As far as I can tell the Steam tie-in might prevent me from playing Skyrim at all. I pre-ordered PC edition of Skyrim, which arrived from Amazon around lunchtime - for 9 hours since then I have been trying in vain to get to actually install and play the game. Steam has been the barrier.

I've tried all the tips I can find on forums, Steam tech support FAQs etc and I cannot make any progress beyond this:

- Put disc in DVD drive. Click 'Install Skyrim.'

- Agree to licence conditions. Install Steam.

- Progress bar headed "updating Steam" pops up - showing zero progress - and sits there doing nothing for about 20 minutes.

Steam either goes unresponsive, or comes up with the "Steam.exe (main exception): To run Steam you must first connect to the internet."

I have been connected to the internet all day, looking up ways to try to fix this problem! Reinstalling, changing firewall/internet settings, deleting/renaming the .blob file.... I've never used Steam before - my internet connection isn't amazing (but adequate for general browsing, downloading some add-ons for games like Dragon Age etc) so I don't download games and have no interest in doing so. I like a box and a manual! I just want to verify my copy of Skyrim is genuine and get dragon-slaying!

I think I might have to just give up before I go mad. I've seen lots of references to this problem with Steam and tried all the fixes I've come across several times each - nothing. Lots of refs to people just not being able to play games they've bought for years at a time if ever again. I'm seriously unhappy that this problem is stopping me from playing a game I've bought and paid for.

You may want to try to change your DL location, i switched to another country and went from a speed of 75k (Swedish overloaded server) to 4.1 MB/s (Uk).

Steam -> Setting -> Download + Cloud