Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media happily announces that in just a week after releasing the Creation Kit and launching The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim's repository in the Steam Workshop, PC gamers have downloaded more than 2 million mods. Even more, over 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," the company says in an emailed press release. "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."
ZeniMax also spouts interesting numbers regarding Skyrim and PC gamers. According to data retrieved from Steam, the average number of hours that a gamer plays Skyrim exceeds 75 hours. 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," ZeniMax states. "These strong commercial results match the high scores and widespread praise of critics that the game has received."
As reported last week, over 43 "pages" of mods had already appeared on the Skyrim Workshop just one day after both the portal and the Creation Kit launched. Currently there are 298 "pages" playing host to 2681 entries. One of the more notable uploads is one created by Valve itself called Fall of the Space Core, Volume 1. The "aggressively space-centric little robot" from Portal 2 literally drops from space and will tag along after a brief introduction, replying with lines of dialogue from Portal 2 as well as new Skyrim-themed lines mentioning dragons and other fantasy things.
To kick off your Skyrim modding spree, install the Creation Kit – free through Steam to all Skyrim owners – from the Tools section of your Steam Library. The Skyrim High-Resolution Texture Pack for the PC version can be downloaded here.
