The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Message Board

One cannot understate how important the decision was to release The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion near the launch of Xbox 360, whose ensuing popularity changed the whole trajectory of Bethesda Game Studios.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was hedging a different bet, launching an ambitious fantasy RPG not long after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Remember, this is the series that most other games have famously changed their release dates to avoid competing against, and Skyrim was flying head-first into the firestorm.

It worked, and parent company Zenimax Media announced today more than seven million copies of the game have been shipped worldwide (shipped, not sold), and the game’s “expected” to generate more than $450 million in sales from “launch units.”

By comparison, Modern Warfare 3 generated $400 million in just 24 hours. It’s unclear what timeline Bethesda is referring to, but it’s most likely over a several day period. Either way, it’s ridiculously impressive.

Back in the old days, live streaming video of people playing video games sounded like madness. It didn't make any sense. And, when it did happen, it certainly didn't happen for 12 hours straight. One man, one reviewer, one Greg Kasavin decided that maybe the best way to get some information out to the people about The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion would be to let the world watch as he began his review process. With a game as long as Oblivion was, the first 12 hours is kind of barely scratching the surface, so I don't know that it even really "spoiled" anything in the traditional sense.

I think the rest of us thought he was crazy. 12 hours? With one game? Live on the Internet? Forget it. "It'll never work," we said. Yet here we are, five years later, with a fancy new site largely built around the idea of posting hours and hours of game coverage. He was right. We were wrong. It was a pretty awesome happening. People are interested in watching other people play video games on the Internet. Seems so obvious these days, doesn't it?

That's why this week's live event feels momentous. Because we'll have Greg Kasavin, now of Supergiant Games, coming in to share his first 12 hours of Skyrim with the world. To make sure that we aren't sullying his time--mostly because I've already played more than 12 hours of the game and Brad's review will have posted by then--we're essentially going to lock Greg away and let him do his thing. Will he join the Dark Brotherhood? How many dragons will he fight? How many shouts will he find? Hmm... maybe we should start some kind of betting pool. Either way, I'll be hanging out in our chat room during the stream, so let's posse up and watch Greg's adventure, cool?

Join us at 8AM Pacific Standard Time on Thursday for Skyrim. Or, if you're feeling saucy (and hate sleep), our own Dave Snider is going to kick off the live festivities with a pre-Skyrim stream starting at midnight PST on Wednesday night. Will he play Morrowind? Oblivion, perhaps? Come back to the site tomorrow night and find out!

If you’re looking to take your mind off impending global catastrophe this weekend you could do worse than checking out the v1.0 release of Oblivion mod Dibella’s Watch. It’s a new “continent” for Oblivion, which includes “a major city, castles, towns, villages, farms, monasteries and all the good stuff that makes up a Medieval landscape.” It’s a pretty huge Oblivion mod put together by a single person, and, while not as ludicrously as full-featured as total conversions like the almighty Nehrim (yes, I am still meaning to come back to that one day), it’s a really impressive piece of work, and worth a look if you just want a new landscape and some fresh quests for Oblivion itself.

Poor guy, he adored you right to the end. Player: http://www.youtube.com/user/KARASAWAM2