Eurogamer

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.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-14-only-modern-warfare-3-made-more-money-than-skyrim-in-20111

Interesting. So western RPGs are here to stay, possibly a quickly growing segment. How will Japanese RPG makers react?

I am surprised it beat Battlefield 3 and I find it a bit hard to believe. At least VGC numbers don't suggest that.

Either way it's fantastic and better than anyone expected.

Just a theory but I think they mean that Skyrim outsold all exclusives even down at the platform level. With one caveat, they're speaking of NPD numbers only. Skyrim sales on the X360 are about on par with Gears 3 in NA and on the PS3 Skyrim bested Uncharted's NA numbers in 2011.

I think this article is one of all these articles that mixes apples and pears. In one sentence they refer to regional sales and in the next they're comparing worldwide numbers.

It means that the biggest RPG in terms of sales is now a WRPG, Final Fantasy's sales crown has been taken.

IIRC Final Fantasy has a 10M seller or two.

Not always no, but this was the way it was destined to go. JRPG developers have alienated Western gamers and are even starting to lose ground on their own Eastern fanbases, fast. A big part of the problem is the JRPG as a genre being reluctant to dive deeper into the now mandatory action segment where WRPG's have struck roots and are probably staying.

For me, this presents a paradox; I love RPG's and I want the genre to stick around but in order for it to survive, it has gone through changes that leave the end-product somewhat undesireable for me.

The RPG genre will the ultimate victim of casualization of games from the 7th generation and up and in five-ten years the genre will likely be dead as we knew it, with mostly hybrid forms existing, showing only slight and shallow traits from a (as defined by the industry) dinosaur genre of the past. People like David Jaffe, who insists that games have never and should never strive to, tell good stories, are making matters even worse.

This post is somewhat off-topic I guess, but this is something that really vexes me about this gen. While Skyrim is an accomplishment in many ways and has solid production values, it is the harbinger of ill times to come for fans of deep, narrative-driven, intelligent RPG's.

And then you have games from other genres driving depth and narrative to new levels. In this occurrence, The Last of Us.

It could, this has yet to be proven. There's still nothing that will ever substitute a solid RPG with good writing, engaging and deep gameplay and good pacing. Not to mention the trumph card; sheer size and length. I have every belief that The Last of Us will be a terrific game, its made by one of my all time favourite studios and Uncharted 1 and 2 were both incredible (haven't played 3 yet) but it will also probably be fairly short, especially compared to RPG's. Games like these also have a lot less replay value since the only difference in playthroughs is often the difficulty setting. For me, RPG's just offer such incredible value for money, more so than any other genre (perhaps with the exception of strategy).

I don't think all future games will be useless or bad, by any stretch of the imgination but I will still mourn the proper, good old RPG.

Thanks for clarifying that but I didn't think so either. I was just offering my humble interpretation of the article.