[No Name]

• 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.

More likely is is the sizable portion of the PC players know that TES is not about the Main Quest, or even the Factions. It is about the world and what we do in it.

What would be interesting is the same stats for PS3 and 360, as those folks tend to be newer to the series and might blur the purpose of the game with the Main and Faction Quests.

Note, I am not saying that console players take the game any less seriously, they just may not have played enough to understand the real pull of the series. What has kept me playing these games for almost 20 years.

[John N]

It's also possible that a lot of players like dungeon crawling, and with 150+ dungeons/caves/etc., you can put off the main quest, or any other quest, for a long time.

Also, I think a lot of players have more than one character (I have 4, but only play 3 actively now) - yet another reason for such slow play, especially if you combine that with dungeon crawling.

I can spend hours walking the outside boundaries/borders of the game trying to see how far you can get, and it's interesting how many dungeons/caves/ship wrecks you find.

[Emma]

With regards to PC players:

• Only 28% have completed the main quest.

(I haven't done it yet after hundreds of hours so that's me in those numbers)

• Only 41% have maxed a skill to 100.

(I haven't done this yet either.)

• Only 14% have reached level 50.

(haha, Level 49 was my highest but I'll be continuing that game if the patch worked.)

• Only 22% have gotten married.

(No marriage here...she's a free spirit - maybe some day.)

• Only 7% have completed the Thieves Guild questline.

(Never do this but my current character likes to reverse pickpocket gold rings to people she likes and a dead fish to those she doesn't. No theft involved.)

I don't think there's anything to worry about these statistics; in fact, it may be just the opposite...dedicated Bethesda open world gamers who are in no hurry to do these things because they'll be playing for years. That describes me anyway...and I'm a dedicated dungeon-crawler too.

[Baby K(:]

Just out of curiosity, where is the OP getting these statistics?

[YO MAma]

lol

I've always viewed the Main Quest in most games as one giant tutorial, I speed through it and then go to exploring the world for the rest of my time. In games where you can't continue post MQ, I stop just short and then begin exploring.

I don't see that it makes a difference one way or the other, and I wouldn't necessarily trust any stats for PC that come solely from Steam. PC players are rather indignant when it comes to achievements anyway, and will go out of their way just to avoid them.

[Kanaoka]

Or... we keep rerolling new Hero's and have yet to finish any quest line 8)

[Sabrina garzotto]

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

That is just the kind of wedding Falanu Hlaalu dreams about!

Huh. I'm certainly not a casual gamer, but I spend most of my time in TES games "wandering around". That's where all the fun is!
And I'm not a great fan of dragons, so the main marketing appeal of Skyrim didn't move me at all

Same here on both counts. I have no desire to do the main quest with any character, because I do not want to go around killing dragons. I like dragons. In fact, one of them rescued me from the Imperials at the start of the game (intentional or not, none of our characters would have gotten out of Helgen alive without that timely assist from the big fella with wings). In fact, I am thinking over ways to disabling the main quest completely, so it cannot be done.

I am also a big fan of just walking the Nirn, getting into adventures, and helping people out. Like Kwai Chang Kane. That is the #1 appeal to sandbox games like Bethesda's, over the tightly focused ones like Bioware's. I prefer to make up my character's story as I play, rather than simply follow along a plot determined by someone else.

[Kirsty Wood]

Don't think it means too much since a lot of people play with achievements disabled.

[Ash]

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

Agreed. I've got 300 hours on console and haven't achieved anything on the OPs list. Instead I've done the companions, civil,war, Mage college, thousands of side quests, bought every house, etc. I also get bored and create a new type of char class by about level 45. And I'm not into dragons but I love the rest of the world. I have no desire to "beat" this game and "win".

[Blaine]

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?

Eh, as far as I've noticed, the achievements don't get updated. At all I mean. So if they really base their stats on the achievements, they'll be horribly wrong. Same goes for Half-Life 2 by the way. If you'd anolyse my HL playstyle based on the achievements, then I'm skipping whole levels and doing a few only partly.

[Sebrina Johnstone]

Stats can be very misleading. I'm assuming that this is based upon the steam achievements which is very easily to manipulate.

I've honestly never beaten Oblivion. I played over 100 hours and never beat it, I've never beat Assassins Creed ever. For me I get burnt out on open world games very easily. I've beaten Morrowind but I made myself beat it and it became boring. Since beating Skyrim I've proceeded to just run around and have fun.

[StunnaLiike FiiFii]

I get a kick out of these stats to.

- Maybe everyone is simply 'wandering around' as thats what these games are designed to allow you to do
- The only reason I got married was I'd read about it on the Internet and thought the extra cash might come in handy. Maybe others realize that you can only get married ONCE and are waiting for the right NPC to come along? LOL

- I think the main quest not being finished tells another story.

