Sooo... everyone's aware that nowadays, a lot of big names in the industry allege that things like multiplayer are essential for a game to be successful. That online passes and day one DLC only available for original purchases and draconian DRM are the only thing that will prevent used sales or piracy. Skyrim has none of these, and yet, it is a massive popular and financial success, already touted by a majority of reviewers and players alike as game of the year material. That's awesome. That proves that quality and content, not DLC/DRM/Online shenanigans, is what makes people buy and keep a game. And hopefully, it helps steer the industry back towards a better course. But this video makes the points better than I ever could, so just watch it:

http://www.zenimax.com/external.php?locale=en-us&url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5014-How-Skyrim-Proves-The-Industry-Wrong

Skyrim does have DRM. However I completely agree with the overall point of your topic. And I'm glad you posted it.

A handful of things:

1) Steam is DRM. It has a fairly notorious history, but it has become better and is pretty much a staple to any internet gamer.

2) Skyrim's development cycle was 3 years, 5 years if you consider the storyboarding that occurred after Oblivon's release. That's a lot longer than all the recent CoD releases have had (2 years, though I suspect they've re-used a lot of the software established in CoD 4: Modern Warfare. I would say it is less)

Erm, pretty sure Skyrim has extensive DRM.

DRM confuses me, its clearly red rag to a bull, and almost never prevents piracy.. I just cannot understand the reasoning.

Even if I agree, if Jim Sterling says it, I do not agree.

He said draconian DRM, which Steam is not. I agree. Skyrim is a gamer's game, and hopefully other games can follow suit.

This is..................................................................... SO - DAMN - TRUE!!!

All they need to do for the next game is expand the skill base, fix entering towns by going over the walls, and bring back levitation...I haven't even played it yet and already I' m mourning for the "flight abillities I'll never get to see'

New skills I'd like:

Disguise (effectively lets you hide in plain sight without actually getting sneak, conceal your undead-ness as a vampire, switch apparent genders, etc.)
Transformation (A branch of magic that deals with turning yourself, your allies, and your enemies into other (Temporary except with high level perks) forms.)
Performance (Lets you sing, dance, juggle, or other entertainment actions, giving a chance for passing NPCs to give you money. Think of it as legal pickpocketing.)
Tinker (lets you make small clockwork toys and (with higher level perks) useful gadgets.

When I say draconian DRM, I rather envision Ubisoft's always online requirements, for example. You know, the one that would stop your game and make you lose progress as soon as your connection failed. Steam is DRM, indeed, but is benign and compatible with offline play. Regardless, DRM in itself is not the matter I'm interested in. Rather, the video is. As it said, Skyrim gets a lot of things right in spite of what the industry likes to pretend recently.

Fully agreed, defo GOTY material.

awesome video.

Jim is right, every gaming studio should just choose to create GOTY candidates like BGS does. It's so simple.

If skyrim was a gamer's game, it would be balanced. Even Morrowind and Oblivion were nowhere near this broken.

Has it been that long since you've played Morrowind?

If you think destruction is weak now, imagine if the mana didn't regenerate!

Morrowind had single skill recursions. Nothing is that unbalanced in this game.

Still, playing Skyrim requires the player to sign into an agreement with a third party and install a 3rd p[arty client, which in turn could revoke your ability to play the game.

Compare that to CDProjecktRed's business practices, and you will call Steam draconian as well.

Couldn't agree more with what Jim said.

While I agree with what he says, the guy is freaking obnoxious.

That's the charm, style and greatness of the Jimquisition.

So much for intellectual honesty, eh?

Not a bad video overall.

I love how there are all these people that constantly cry about how every game in this series is "broken", but that has apparently not stopped them from buying and playing each game. You must be quite a glutton for punishment if you keep coming back to a game series that you dislike so much.

i can agree, but its not the total downfall of the gaming industry, that would have to be mainstreaming. And no TES is not mainstreaming.

Mainstreaming to me is not dumbing down gameplay or making things simple for players, IT is however sequels and clones.

What i mean is companies that milk their franchise so much (lookin at you Treyarch and IW) and others i cant name. Companies that try new things (Bethesda) are what keeps the gaming industry alive and fresh. heres the jest of it

COD makes the SAME game every 2 years, the same multiplayer the same run and gun without any innovation and gets tons of players to buy their games. THAT is mainstreaming, keeping things the same to appeal to players who dont want to try new things. Look at EA, they made battlefield:bad company 2 and BF3 and get 0 attention for an awesome game that could potentially run the COD series to the ground, thats because its unique and fresh somthing people arent familiar with.
Games like TES series are always new a fresh with different things each time, are they each perfect? no but they are great in their own way. again look at bioshock 1-2 an easy comparison, Bioshock 1 had THE most interesting single player experience is a very long time. It presented on its own, how a game should be constructed every time. even though not every game uses the same principle and story. And yet bioshock 2 which can be described as an alright game just plain svcked in comparison to the original why? not because of multiplayer, but because they milked rapture for what it was. The story ended with 1 and they re-surfaced it to get money from players that would ultimately buy it.

So i could easily go on ALL DAY about my own opinions but to simply put it. Main streaming is simply milking a franchise by keeping it the same. so examples would be, CODs, Halos, gears of war, guitar heros, rockbands, mario karts.
No sequels arent 100% bad, but it has to inquire it like a really good example is golden sun 1+2 perfect games, but the DS feature was a mainstreamed to milk money from its name.

Examples of games that have new exciting gameplay and stories, Darksiders, Enslaved, Deus Ex, Dead space, TES series, Zelda, Tales of series, final fantasies and much more

Hopefully you see where im going with all this

yep... whatever problems i have with skyrim, its success in the face of the rest of the crap being released is a boon that greatly outweighs any number of loot-filled corpses falling through the floor .

This is the reason I like watching Jim Sterling. He may have an unbearable online persona (at least in my opinion), but he makes
good points on a consistent basis. He says things that many reviewers are afraid to say- he's not worried about being controversial,
and he gets to the point. I'm glad that Skyrim is here.

That said. FUS RO DAH!!!

I agree with a lot of it, but A few issues I've got with the vid:

Skyrim has no chance of beating Call of Duty in sales. None.

"It has ZeniMax's deep pockets to back it up" - Zenimax is a shell company for Bethesda, it's nothing. Bethesda CREATED ZeniMax. Bethesda is fairly large for a developer but as a publisher it's far smaller than the likes of Activision, EA, Square, Eidos, Capcom, and most of the other developers who push out games these days.