[e.Double]

But it is interesting to think about. I have met people that had Skyrim and just kind of wandered around in the game because they were in the "casual gamer" category. Some people don't have the time or desire to play games like this.

I don't think it is "worrying" because even games are targeted to market segments and are not meant for "everyone".

My wife thinks that playing games is "silly" yet she reads fictional books. In my mind, playing a game like Skyrim is infinitely more enjoyable than reading a book because it is "active" fiction as opposed to just reading a story. She will never understand...

R

A thousand times this...

I posted a similar comment in another thread. For me it is like playing a game, watching a move and reading a novel at the same time. You are creating your own story in realtime...in an interactive 3 dimensional world.

[Hilm Music]

Bethesda made design decisions during production that make me believe that they are attempting to target the action adventure gamers in order to broaden the base. These gamers tend to buy the game (important part), rush to complete it, and then put the game down.

My point is that you can complete the main quest without getting a skill to 100, getting to level 50, getting married, or finishing the guild quest. Therefore, these numbers do mean something.

You can only get married by doing an obscure quest and unless you hear about marriage on the internet, or in the press, getting married is not something that jumps out. The fact that 22% have gotten married is significant, and is also something that the action adventure players are generally unlikely to attempt.

The guild quest is much less obscure than getting married. You can get on this quest quite accidentally and you do not have to go looking for it. Yet, only 7% have completed it. The people who got married were typically not interested in the guild.

I think that the 28% completion of the game represents two types of gamers. The first type is Bethesda's new market, the action adventure gamers who go in, finish the game, and are done. These people are probably not represented by the other numbers. The second type is RPG gamers that rush though the game, probably to experience it without modification one time.

The inverse of the 28% (the 72%) includes too many types.

[Killah Bee]

I always stretch out the main quest by doing other stuff in-between the various episodes. Although I bought Skyrim in November I only completed the MQ last week. I'm sure many other players are the same.

[megan gleeson]

I'm certainly not a casual gamer, but I spend most of my time in TES games "wandering around"

Me too! "Wandering around" is the game. I've been "wandering around" Elder Scrolls games for nearly ten years.

[chirsty aggas]

So what is even more interesting is how they have these stats. OP - where did you find them? I am on the Stat page with Steam and I can't drill down.

How are these stats passed to Steam? I never knew that they stored them! (Maybe you homicidal maniacs should be worried!)

(NEVER MIND - just realized you were just looking at achievements.....!)

R

[Skrapp Stephens]

I almost stopped the theive's guild questline as soon as it started. Without posting spoilers, I can't say exactly why other than the guild's direction didn't fit with my character (a "rogue" type). I did end up doing the line to see where it went, but never felt right about the things the game forced me to do at the start of the line - wish there would have been some options about how to go about things.

[.X chantelle .x Smith]

I suspect that "Chronic Restartitis" has something to do with the low level of MQ completion.

Another possibility with regard to "getting distracted" is that, if someone wants to pursue things like the word walls (which isn't necessary for but still heavily related to the MQ), doing so can take a LOT of time.

One other reason I can think of: staying away from the MQ means you don't have to deal with hostile dragons popping up like unwanted weeds everywhere you go. That DOES get old rather quickly.

[Nikki Lawrence]

Don't forget, the average gamer is not a teenager/college student with endless amount of time on their hands, but rather a 30+ proffessional who might only have time for a few hours of gameplay every week, and Skyrim takes time...

[jaideep singh]

Never finished MQ in Fonv, and had to force myself to blitz thru it in Oblivion just so not to miss it

[Marine x]

Don't forget, the average gamer is not a teenager/college student with endless amount of time on their hands, but rather a 30+ proffessional who might only have time for a few hours of gameplay every week, and Skyrim takes time...

Or a retired old fart that has nothing else to do...*looks in mirror*

[suniti]

I almost stopped the theive's guild questline as soon as it started. Without posting spoilers, I can't say exactly why other than the guild's direction didn't fit with my character (a "rogue" type).

Same, I started it, but just didn't like the tone and wasn't getting any enjoyment out of it. So I just reverted to an older save and scrapped it. There's no point continuing with questlines you don't like.
Since so much data is collected through Steam, Bethesda will see what players really do and don't like from the stats.

[..xX Vin Xx..]

• 1. Of the 72% of players who haven't even finished the main quest, a sizeable portion would be of consumers who have never played the series before and simply purchased due to Skyrim's powerful marketing, disliked it, and put it aside before completion.
  
• 
  
• 2. There would also be a sizeable portion of veteran players who became alienated post-purchase, due to Skyrim's radical simplification.
  
• 
  
• 3. And of course, there is naturally a portion of players who play slowly and haven't gotten around to beating it yet.

There are players who restart frequently. There are players who don't enjoy the heavily plotted, story-driven portions of Skyrim, and who prefer doing other things in the game. Other players divide their time among a number of different games, and might not have accumulated much time in Skyrim yet..

Your comment on a portion of players who play slowly is interesting in that it implies that the point of the game is to skip from one extended quest line to the next. The majority of casual gamers might prefer independence instead. They might rather spend their time creating their own characters and exploring the world and making or finding their own adventures.

