This could have some impact on the resources AAA-type studios allot to their behemoth franchises, because the margins on Shelter are going to blow away anything Bethesda has ever published.
http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/Fallout+Shelter/feature.asp?c=65977
...
Since January 2nd, 2014, only nine games from seven different developers have ever reached the top three spots on the iPhone's top-grossing games chart, in the United States.
And outside of 16 days, just three games have wrestled each other in those top spots: King's sweet-matching puzzler
Candy Crush Saga, Machine Zone's strategy game
Game of War, and Supercell's viking epic
Clash of Clans.
...
Candy Crush Saga entered the top three in January 2013, and would stay there until
Big Fish Casino ousted it for one day in November 2014. It has fallen out of the top three spots just eight other times - seven of which occurred in 2015.
Big Fish has knocked it out four times.
Minecraft (the only paid game) had a good Christmas 2014 when it hit number two. And it got ousted twice by its sequel,
Soda Saga.
And now
Fallout Shelter has pushed it out two days running.
...
So, yes: congratulations are definitely in order to Bethesda. This is an absurd level of success, and undoubtedly means
Fallout Shelter is making millions of dollars for the firm.
But it also tells an absurd story about just how weird and broken the App Store truly is.
A story about how the rich get richer as they buy Super Bowl ads and players (
literally), and how the charts have become a bizarre self-fulfilling prophecy.