Ok, I just bought the pc copy of Skyrim. I used to play it on the PS3, (but then I took an arrow to the knee) but my wonderful parents rewarded my effort that I had put in school last year with a gaming rig. The first thing I did was buying Skyrim, to install all those wonderful mods I had been missing on my crappy, good-for-FPS's-and further-nothing PS3. After installing the game, I began searching for mods, only to find out that Steam Workshop mods are Steam-exclusive. Seriously? Is there no way to install Steam mods for a hard-copy Skyrim? 'Cause if that's the situation, Imma rage with the force of a thousand suns.
(Btw, I know some mods from Steam are also hosted on Nexus, just not all)

Skyrim is REQUIRED to be linked to a Steam account, effectivly making all PC users have a "steam version" of the game. Where you get your mods is irrelevant.

The hardcopy version still uses Steam. You register it to Steam and install it from the disc rather than downloading.

If Steam wasn't involved in any way, then something is wrong as Skyrim uses Steam in all PC versions.

Also, any of the mods on the Workshop that really matter also tend to be on Nexus as well.

If your hard copy of the game is legal it was also activated on Steam.

Even if you buy it on disk it still works with Steam for validation, so no problems there. You wanna go with the Nexus for mods more than the Steam Workshop anyway. The SW automatically will update your mods to the latest version, which sounds convenient and was probably a good idea in one sense - except that some mods you really don't wanna try to update mid-game, or they'll cause problems. Working with the Nexus allows you to update when you want to, not when the SW decides to do so automatically.

EDIT: Holy crap you people type fast.

I bought it secondhand, did I got screwed?

Yes. I don't recall being able to buy a working second hand PC game since the 90s.

Future advice. NEVER EVER buy second hand PC games. In Skyrim's case, you cant even play it as the exe isnt included on the disc.

You shouldn't have even been able to install it as the cd-key which ties it to Steam is a one shot, and is requested before the installation starts.

If it isn't letting you activate the Steam registration, then yes, you got played.

Jesus. Ninjas everywhere today!

Damn, I'm new to pc-gaming, and I buyed my PS3-games always secondhand, to cut costs. Never realized that isn't possible for PC-games.
The [censored] who sold it should've said it, he's gonna hear from me. Thanks for the heads-up, guys, Only have it two days, so I might be able to contact the guy who sold it to me.

Install Steam, sign up for an account (costs nothing) and add Skyrim to the game list inside the Steam window-thingy. Piece of cake.

What good would that do? It wont magically give him a valid key.

It is possible to buy and use used PC games...if there's no validation code. If there is, well, validation codes can only be used once. I don't know of any method by which you can transfer ownership of the game, unless the guy that sold it says "Hey, no problem, here's the username and password. Just change it to your email address, etc." The only problem then might be that some games only allow so many installs before they get suspicious of funny stuff going on...but that might not be a problem.

On the chance that the guy that sold him the game wasn't actually trying to screw him, he could potentially give him the appropriate sign-in information. On the other hand, if the guy owns other Steam games, I doubt there's any way to separate his ownership of Skyrim into a separate account.

Can't the seller simply "gift" the sold content? I mean, Valve has threads up for people to trade Steam games, so there must be some way to give up your ownership stake in it or that wouldn't be possible.

Cracks/patches to unlink it from steam aren't illegal, since you already bought the software. Personally, I think Steam is too intrusive. Automatic updates have screwed me over in so many games and so many times that I swore never to use it again if I could avoid it.

After several mails and and a (empty) threat of suing him(cousin's a lawyer), I managed to meet the [censored] tomorrow, to return the money(and I the game). I also want to thank everybody for the advice and warnings, we're not very rich, and the pc in combination with the game meant I would't get anything for a long time. Now I'll save for another couple of weeks to buy it from Steam!