Fallout Shelter Wants You to #DateaDweller

Now, gaming companies can be as clever as any other when it comes to marketing: we’re not all billboards and ten-minute long commercials between the used car sales. For example, EA once used a “Sin to Win” contest to advertise Dante’s Inferno, which went horribly. Acclaim tried to offer $10,000 to anyone who would name their newborn Turok for Turok: Evolution… which went horribly. There was the time Ubisoft decided to advertise Splinter Cell: Conviction by hiring an actor to wrap a bandage around his hand and point a plastic gun at people outside a New Zealand bar… which went about as well as you could expect. Which is to say, horribly.

Fortunately, they aren’t all trainwrecks: case in point, Bethesda, the company developing the latest Fallout game, decided to advertise Fallout 4 using Fallout Shelter, a free-to-play mobile title where you manage your own little fallout vault, which people love. But how do you advertise a game that’s especially an advertisement?

Tinder, of course!

...Yep, Tinder. Bethesda has officially put Vault Boy, age 25, up on Tinder for people to swipe on. Swipe right, nothing happens, swipe left, you’re taken to a link to download the game, so you don’t… message each other or anything. As marketing tricks go, it’s actually rather lame, but what makes it fascinating is that it’s official. Officially official. This is normally the kind of thing you’d see trolls or fans do, but this time, it’s all 100% real, for… whatever reason.
 
There’s even a hashtag associated with the account, #DateaDweller, where Bethesda posts romantic tips for seducing your fellow vault citizens. No less lame, but hey—it’s there.

Gotta say, though, given how quickly the gaming world picked up on Fallout Shelter, I’m a bit surprised they’re pulling this out now. It’s already pretty damn popular, selling it to the lonely as a bare-bones dating sim probably won’t do much to boost their numbers… but then again, what do I know?