Fallout Shelter (Free) has been a tremendous success on the App Store, and I think it’s been a triumph in more ways than just “Bethesda is going to make Scrooge McDuck levels of cash" – a major publisher went to mobile and made a game that didn’t suck, that was actually cool and original while also being free-to-play. It’s a sign of hope, and I implore every other publisher to do one simple thing:

Just make Fallout Shelter, jeez.

Why has Fallout Shelter done so well and been so accepted by a crowd that normally hates free-to-play? The first reason is that Bethesda treated Fallout Shelter seriously. They had a big, huge debut at their E3 press conference that took the game seriously. It didn’t treat it like a second-class citizen. I recall when Kingdom Hearts was being demoed at the Square Enix press conference. There was palpable excitement that died off pretty rapidly once people saw that it was a mobile game. There was just something about that that felt like it was going to be forgotten once people saw it. You could have easily edited the Minions Paradise stuff out of the EA press conference. Plus, who cares about a town-building tie-in to a kids movie that has nothing to do with anything else you’re showing? Fallout Shelter is a tie-in town-builder, but Bethesda sold that sucker as something cool and original, and it did relate to Fallout 4. That Bethesda also managed to put it up right away, at the peak of the game’s fever, was really smart. Not everyone can do this, but still, Bethesda struck while the iron was hot.

Second, they made a game that didn’t suck. So many games are irrelevant, ancillary experiences. Did the world really need Call of Duty: Heroes (Free) to be a Clash of Clans (Free) clone? Was it made because it enriched the Call of Duty series? Or was it because someone thought that, hey, that Clash of Clans game is making millions of dollars, why don’t we try to get some of that? My guess is that while the former was a consideration, the latter was the more important concern. Instead, with Fallout Shelter what we got was a game that delivered an experience independent from other games in the series. It’s about building a vault, those things that have always played a part in the series, all set in the cheerily ironic world of the artwork representing them, compared to the dark and gritty world of the series proper. You get to play around with something only partially glimpsed through the series. It provides a new experience, something that adds to the franchise. Fallout Shelter is cool, clever, and a great piece of fan service for the Fallout fan who gets to play with something they haven’t had the opportunity to do otherwise.

For all this flowery prose about it, ultimately Fallout Shelter is a free-to-play town-builder tie-in to a big-name franchise. It’s a money-making enterprise, and its chart performance, where the game was in the top 5 grossing after launch, and is top 20 right now, shows that enterprise is filling vaults up with cash. It was made for commerce, but it really strikes that fine line between “This is something that deserves to exist because it’s fun" and “This is going to make us all very rich" that so few other games manage to do. Too many games fall on the latter side of the line. And just because something is made by a giant corporation for the purposes of making money doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun and enjoyable as well.

Big-name publishers need to look at Fallout Shelter, the reasons why it’s so beloved and lucrative, and start making better mobile games. There’s no excuse why publishers with massive amounts of resources and talent at them can’t crank out stuff that is at least somewhere in the same stratosphere as Bethesda’s first mobile game.

One thing? Maybe acquiescing to core gamers, and the free-to-play haters, helps out a lot. Many of the IAP-is-evil hate crew aren’t actually haters of free-to-play, they just need it packaged in the right form. They hate Candy Crush Saga (Free) but love MOBAs and CCGs. For example, Fallout Shelter avoids the things that core gamers hate about free-to-play. There’s no wait timers that can be bought out of, there is a chance-based system for getting resources faster. Fallout Shelter‘s card system is incredibly smart. Gamers love cards, and will spend lots of money on cards. See: Hearthstone (Free). Fallout Shelter also avoids feeling like you could just pay to get a huge vault, and requires some planning for laying out your rooms, and keeping everyone alive and healthy. It’s not just a game where you build out and bigger, and you either need to pay or wait to win. There’s a lot of interactivity, and actual gameplay here.

Now, compare the response of Fallout Shelter to something like Dungeon Keeper (Free). The franchises aren’t the same – Fallout went mainstream with Fallout 3, for sure. Dungeon Keeper hadn’t had an entry in the series for years. But Dungeon Keeper was unabashedly free-to-play, and it even was on the nose about how free-to-play it was. The problem is that EA making a joke about free-to-play doesn’t come off as a joke. It’s kind of like that in The Simpsons: Tapped Out (Free) as well, where there’s loads of meta-humor about free-to-play and town builders, but at least that game is based off of a TV show and not a dormant game franchise with uppity fans. Those people who loved Dungeon Keeper were a small audience of PC gamers forged in the fires of two decades of internet flame wars. They weren’t going to love a game that was loaded for bear with in-app purchases, and then cracking ‘jokes’ about them that weren’t actually jokes because you could actually spend loads of money to be better at the game.

It takes a smart touch to get people who love a ‘gamer’ franchise to pay for it. That, or publishers really need to be confident that there’s a casual audience that cares a lot about the license, to the point that they could just have long-term fans deal with the free-to-play mobile version because the casual gamers with different standards are more important.

To be fair, Fallout Shelter had one of the more hyped releases of the year because it came off of the back of Fallout 4 at the most notable gaming convention of the year, and was available immediately after the announcement. That alone may have spurred it to its download rush and helped it at the top of the grossing charts, more than many free-to-play games get. But it wouldn’t have made so much money if it hadn’t done something right. And for once, it feels like even the biggest free-to-play haters are enjoying this one, because Bethesda did enough right to make this seem like a cool and genuine experience, rather than just a tie-in to a bigger game. And most importantly, Bethesda didn’t jump in to mobile going away from their strengths. Seriously, why big publishers make me-too match-3 games when there are more established publishers that know how to make free-to-play match-3 games, baffles me. It’s stupid to move away from strength to try and take on the established titans of mobile gaming head-on.

So instead of making more Clash of Clans clones and puzzle games that aren’t special just because you made Final Fantasy, publishers need to be finding clever ways to utilize their intellectual properties to create unique experiences that appeal to core gamers. They have money, they’re willing to spend it on mobile, and plenty of people beyond that audience will check it out too.

Just make Fallout Shelter, jeez.