Skyrim: 10 million shipped, $650 million in revenue

[prowler]

December 15, 2011 (Rockville, MD) – ZeniMax® Media Inc. today announced that 10 million units of Bethesda Softworks’® The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim have been shipped for the Xbox 360® video game entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, and PC, representing approximately $650 million in retail sales since its release on November 11. The PC version of Skyrim in North America outsold all other PC games by a factor of over three to one in the month of its release. Large retail reorders across all platforms and record-breaking digital sales reflect the ongoing global demand by consumers excited to explore this extraordinary fantasy epic.

Bethesda Softworks’® Skyrim has already garnered over two dozen ‘Game of the Year’ awards from major outlets worldwide, including winning the top honor of Game of the Year at the 2011 Video Game Awards which are voted on by a panel of editors from the industry’s most respected magazines and websites. In addition, Skyrim has received ‘Game of the Year’ awards from numerous other game critics, which, to date include such respected media outlets as G4TV, Official Xbox Magazine and Machinima.com. Skyrim was named ‘Most -Played Game of 2011’ by Raptr, based on research data which confirms its highly popular gameplay experience.

“We are gratified that Skyrim continues to garner high review scores and accolades around the world,” said Robert Altman, Chairman and CEO of ZeniMax Media. “We are most grateful to our fans for their support and enthusiasm for the game, and their love of the hundreds of hours of gameplay it offers. We continue to strive to deliver the highest quality entertainment experience for everyone. 2012 will be another huge year for our fans, with the release of the Creation Kit, as well as exciting DLC which will add to the richness of this epic adventure."

“Skyrim is the fastest selling title in Steam's history” said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve Corporation. “Bethesda’s commitment to and understanding of the PC as a gaming platform shows in the great review scores, spectacular launch, and continued high player numbers that Skyrim has received. We are delighted that Bethesda chose to use Steamworks to support Skyrim both at retail and digitally.”

Skyrim Is the third consecutive game developed by the team at Bethesda Game Studios® to earn ‘Game of the Year’ honors. Bethesda Game Studios, which was named ‘Studio of the Year’ at the 2011 Video Game Awards, also created the 2006 ‘Game of the Year’, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion®, and the 2008 ‘Game of the Year’, Fallout® 3.

To date, Skyrim has received well over 200 perfect review scores worldwide, earning the highest praise from some of the industry’s most influential critics including: USA Today, G4TV, The New York Times, GameSpy, Wired, Eurogamer, Destructoid, GamePro, Official Xbox Magazine, Joystiq, The Guardian, Famitsu and GamesRadar. G4TV describes Skyrim as “one of the greatest games ever” and Eurogamer was one of many outlets to call it a “masterpiece.”

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been rated M for Mature by ESRB. For more information on Skyrim visit http://elderscrolls.com.

Source: PR.

 

[chartube12]

Now they need to fix the glitches for once with skyrim. If not me and my 9,999,999 siblings could bring a class action law suit.

 

[Deleted-236924]

Now they need to fix the glitches for once with skyrim. If not me and my 9,999,999 siblings could bring a class action law suit.

They never promised nor advertised that the game would be released glitch-free.

 

[sputnix]

and to think 3.5 million copies where from steam in the first 48 hours, so ubisoft you sure that people just pirate games to pirate games, or maybe it has something to do with your shitty drm and poor PC ports

 

[SnAQ]

@sputnix: haha, your comment is so true
Let's just hope that some retard at Ubisoft reads your comment.

 

[chartube12]

Now they need to fix the glitches for once with skyrim. If not me and my 9,999,999 siblings could bring a class action law suit.

They never promised nor advertised that the game would be released glitch-free.

Than they shouldn't be making games. This isn't just a problem with one game but with their last 5 games.

And stop being a horrible troll. I said they need to fix the game ASAP. Most sold game of their's to date and yet they most likely won't fix all the glitches. They do not have any loyalty to their faithful costumers. Businesses today forget, they are there to provide a services to people. Beths hasn't learned shit about treating gamers. Since they are not learning, they need to be sued to be taught. You wouldn't let a dealership get away with selling you a brand new car with a faulty engine, so why would you let a gaming company get away w/o fixing their programming errors?

 

[impizkit]

Now they need to fix the glitches for once with skyrim. If not me and my 9,999,999 siblings could bring a class action law suit.

They never promised nor advertised that the game would be released glitch-free.

Than they shouldn't be making games. This isn't just a problem with one game but with their last 5 games.