[jesse villaneda]

Me too! "Wandering around" is the game. I've been "wandering around" Elder Scrolls games for nearly ten years.

I join the club. I wandered two years trough oblivion and closed the gates with a special mod. The main Quest was not very interesting for me. But i loved it to discover the places and make little side-quests. As I do in Skyrim. I wander around, discover new areas, do a little quest from time to time and enjoy the game.

[Jessica Phoenix]

I've only done one of those five things. Enjoy the game a lot ans have put a lot of hours into it though.

Todd Howard said on that jam video the average hours played is (IIRC) 75 hours. That's the key statistic they're going to care about. given the whole point of the game is it's a sandbox affair, what you do is irrelevant, it's how long the game sustains your interest. And thus your likelhood of buying the next one.

In some ways, the more people who have completed the MQ and Thieves guild and stuff the worse it is - as long as large numbers are still actually playing and haven't all abandoned the game unfinished, lots of players have content still to complete and will keep playing - it's worse if 95% of people have completed the main quest, feel they've beaten the game and stop playing it.

And the better both the sales and hours played, the better it is for us - apart from the 'oh noes they dumbed down for the masses' argument, the devs have a strong argument for a decent amount od resources to be invested in the next game which has proved it's a commercial winner = fat profits but must at the very least match Skyrim and ideally surpass Skyrim in terms of content.

[Alisha Clarke]

Trouble is statistics have remainded unchanged since end of first week, so it does not appear to reflect what is really going on. Just a Bethesda placebo.

[Project]

Meh, I like to take it slow and enjoy it to the fullest. Over 260 hours of gameplay now, and I still have to (spoiler for main quest)

Spoiler

ask in the college for the location of the elder scroll. In fact, I already passed by, but Ancano's tactics provided too much of a distraction and I completely forgot about it until I was in Falkreath doing the Barbas quest

On the other hand, I also play a lot in offline mode, so those stats aren't really reliable. Steam doesn't need to do anything in the background while I'm playing.

[Nymph]

Meh, I like to take it slow and enjoy it to the fullest. Over 260 hours of gameplay now, and I still have to (spoiler for main quest)

Spoiler

ask in the college for the location of the elder scroll. In fact, I already passed by, but Ancano's tactics provided too much of a distraction and I completely forgot about it until I was in Falkreath doing the Barbas quest

On the other hand, I also play a lot in offline mode, so those stats aren't really reliable. Steam doesn't need to do anything in the background while I'm playing.

Even if you are playing off-line, isn't your save file updated into the Steam network the next time you log onto Steam? Even if you are just browsing the site?

[Steve Smith]

About not finishing the main quest, i have played all of the ES games going all the way back to Arena. I have never finished the main quest in any of the games. And i have logged in more than 10,000 hours plaing them. I just enjoy hanging out in the world the Bethesda created. They add so much content to their games that you never have to finish the main quest. I like the side quests, factions, and just hanging out in the world.

[Rob]

Even if you are playing off-line, isn't your save file updated into the Steam network the next time you log onto Steam? Even if you are just browsing the site?

Is it a question or do you know it is as you asked?

[Ezekiel Macallister]

I am pretty sure the Steam statistics are only accurate for PC players who remain in "online mode" while playing. I typically always stay in offline mode, and for the most part none of my statistics are accurate, and my achievements are not accurately updated.

I'm not sure why some of them are still uploaded. Perhaps there is some limited cache that gets uploaded the next time you ARE online. But it must be limited because as I said, not all my statistics are updated correctly.

Though I can say, I have played for a hundred hours at least, and not yet completed the Thieves Guild, DB, Mage College, Main quest, or either political faction of the civil war. As others have said, the main reason is the exploration/discovery factor is strong in these games.

Another reason was my early re-creation of probably a dozen characters before I settled on my main (and learned the console commands to remap stats and perks to try out new things without starting all over).

I'm currently about to hit 49, and thinking of picking up the main quest. I just smuggled some files out of the embassy. Looks like those pompous elves are just as clueless about the dragons as the rest of Tamriel! =P

EDIT: Perhaps my statistics are off because they are based on so many separate characters?

[Ernesto Salinas]

Is it a question or do you know it is as you asked?

I was asking. I am going to be playing on the PC soon, and I am still getting in all the facts.

[Kahli St Dennis]

I am pretty sure the Steam statistics are only accurate for PC players who remain in "online mode" while playing. I typically always stay in offline mode, and for the most part none of my statistics are accurate, and my achievements are not accurately updated.

Doesn't turning off the "community" thing also stop achievements?

[Spencey!]

3. And of course, there is naturally a portion of players who play slowly and haven't gotten around to beating it yet.

I'm one of them. My progress with Skyrim has been very slow, mainly because I don't play nearly as much as I did about a year ago.

[Star Dunkels Macmillan]

447 hours played. Still haven't completed the MQ and I don't have a character that's 50 yet.

[Vickey Martinez]

Only 22% got married
Maybe because of the bug that ruined the wedding with a corpse dropping in?

...Or maybe because it's a stupid gimmick only meant to get more people to buy the game. Beleieve me, there are people out there that will buy a game based on that one aspect, while for others it may be the tipping point between buying the game or not.