Lead designer Bruce Nesmith says Skyrim was a hit because it was built on institutional knowledge from Oblivion

I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge fan of the way YouTube encourages everything becoming a video that's over an hour long and doesn't have a text version available. There's a recent video putting the original Pool of Radiance into the greater context of the history of CRPGs that's almost 10 hours long, and the odds of me watching more than 10% of it are perishingly low.

Fortunately for you, we're here to convert video to text for your edification, as with The Examined Game's comprehensive interview with Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith. Asked how a game as successful as Skyrim came to be, Nesmith emphasized the importance of keeping the team together.