Bethesda announced today that it has shipped 7 million copies of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to retailers worldwide and that it managed to sell 3.5 million of those copies in the first 48 hours after launch. While those numbers may not be as impressive as Modern Warfare 3's launch-day numbers it's still a pretty strong start for the franchise. Bethesda hopes to rake in around $450 million in revenue from global sales and claims that retailers are already requesting re-orders from the publisher.
The game is doing pretty well on digital distribution platforms like Steam where it has an impressive 280,000 concurrent users within the first 24 hours of release. While Zenimax may have id Software to pad its books with game sales, there's no denying that the Elder Scrolls series and Bethesda Softworks are still the rock stars of the company.
Comments
Re: Skyrim Sells 3.5 Million Copies in First 48 Hours
And they did it all without having to use an Online Pass of any sort. I hope EA and WB are paying attention.
Atlanta Video Games Examiner for examiner.com
Re: Skyrim Sells 3.5 Million Copies in First 48 Hours
I've always wondered how much developers make in profit per game.
Re: Skyrim Sells 3.5 Million Copies in First 48 Hours
The developers are paid pretty well, generally speaking. Many in the industry can and do make well over 100k a year. Many houses do profit sharing too, so that if a game is really successful some team members can end up making LOTS of money. You think people are putting in those long, long hours for burger king money?
Re: Skyrim Sells 3.5 Million Copies in First 48 Hours
I assume developers are paid a fixed salary or hourly rate if they work directly for Bethesda. Perhaps they get a bonus if the final product does well although I wouldn't know for certain.
Re: Skyrim Sells 3.5 Million Copies in First 48 Hours
Kind of an impossible question to answer but this episode of Pach Attack should give you a good idea.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/episode-111-pach-attack/64278
Andrew Eisen