Only Modern Warfare 3 made more money than Skyrim in 2011

By Robert Purchese Published 14 February, 2012

Skyrim trumped platform exclusives on PS3, Xbox 360.

No exclusive PS3 or Xbox 360 game sold more copies than Bethesda's formidable open world fantasy romp Skyrim last year.

No, not Gears of War 3 on Xbox 360 (in North America); and no, not Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception on PS3.

On PC, Skyrim outsold all other PC games 3:1 during November, and is Steam's fastest ever selling game.

In terms of money made worldwide, Skyrim was the second most successful game of 2011. Only Modern Warfare 3 will have finished higher, which puts Skyrim ahead of even FIFA 12 and Battlefield 3.

Who said fantasy RPGs were the pursuit of lonely nerds? They're not any more, although for fellow RPG makers this is both a boon and burden.

Bethesda had shipped more than 10 million copies of Skyrim within the game's first month on sale.

With quantities like that, it's no wonder the Creation Kit toolset has been popular on PC. More than 2500 free, user-created mods were made within three days of the Creation Kit launching, and more than 2 million separate mods have been downloaded.

No specific, Bethesda-made DLC has been announced for Skyrim, although we do know it will be released as a timed-exclusive for Xbox 360.

The Skyrim Creation Kit.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (36) Latest comment 3 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • King_Edward #1 3 months ago

    It's official. Tedium sells!

  • DrStrangelove #2 3 months ago

    Well done, although it pains me that a game so great and successful is one of the most broken ones in recent history.

  • Kaminari #3 3 months ago

    Not bad for a broken game.

  • WillyWongler #4 3 months ago

    You can't receive any good news about Skyrim (not even after the patching) without the complainers coming out the wood work.

    Thankfully my experience with the game was excellent. Especially after the HD fix came out for the 360.

    Well done to Skyrim and I hope it raises the bar for the RPGs to come.

  • super_monty #5 3 months ago

    Traded COD on because it was boring and shite.
    Traded Skyrim in after spending a lot of time with it but the stuttering and other glitches forced me to get rid.

  • rogermellie #6 3 months ago

    I loved playing the game and it shows there's still a market for fantasy RPG.

    I hope now EA regrets not making Ultima Underworld 3!

  • SolidSCB #7 3 months ago

    I wonder if a week will go by without EG regurgitating the same COD sales figures at every chance they get. Got to get the weekly quota in to please Acti though, I suppose.

  • supermaniacs #8 3 months ago

    Post deleted at 21:01:35 20-02-2012

  • xandoodle #9 3 months ago

    I'm not really sure what this news article is saying.

    On XBox did Skyrim sell more than GoW3?
    or
    Did Skyrim on all platforms sell more than GoW3?

    Caus I mean one is kind of news, one well.. isn't. Would be a bit more useful with the rest of whichever chart it used to flesh it out too.

  • Dizzy #10 3 months ago

    I thought Skyrim was exclusive 360? :redface:
    Edited by Dizzy at 14/02/12 @ 18:15

  • Lucodeath #11 3 months ago

    Broken or not its still pisses on most shooty cloned games.

  • Dave #12 3 months ago

    It clearly means Skyrim sold more units on the X360 than GOW3 and it sold more units on the PS3 than U3. Only COD sold more units on either console.

    It's quite a feat and I think I'm beginning to understand how much profit Bethesda has possibly made with their last few titles (Oblivion, F3, FNV and Skyrim). I wonder what they're going to do with it.

  • crazyhorse174 #13 3 months ago

    Loved Skyrim so much, I bought it twice (360 & PC)!

    Getting some pretty slow loading times on the 360 though, so I've mainly been playing the PC version, which thankfully is much faster.

    Yes, its not perfect, but I'm enjoying it anyway!

  • WillyWongler #14 3 months ago

    @supermaniacs I haven't played Dark Souls but I will probably love it due to having completed Demon's Souls on the PS3 and loving that.

    I like the Souls games but I feel like they are more in the rogue-like genre than RPG genre. Or some sort of survival horror hybrid.

    In any case they don't feel like they're comparable to Skyrim and other RPGs. Like they're in their own genre maybe.

    So yeah, I hope Skyrim is raising the bar for RPGs to come :)

  • Daeltaja #15 3 months ago

    It's a bit of a revelation to be honest. Then again, who said Fantasy was never mass-market?

  • juliankennedy23 #16 3 months ago

    I love the fact that a game with no day one DLC, no facebook game, no preorder equipment only available at special stores, no collector edition, and no online pass sold so well.