And stop being a horrible troll. I said they need to fix the game ASAP. Most sold game of their's to date and yet they most likely won't fix all the glitches. They do not have any loyalty to their faithful costumers. Businesses today forget, they are there to provide a services to people. Beths hasn't learned shit about treating gamers. Since they are not learning, they need to be sued to be taught. You wouldn't let a dealership get away with selling you a brand new car with a faulty engine, so why would you let a gaming company get away w/o fixing their programming errors?

You are the troll. Bring your lawsuit and fail. You were not forced to buy it and they never claimed it was perfect, so you have no basis, plus many games have glitches and no one else has sued. If you are going to call troll make sure you look in the mirror first.

 

[crimsonagent]

skyrims shipped more games than adventurers have taken arrow's to the knee's

 

[Deleted_171835]

The PC version of Skyrim in North America outsold all other PC games by a factor of over three to one in the month of its release.

Shame on you dirty pirates!

 

[Deleted-236924]

You wouldn't let a dealership get away with selling you a brand new car with a faulty engine, so why would you let a gaming company get away w/o fixing their programming errors?

Because a game with glitches would totally cause potentially deadly accidents.
If you want to make comparisons, make comparisons that actually make sense, please.

> Car has faulty engine
> Car causes accident that kills 10 people

> Game has glitches
> Worst that can happen is your game behaves abnormally.

 

[1Player]

You wouldn't let a dealership get away with selling you a brand new car with a faulty engine, so why would you let a gaming company get away w/o fixing their programming errors?

Because a game with glitches would totally cause potentially deadly accidents.
If you want to make comparisons, make comparisons that actually make sense, please.

> Car has faulty engine
> Car causes accident that kills 10 people

> Game has glitches
> Worst that can happen is your game behaves abnormally.

lol...skyward sword has a game breaking glitch, that means 10 nintendo fanboys just died if I use chartube's logic

 

[prowler]

Now they need to fix the glitches for once with skyrim. If not me and my 9,999,999 siblings could bring a class action law suit.

They never promised nor advertised that the game would be released glitch-free.

Than they shouldn't be making games. This isn't just a problem with one game but with their last 5 games.

And stop being a horrible troll. I said they need to fix the game ASAP. Most sold game of their's to date and yet they most likely won't fix all the glitches. They do not have any loyalty to their faithful costumers. Businesses today forget, they are there to provide a services to people. Beths hasn't learned shit about treating gamers. Since they are not learning, they need to be sued to be taught. You wouldn't let a dealership get away with selling you a brand new car with a faulty engine, so why would you let a gaming company get away w/o fixing their programming errors?

You don't seem to know how hard it is to find and correct bugs and even if you correct a bug, a dozen more can appear from it.

 

[KingVamp]

Not trying to defend or anything, but I heard there bugs in the game that may cause people to start over in Skyrim as well. While I can't say much about Skyrim bugs since I have not played the game, how much bugs can a game have 'till it deem to buggy? Should we forget about bugs since the world big? Are big worlds or even better worlds worth it for all the bugs?
...

Anyway, good for them.

 

[Densetsu]

Businesses today forget, they are there to provide a services to people. Beths hasn't learned shit about treating gamers. Since they are not learning, they need to be sued to be taught. You wouldn't let a dealership get away with selling you a brand new car with a faulty engine, so why would you let a gaming company get away w/o fixing their programming errors?

As much as I agree with you that the glitches should be fixed, businesses exist solely to generate revenue for their shareholders. Even if they release a game ridden with glitches, they're going to make a killing, and that's all that matters to them. As pessimistic as it sounds, that's the unfortunate reality.

For a game as large as Skyrim (one of the largest games ever released in the history of gaming, if not the largest), there are bound to be glitches and coding errors. After all, the game is coded by normal people, not robots. If you think about a relatively simple flashcart firmware, you'd think that every update they release fixes all issues. But towards the end of M3 Sakura's life, just about every update they released fixed one problem, but would break code in other areas that caused other problems. Now imagine that on a much larger scale, and you get Skyrim. On the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft comes out with Windows patches on a near-weekly basis. But as huge as Skyrim is, it's still considered a "niche" market when you compare it to the number of individuals and institutions that rely on Windows on a day-to-day basis. And Skyrim is just a game, whereas businesses (and by extension the economy) basically runs on Windows. That's why Skyrim will never be updated to the same degree that Windows is.

