TV series’ $150 million budget, and licensing fees at 20%, then the estimated maximum, Bethesda, then Microsoft, may have received around $30 million.

So, overall Bethesda could gross a large total of at least 80 million dollars at the end of September 2024.

It must be said that VG Insights did not include the other titles in the series, such as Fallout 3 and New Vegas, in the calculation. It also didn’t consider the microtransactions of the free-to-play Fallout Shlter. So the final figure could be much higher. A rough estimate speaks of 5-10 million dollars more, but in this case it is really uncertain.

According to AppMagic, the mobile version of Fallout Shelter has also seen a significant increase in its in-app purchases following the launch of the Amazon TV series. The game generated $3.61 million in April, up 484% from $618.5k in March.

In short, there is no doubt that the Prime Video TV series has done decidedly good for Bethesda’s business, renewing the success of its hit series.