These forums -- which are ironically filled with people who've devoted many, many hours to playing skyrim -- are teeming with Todd Howard haters. Many complain that he's taken the game in a bad direction. But these dissenters rarely acknowledge the subjectivity of their claims; they seem to believe their perceived weaknesses are not simply matters of opinion. And given the widespread success of skyrim, you would think that they would give Todd Howard the benefit of the doubt -- that they might concede his management has resulted in a wildly successful product, even if they aren't particularly fond of it.

Long story short, T.H. has created a wildly successful game -- which, judging by sales figures, is not a matter of opinion -- and I think the skyrim dissenters should keep that in mind when drafting their complaints.

Note that this post does not claim T.H. deserves unprecedented admiration and praise. I'm simply arguing that people are too critical of the job he's done.

A. Pre Orders...this is the 5th installment of a vastly successful series so there is some coattail riding which is unavoidable but lends something towards your sales=good game arugment
B. He uses double speak to trick simple minded people per example "the PS3 is getting tons of attention".....this is a fill in the gaps with what you want to hear statement I could give more examples but I really don't care all that much

That said I love Skyrim but it was a buggy on release port and since the game series was originally made for PC only I can see the anger.

True.

If TH wants their respect all he has to do is go out of business making games they prefer like a proper RPG studio.RIP Troika,BIS, et al

Mmhmm. Except for the fact that the direction its taken has been to scoop out the substance and fill it with foam...

Also, Skyrim is easily the buggiest TES to date. To the point where the game literally stops working. Which isn't good enough for a full priced product. If car was this poorly built it wouldn't be legal to drive on the road.

He gets to much credit, actualy. He is not the end all be all of TES, and people don't realise this.

Todd was the game director. That puts him into the position of responsibility. For both the good stuff and the bad stuff.

I hate playing devils advocate but just because a game sells well doesn't always mean it was a good game. Take Call of Duty for example. It's the highest grossing franchise of all time. Not a great game. I love the Elder Scrolls and I love Skyrim but there are plenty of things that I would have done differently when making it. A different UI would be at the top of that list along with proper mouse and keyboard support. Longer guild storylines and so on. I'm hoping people like Todd Howard listen to their fans about these issues because we love their games and we want them to do good. Personally I hope they see the backlash from this new UI and impliment a new UI something similar to the older Oblivion or even Morrowind UI. I play on PC and I do get 8 hotkeys but I've heard that the console gamers only get 2 hotkeys which is laughable.

Even if what you're saying is true -- which I don't really think it is... -- then it's all the more reason to scale back criticisms...

So what? The game was always going to be a big seller on it's name alone. Bethesda cut a lot of corners doing this game and did it on a budget while they where too buy buying up gaming companies like id Software.

You can say that a game is objectively bad despite widespread popularity, but only if you believe you're right and all the game-lovers are wrong. That reminds me...I like strawberry ice cream best, and anyone who disagrees is just plain wrong...

Bull. People who have a negative opinion about skyrim are just as valid as anyone elses, your problem is you don't agree with them so there must be something wrong with the people that don't go with the flow. Not everyones a cheerleader bub. I don't give two dead flies how many copys the game sold, its a bad game. And before someone jumps in and says well thats you opinion, well of course it is. If howards the idiot that decided to force us into steam, then yeah, i'll critize him for that. Bad decision in my book. You keep that in mind when you decide to berate someone that disagrees with you.

But the real culprit for my souring view of the elder scrolls series was the nimrod that decided to build the game on a console platform and then port it to the pc. Theres your real villian. In my opinion of course.

Yes, the many years spent developing the game, and the many millions of dollars spent in the process clearly indicate a high degree of "corner cutting." Good point.

Yes, but you see, we are on the internet, sir. It would be stolid to say the internet isn't full of the simple-minded -- my point being that when approaching a forum, a user should expect to encounter the imbecilic. I'm certainly not suggesting all internet users are idiotic, but there are those who are opinion-ridden with their biased arguments and irrelevant trivialities and such. Along those lines, the reoccurring banter "dude, like skyrim suks cuz, like, its generalized", becomes quiet anticipated and perturbing, too. Welcome to the clash of the anti-transcendentalists.

Maybe it's just me but i get the feeling the game was to be marketed to just the consoles.

I can't understand why the textures for skyrim was'nt 2k in the initial release?

Heck it was coming off server so size dosen't come into it.

He spelled "were" wrong. You can not let you time be wasted with such stupidity.

Thing is, you have to play it before you know its bad, unless you're a sheep. So sales alone isn't really the best way to deduce quality.

Looking at story implementation and world depth. Morrowind and Daggerfall obliterate Oblivion and Skyrim.
Bugs; Skyrim is on par with Daggerfall...

Morrowind is like reading a really really good novel. Skyrim is like watching the movie version of the same really good novel.

Your point? Popularity=/=Quality.

They did cut corners a lot and that's why modders are and have fixed such issue. They cannot even make the time to do UV texturing right.

Good thing you are here to defend him.

I am willing to be Todd is not getting bent out of shape by some quasi-anonymous flamers on the forums. The forums of the game he helped create... Hell the activity of the forums is a good thing for him.

meh topic.

in general nobody knows who Todd Howard is.

Alright, easy there Peter Jackson. Why don't you take another stop back at the forum when you complete the development of the world's best game. In the mean-time, the rest of us'll just enjoy what we got.

I don't think this is a personal thing to Todd Howard. He's just the figure head that things get aimed at.

If this was my first TES game, I'd say it was a great game. I've seen what they can do though and they didn't reach their potential with this one. Skyrim is only a pretty good game.

Well...that is a very ostentatious way of suggesting that my post is futile. But, like the "opinion-ridden" members of this forum, I just can't help but satisfy my urge to express myself.

1) you forgot a comma
2) you should know him, if you're on this forum
3) is your point that there are non many people hating on him?
4) reasons 1 2 and 3