-Press Release-

ZeniMax® Media Inc. today announced that the Creation Kit™, a free tool that allows PC players to create their own custom content for Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, has been enthusiastically received by PC gamers who have been uploading, downloading, and installing custom content through the Skyrim Workshop on Steam. Within a week of the release of the Creation Kit, gamers have downloaded more than 2 million mods via the Skyrim Workshop. More than 2,500 mods have been published by the gaming community, all of which are available for free.

Worldwide revenues generated by Skyrim have placed it among the industry’s most successful titles, and demand for the title shows no signs of slowing. Measured by revenue, Skyrim was the second best selling game of 2011, and 2012 sales remain strong, with continuing digital downloads and large shipments of units to retail. Within the first month following its release in November, Bethesda Softworks® reported it had shipped over 10 million units of Skyrim across all platforms, representing approximately $650 million in retail sales, and those results have since increased substantially.

Data from Steam, the digital download service, reveal that the average number of hours that a gamer plays Skyrim exceeds 75 hours, underscoring fan devotion to the game. The PC version of Skyrim in North America outsold all other PC games by a factor of over three to one in the month of its release, and Skyrim is the fastest selling title in Steam’s history.

Console versions of Skyrim reveal equally strong fan demand. The Xbox 360 version of Skyrim outsold all Xbox 360 exclusive titles in 2011 in North America, and the PS3 version of Skyrim outsold all PS3 exclusive titles on that platform. These strong commercial results match the high scores and widespread praise of critics that the game has received.

The critically-acclaimed title was most recently honored with the ‘Game of the Year’ award at the 15th Annual 2012 Interactive Achievement Awards (IAA) held at the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit. Skyrim also received top honors in the ‘Outstanding Achievement in Gameplay Engineering’, ‘Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction’, ‘Role-Playing Game of the Year’, and ‘Outstanding Achievement in Story’ categories. The IAA’s focus is on peer-based voting and its awards are considered to be among the highest honors of recognition in the interactive entertainment industry.

Skyrim had already garnered dozens of ‘Game of the Year’ awards from major outlets worldwide, including winning the top honor of ‘Game of the Year’ at the 2011 Video Game Awards which are voted on by a panel of editors from the industry’s most respected magazines and websites. To date, Skyrim has received over 200 perfect review scores worldwide, earning the highest praise from some of the industry’s most influential critics including: Wall Street Journal, USA Today, G4TV, The New York Times, GameSpy, Wired, Eurogamer, Destructoid, GamePro, Official Xbox Magazine, Joystiq, The Guardian, Famitsu and GamesRadar. G4TV describes Skyrim as “one of the greatest games ever” and Eurogamer was one of many outlets to call it a “masterpiece.”

Skyrim, available for the Xbox 360® video game entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, and PC, is the third consecutive game developed by the team at Bethesda Game Studios® to earn ‘Game of the Year’ honors. Bethesda Game Studios, which was named ‘Studio of the Year’ at the 2011 Video Game Awards, also created the 2006 ‘Game of the Year’,The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion®, and the 2008 ‘Game of the Year’, Fallout® 3.

Source: Bethesda Press release

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