As for cars with faulty engines, the difference between cars and Skyrim is that lives are at stake when you release a faulty car. Car manufacturers are so hell-bent on fixing problems in vehicle performance not because they're concerned with the safety of their customers, but because of the legal risks, and consequently the loss of even more money as a result of lawsuits. I'm not a lawyer or a legal expert by any means, but I do know for a fact that companies will calculate the costs of fixing a problem and weigh it against the cost of potential lawsuits for not fixing the problem. If fixing a problem ends up costing a company more money than they would lose if they were to be sued as a result of the problem, they won't fix it and opt to settle in court. No one is going to die from a glitchy game.

So yeah, we would all love for the bugs in Skyrim to be fixed, but realistically we can't expect them to fix everything. I'm sure they'll do what they can, but there will come a point where they'll throw up their hands and say "f*ck it." Despite the glitches, they've already made their money, they will continue to make their money, and they probably aren't going to lose much from a class action lawsuit, if one is even filed against them at all.

Case in point, as buggy as Oblivion was, I bought the original release, then I bought the GOTY edition, and finally I got the 5-year anniversary edition. I have the $150 CE of Skyrim, and I've already decided that I'm going to get the GOTY edition when it's released, bugs or not. And after I finish the game, I'll probably get it on PC when I feel I need a little more fun/variety with mods and console commands.

*EDIT*
And guys, please stop pointing fingers at each other and calling each other "troll." We're all friends here

 

[Gahars]

That's a lot of money. How much money is it?

It's so much money that they will easily be able to afford any future endeavors they have in mind.

 

[Skelletonike]

And I thought that Monster Hunter sold a lot. xP
Anyway, this game was bound to be a success, so far all games from this company have been hits. Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Elder of Scrolls Oblivion, etc... All their games have bugs and glitches, but despiste that, the games are awesome, I've played Fallout 3 and New Vegas I don't know how many times, all their games have really big worlds, if the game didn't have glitches, that'd be freakin weird.

 

[KingVamp]

I didn't think people expect bug free games, just not full to the brim of them.

 

[Sterling]

I didn't think people expect bug free games, just not full to the brim of them.

I shouldn't be the first to vouch for the developers when I say the damn game is not by any means, "Full of them." You want a bug ridden glitch fest? Go play a vanilla Fallout: New Vegas character. I swear to God that game has the same number of bugs and glitches as the 200,000 some odd documented errors that Windows Vista had. Aside from a few glitchy textures and things floating where they shouldn't, I've yet to encounter a bug or glitch that prevents me from doing anything. If you compared that to vanilla Fallout: New Vegas, then you'll notice how a freeze every 15 minutes to an hour changes peoples dispositions.

@The topic: I wasn't expecting so much money to be made. What really surprised me though were the amount of people that showed up to the Skyrim pre-release, many of whom had been at the Call of Duty pre-release 4 nights before.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

I didn't think people expect bug free games, just not full to the brim of them.

I shouldn't be the first to vouch for the developers when I say the damn game is not by any means, "Full of them." You want a bug ridden glitch fest? Go play a vanilla Fallout: New Vegas character. I swear to God that game has the same number of bugs and glitches as the 200,000 some odd documented errors that Windows Vista had. Aside from a few glitchy textures and things floating where they shouldn't, I've yet to encounter a bug or glitch that prevents me from doing anything. If you compared that to vanilla Fallout: New Vegas, then you'll notice how a freeze every 15 minutes to an hour changes peoples dispositions.

@The topic: I wasn't expecting so much money to be made. What really surprised me though were the amount of people that showed up to the Skyrim pre-release, many of whom had been at the Call of Duty pre-release 4 nights before.

I guess you havn't played with the 1.3 patch. Backwards flying dragons, and resistances are broken. Better to just play it unpatched to begin with.

That being said, Skyrim will be my personal Game Of The Year. Every goddamn year.

 

[Sterling]

I didn't think people expect bug free games, just not full to the brim of them.

I shouldn't be the first to vouch for the developers when I say the damn game is not by any means, "Full of them." You want a bug ridden glitch fest? Go play a vanilla Fallout: New Vegas character. I swear to God that game has the same number of bugs and glitches as the 200,000 some odd documented errors that Windows Vista had. Aside from a few glitchy textures and things floating where they shouldn't, I've yet to encounter a bug or glitch that prevents me from doing anything. If you compared that to vanilla Fallout: New Vegas, then you'll notice how a freeze every 15 minutes to an hour changes peoples dispositions.

@The topic: I wasn't expecting so much money to be made. What really surprised me though were the amount of people that showed up to the Skyrim pre-release, many of whom had been at the Call of Duty pre-release 4 nights before.

I guess you havn't played with the 1.3 patch. Backwards flying dragons, and resistances are broken. Better to just play it unpatched to begin with.

That being said, Skyrim will be my personal Game Of The Year. Every goddamn year.