I own the PC version of Skyrim. I like PCs because they are flexible. I don't own an Xbox or PS3 because you can do more with a PC than you can with those other game playing consoles.

In the South Eastern United States, AT&T's internet went down from 3pm Sunday 4-29-2012 to 3pm Monday 4-30-2012. I presume making an upgrade. The internet was not available. I couldn't connect to steam, or any web page. "Server not found".

I couldn't play Skyrim. When I tried to launch the game, "updating steam" would start...and fail because I couldn't connect to steam, and the game wouldn't start. I selected "offline", and it would give me the exact same error "couldn't connect to steam", even though, to my mind, "offline" would mean that it WOULDN'T need to connect to Steam.

I couldn't research the problem, because I didn't have the internet, Firefox and Internet Explorer just said "server not found" when I started them. I couldn't navigate to any page. I couldn't play Warcraft, I couldn't play New Vegas or Skyrim. I was staring at a screen, with no way to fix it.

I was ok with not being able to play Warcraft...the internet was down. But Skyrim and New Vegas are single player games. Why couldn't I start up those games, without Steam access? Why would I need to be connected to Steam just to play those games?

If there is a way to play Skyrim and New Vegas, I couldn't find it. I clicked on all the .exe files in the game's folders and searched the game DVD's, but nothing would start the games. It would try to launch steam, then close.

If there is a way to play those games without being connected to Steam, please tell me, so that next time this happens, I'll be able to play the games that I've paid for.

In order to play in offline mode, you have to get on Steam and play the game through Steam at least *once*. After that, you can switch to "offline" mode and play it without any internet connection.

I've been playing Skyrim connected to Steam since 11/11/2011. But that doesn't matter? I have to tell it "Offline", while it's connected to Steam for it to matter? Ok. Thanks. I'll do that now.