Let's compare them and their eventual fates, because why the hell not?
RAGE: released October 4th - October 7th (depends on where you live). Severe technical issues from the start. Unplayable on half the video cards in existence. Level editor, announced 1 year before the release is not included. PC textures aren't any better than on consoles (texture pack is promised)
Skyrim: released November 11th. Lots of technical issues. Level editor not included in the game.
RAGE: a patch comes out. Adds... graphics options (really?). Then a lots of silence for months. Texture pack is canceled; apparently the textures weight more, than the Library of Congress HD scans.
Skyrim: patches come out regularly, ironing out bugs. Level editor comes out. So does the unexpected High-Def texture pack.
RAGE: a patch comes out that makes game playable on the other half of video cards. Four months after the release. Still no signs of the level editor.
Skyrim: patch 1.5 adds some new features. There are rumors about MMO and DLC.
RAGE: some more silence.

Eventually:
Skyrim: named GOTY by every reviewer and their dog.
RAGE: dead.

I believe that Skyrim is more for a select audience; not a small audience, but a more specialised audience. If you don't like RPG's, then you aren't going to get into it. I think that RAGe would have been more wide ranging in it's audience (if it had of launched well, adnt he requirements weren't so high), as there are a lot of things that you cna do in the game, from the minigames, to the racing to the FPS sections. It's a game you can jump into, shoot the baddies for 10 minutes and move on from your break. Skyrim requires more time to get things done (in quite a few sections you'd be lucky to meet more than a handfull of enemies in 10 minutes), however people seem to get much more attatched to the story line.

I personally racked up 44 hours on Skyrim, and have lost interest, I won't be buying DLC, as there are plenty of mods and story i ahven't explored yet. RAGE I have 70 hours, and counting (slowly admittedly), and i'll be leaping on DLC as soon as it arrives. I'll be equally impressed when mod tools come out and people start making it even better (harder difficulty especially).

This is just my preference, I know most people like Skyrim much more and I'm cool with that. While it might not be my game of the year, I have no problem with it being the game of the year.

That says it all.

But I'm glad with Rage id managed to show that they are fully capable of building a game that is aesthetically pleasing, but yet bring some innovation to a genre that has been rather 'copy/paste' & soley MP dependent.

... an audience of 10 million people, the average of which play at least 75 hours of the game before quitting.

An audience which broke the record for the fastest selling game on Steam, and an audience which continues to hold the game at the "most-played" position in the Steam service.

... nah. Almost everybody can enjoy or does enjoy Skyrim, a lot. You're definitely the odd man out.

Also:
Skyrim isn't as combat heavy as Rage, that's for sure. But I'd argue that Rage is just as slow to get to the combat sometimes. In fact, in a lot of ways Rage is even slower than Skyrim, since you can essentially clear forts forever if you ever feel the need for action in Skyrim, whereas in Rage you are pretty much forced to go through some really lengthy town sequences every time you complete a mission.

Also, Skyrim's storyline is pretty shallow and thin. Most people are interested in the games because they are interested in the world - TES is well known for having a very comprehensive and detailed universe. Did you ever read any of the in-game books? The whole idea that nords can "shout" with the "Thu'um" is, remarkably, as old as Morrowind!

No VS threads