    It is refreshing to buy a complete experience for once. (Occasional glitches not withstanding)

  • bad09 #17 3 months ago

    Now it's working Skyrim has just knocked everything to the side and taken over, I have a skyrim photo album (gonna make a screensaver of my epic journey through it eventually) with 170 pics so far. The workshop is just amazing to and I've even started learning how to use the creation kit and want to dabble in making something myself, I wanna try something epic like this :)



    I know it's had it technical troubles (especially for the poor PS3 guys) but games like this don't come along very often. Well deserved sales.
    Edited by bad09 at 14/02/12 @ 19:21

  • slow2run #18 3 months ago

    @bad09
    Any game that allows its community to do that deserves every single sale.
    Give that modder a job.
    Don't remember being able to do that in Fable/Mass Effect.

  • PixelEdged #19 3 months ago

    Okay, thats all cool and well but can they go to work on Fallout 4 now please thanks.

  • bad09 #20 3 months ago

    @slow2run

    Yeah, I've said before I'm not really their biggest fan in all honesty but one of the things I really respect Bethesda for is the they way they let the community tinker with their games, especially nowadays with modding being replaced with crappy DLC by many.

  • JayG #21 3 months ago

    PC version was released same day as Console, and sold bucketloads. Maybe Publishers will realise that delaying the PC version might just mean that some of us end up waiting for the Steam sale. Max Payne 3 has already lost me as a full price sale.

  • Triggerhappytel #22 3 months ago

    This news article is a bit disjointed. So Skyrim sold more copies on Xbox 360 and PS3 than exclusives on either console in North America, but it also made more money worldwide than any other game last year except presumably MW3. I don't suppose there are any figures to back this up or give it some context? Seems a bit cobbled together otherwise.

  • paketep #23 3 months ago

    It's sad that a POS like MW3 is again the most profitable of the year.

  • INSOMANiAC #24 3 months ago

    And not a shitty fucking online pass in sight!

  • CaptainKid #25 3 months ago

    Good! This means we can expect a shitload more of these games.
    Haven't played Skyrim yet (waiting for more bug fixes, DLC, mods, no rush) but just started to play Fallout NV once again and it's magnificent.

    Bring on Fallout 5!

  • smurfinaus #26 3 months ago

    Not surprised considering both games charged top dollar on release :/.

  • Nephirion #27 3 months ago

    I personally made more money than MW3, so technically I win :p

  • werewolf_poo #28 3 months ago

    I used to think these kind of games looked boring and were just for geeks but after one of my friends persuaded me to get fallout 3 I have never looked back. We used to look up the wiki (on nightshifts) for fallout and always find new stuff we hadnt seen. These are the games that deserve MW sales.

    Buying Ultimate edition of Vegas at the end of the month as I 1000 pointered it but didnt buy dlc. I will def be buying skyrim dlc day one as it is just so addictive.

    Well done to Bethesda.......but after the skyrim DLC could you please get to work on Fallout 4 please ;)

  • DwarfyP #29 3 months ago

    @King_Edward How dare you say bad things about Skyrim. Everyone knows you HAVE to like Skyrim. It is one of the rules of the Internet cos an arrow got shot into my leg or something like that.

    Although I do agree with your post :)

  • WillyWongler #30 3 months ago

    @Nephirion gizza job mate.

  • stryker1121 #31 3 months ago

    Nine posts before somebody mentioned Dark Souls on a Skyrim story. Come fellas, you're slipping!

  • craziii #32 3 months ago

    this proves it, casual gamers win :p being one of the hardcore, this makes me a bit sad.

  • LHH #33 3 months ago

    Love Skyrim. Although I've put it on hold whilst I work through MGS HD collection and that will be put on hold shortly for Mass Effect 3.
    But Skyrim is a nice big game so I don't feel as though I'm missing anything as I'll just pick it up again and throw another 70 hours at it.

  • Lord_Gremlin #34 3 months ago

    How sad... Or how awful? It's broken on PS3 and it was broken on 360 on release day. God, this is horrible. People really are sheep.
    Somehow makes me feel good about me not buying it.

  • mrblonde #35 3 months ago

    SINGLE PLAYER GAMES ARE NOT DEAD!! THANK GOD! take note E.A.

  • JayKwon #36 3 months ago

    I still have to continue playing after mine first initial hours around launch. No no, no bugs, Dark Souls is the offender here. I really liked my first hours with Skyrim though, and I think it's almost time to boot it up again. Almost.