Why was Skyrim popular?

[jebacdrkac]

Because it’s fun customizable garbage. There are lots of dungeons to explore, alchemy, enchanting, and blacksmithing mechanics that make gathering items more rewarding, very easy and overpowered combat (especially as a sneak archer) for casuals, tons of quests with terrible writing but—unlike your average Assassin’s Creed copy paste experience—they actually differ.On top of that, it’s an open world game, and what i also think that played a part is that Skyrim came out at a time when gaming was significantly rising in popularity, as PCs and consoles were becoming much more accessible across the globe...

At this point I think I’ve played Skyrim like eight times, and the older I get, the more I realize how trash the game actually is—from lazy designs, ‘cities and towns’ that look more like villages, puzzles which are basically insulting a player's intellect, awful combat (especially dragons), to guild questlines where you can become leader of the Thieves Guild with 0 points in Pickpocket or Sneak, or finish the entire College of Winterhold questline without ever casting a spell. Then there’s **** like the Bards College and the Civil War, which are so bad they would make even a ****** like Emil feel ashamed. But one opinion I’ll never change is that Skyrim is a fun game. I can boot it up right now with zero regrets, despite being fully aware of just how many flaws it has...

[Kalarion]

When a game is good, people will buy the next one out of trust

I'll never understand why people do this though

That's because you're not White.

[Roguey]

When a game is good, people will buy the next one out of trust. In the meantime, new players join those who already bought the previous title. However, when a game is disappointing, part of the player base won’t buy the next one, while others may be more or less willing to give it a second chance. If the following game is disappointing as well, the number of potential buyers for the next release will shrink even further, and so on.

Bioware is the perfect example of this.

I wouldn't say any Bethesda game is "good" but they do a good enough job of quenching the desire to hunt and gather for a lot of people, at least until Fallout 4 and Starfield botched the formula by changing it too much for the worse.

[Valter]

When a game is good, people will buy the next one out of trust

I'll never understand why people do this though

Reputation and word-of-mouth are still a solid pillar of a lot of businesses, but it's slightly different in this digital medium of video games. It was a more sensible practice before the rise of the Internet, but now with full access to gameplay videos at the click of a button, there's little reason to blindly purchase a game out of loyalty.
You might even still be inclined to rush to buy a game out of trust or loyalty or whatever, thinking "nah, they're the good ones, they can do no wrong!". But time spares nothing...

[Rumbles]

I still play Skyrim due to it's insanely large modding scene, people are still making new cities, dungeons, quests etc. I think by customisation only Rimworld compares to Skyrim, and Rimworld in infinitely easier to mod even starting from just XML files. I haven't played Vanilla in a while, by now the world feels very empty and barren compared to the feeling back when it launched. What I did like of course is the lore and the dynamics, I'm a big fan of the elder scrolls universe (which is literally a universe considering throughout the games they describe planets, planes of existence and so on).
With the broadened scope and trying to appeal to a modern market globalism and wokism it's inevitable though that the lore will be left behind in TES6, and the game will become much more watered down, focus probably on graphics. You can't make meaningful conflicts or storylines without game "journalists" spinning **** from them, you can't have funny fantasy or space racism (only Warhammer gets away with it and Warhammer has effectively been a meme for a while already). Skyrim spiritually is the end of the series.

[Oyster Sauce]

in this order

1. Best marketed Numbers Go Up game in the entire world (except maybe WoW?)
2. Numbers Go Up. Inherently appealing to the human brain. Entire reason this website exists.
3. Learn By Use means more Numbers Go Up

[Vaako]

videos like this with 25mio views came out after they announced a year before it came out I think. The trailer had good music. Graphic wise it was still very good for the time, especially the character visuals got a huge upgrade compared to Fallout3 and Oblivion. Most people were still very optimistic about the gaming industry back then. There wasnt really much else to play witcher3 came out what 5-7 years later or so. AC2 came out like 2 years earlier so Ubisoft wasnt complete **** back then. The dark souls 1 prepare to die edition which sold really well came out in 2012. Only other games people had to play back then were mmorpgs and the content was slow and quality was already droping there too. At least when it comes to fantasy games and rpgs. If you liked GTA and fps you also had enough other stuff to play.

[stormvermin]

Nothing that hasn't been said before but it came out in a perfect storm situation. 7th gen consoles broke into the mainstream like nothing before, open world games were novel, GoT was popular, it looked good visually for the time, the brown smear shooter deluge of the late 2000s meme was still relevant and Skyrim might have been the first first person melee game a lot of people had ever seen, Bethesda actually had the stones and the talent to put on a really good gameplay showcase that was quite representative of the final product, and the dragons gave it the wow factor that Oblivion didn't have. In addition, the posers that watched Patrician's Morrowind video once and pretended they were grizzled Morrowind fans didn't exist so a lot of the people who were really excited for it were Oblivion fans that never played Morrowind and didn't know that a lot of what they liked was about to be stripped away.

[xXusernameXx]

I didn't get the appeal myself. I found that I could spend a lot of time in it yet not really have fun. I think the main reasons were that the world felt empty/samey, melee combat clunky, and the writing/voice acting felt wooden. It has an excellent soundtrack however. I also enjoyed the lockpicking mechanic. And of course the PC version can be a whole different game with all the mods.

[rusty_shackleford]

Yes, and it wasn't even close. 2011 was still peak console dominance.

This was only a couple years after Mass Effect launched as a console exclusive. How many people even regard Mass Effect as a console franchise anymore?

A lot of bad things have happened in video gaming, but shift towards PC is a good one.

[Tweed]

Sex mods.

[rusty_shackleford]

Sex mods.

Again, it couldn't have been mods because most copies were sold on console

[NotAI]

It was popular because there are few open world rpgs where you can explore in first person.

For some reason these don't get made much.

[rusty_shackleford]

It was popular because there are few open world rpgs where you can explore in first person.

For some reason these don't get made much.

I play bethesda games in third person

[rusty_shackleford]

(being able to see my surroundings prevents me from being spooked)

[Tweed]

Console mongs have double-digit IQs and Skyrim is the most basic of basic ***** RPGs. Should be little wonder why it sold so well, there's nothing to challenge galaxy-brained people. You wander around aimlessly waiting for the next thing to happen and Bethesderp's tried and true "do it all" philosophy appeals to ******* who can't stand the idea that there might be something they're locked out of if they lack the skills. The only real choice is choosing which side of the war you want to steal a wagon and take a single fort for so that they can somehow win the stalemate.

[NotAI]

I want to make a barebones first person RPG that is isn't ****.

That also isn't wildly expensive.

Propose 10 things that should be DELETED from Skyrim and Skyrim would be better for it.

[Breathe]

It's one of those turn-your-brain-off rpgs. Probably one of the best in that category. I enjoyed pretty much every hour that I played it.

[rusty_shackleford]

Maidenhaver left a guest message for this topic:

I see HomoQueers has fallen. Skyrim was popular, because the protagonist was a White Man in a horned helmet yelling at dragons in snow world! ******* overthinking everything. Muh decline, muh open world - blech, ya buncha mudskins!

I suspect he has lost access to his account while away again!