The game has been watered down to include only two (IMHO: at my count) "game changing" questlines which are pivital to the story: the civilwar and dragonborn quest lines. All the other questlines have no "negitive" repercussions in playing them out. The "civil war" is fairly obvious - once you've picked a side there's no turning back (outside of saved games) and the "dragon born" questline plays out one way or the other but not both.

So there are reasons to avoid those questlines, or to only play the "dragon born" questline only as far as its an advantage to the player.

I suppose gamesas could blame the "gamers guides" or the internet in general for the lack of the main questline not being played out - as nothing in the game hints that there are any irreversable desisions involved. (or maybe everyone is scared of Aldin?)

(I'm one of the few that have read 50+ books)

[Eduardo Rosas]

im sorry, but why is this profound?

[Chica Cheve]

Best guess as to why soooo many PCers didn't finish the MQ.....
They were expecting a well written, deep, immersive tale of magic, politics, and "fantasy", instead they got a poorly written story, full of plot holes, and a less than appealing "end boss".
All those things are more than enough to make an RPG fan gag.

[Lou]

Best guess as to why soooo many PCers didn't finish the MQ.....
They were expecting a well written, deep, immersive tale of magic, politics, and "fantasy", instead they got a poorly written story, full of plot holes, and a less than appealing "end boss".
All those things are more than enough to make an RPG fan gag.

I liked the main quest, I loved the civil war more though.
*Says saracasticly* Or maybe its because i play on the console.

[Rowena]

I beat Oblivion's main quest after 4 years. If my play style is representative of other PC players, I'd go out on a limb and say that PC players are a patient group and revel less often with claims of beating a game as fast as possible.

[Alexandra Ryan]

Best guess as to why soooo many PCers didn't finish the MQ.....
They were expecting a well written, deep, immersive tale of magic, politics, and "fantasy", instead they got a poorly written story, full of plot holes, and a less than appealing "end boss".
All those things are more than enough to make an RPG fan gag.

Impossible! they must be exploring, or killing some bandits atm, or... or... looking at the landscape! But because people find this game boring as hell? NO WAY!!!!

[Chloe :)]

Best guess as to why soooo many PCers didn't finish the MQ.....
They were expecting a well written, deep, immersive tale of magic, politics, and "fantasy", instead they got a poorly written story, full of plot holes, and a less than appealing "end boss".
All those things are more than enough to make an RPG fan gag.

Please don't post to indicate that members who are fans of TES are somehow inferior because of what type of RPG experience they enjoy. Best just to walk on by a thread and not post than to post to garner flames or to insult other members in an underhanded way. We warn for such so just refrain from doing it.

[Julia Schwalbe]

Best guess as to why soooo many PCers didn't finish the MQ.....
They were expecting a well written, deep, immersive tale of magic, politics, and "fantasy", instead they got a poorly written story, full of plot holes, and a less than appealing "end boss".
All those things are more than enough to make an RPG fan gag.

except nah, the mq was boss and well written.

[Rich O'Brien]

According to Steam's achievements page, 8% of players haven't even finished the first quest.

There are probably a lot of players, like myself, who bought the PC version while it was on sale and haven't gotten around to playing it yet.

This.

The game sold a lot of copies, but I bet many of them played once or twice and either did not like it, or it was too hard or their computer is not good enough. I don't think it is a reflection of PC players gaming style as much as it is more harecore gamers (on this forum) vs more casual players who just never got into playing regularly.

[City Swagga]

People play the game in different ways... There is nothing worrying about these figures at all.

And isn't that the whole point of giving the player the freedom Skyrim gives?

[alyssa ALYSSA]

Or maybe it doesn't track people anymore when they disable Steam to play offline... just... maybe???

[Yvonne]

I think it would be fair to keep in mind that most PC gamers simply don't have the time to commit the time to the game to achieve many of those objectives. For example, in Australia, the average age of a video gamer is 30 - 32 years, and married with children. Most of those people are PC based, rather than consoles.

The other aspect is that the vast majority of 'popular' games these days are short, linear type FPS (for single player), which don't compare to Skyrim's scope, requiring less than 20 hours to complete.

[Celestine Stardust]

I think it would be fair to keep in mind that most PC gamers simply don't have the time to commit the time to the game to achieve many of those objectives. For example, in Australia, the average age of a video gamer is 30 - 32 years, and married with children. Most of those people are PC based, rather than consoles.

The other aspect is that the vast majority of 'popular' games these days are short, linear type FPS (for single player), which don't compare to Skyrim's scope, requiring less than 20 hours to complete.

If you live in Australia no offence to you but, The government censors everything over there, They make rated t game M games, They censor everything, like in the witcher. They were going to ban fallout 3 if I remember correctly

[Solina971]

Personally, I don't think I'll ever get married, in Skyrim or otherwise.