Skyrim Grandma Shirley Curry’s Retirement Shows a Troubling Trend

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2025 proved to be a year of ups and downs for gaming. It brought us highly anticipated titles like Donkey Kong Bananza and Hollow Knight: Silksong, and also saw the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, signaling a fresh start as Nintendo aimed to compete with other companies. The year also surprised us with successful games not made by Nintendo, such as Cyberpunk 2077, alongside Nintendo’s own releases like Mario Kart World. Overall, 2025 was a significant year for gaming, but there’s a major drawback to consider.

A sense of dissatisfaction has been noticeable in the gaming world this year. While the Nintendo Switch 2 launched successfully, many have pointed out a lack of truly innovative games available for it. Adding to this, prices have been increasing on other gaming systems, and there have been repeated concerns about how some companies operate. Especially frustrating for many has been the long wait for highly anticipated sequels, such as a new installment after The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. This frustration reached a peak with one well-known gamer deciding to step away from the scene.

Skyrim Grandma Shirley Curry Used to Be Skyrim’s Biggest Player

It’s unusual to think of seniors – particularly those from the Silent Generation, Greatest Generation, and earlier – as video game players. This is because gaming only became popular after they grew up. However, with the right games, hobbies, and available time, older adults can really get into playing. A great example is Shirley Curry and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Born on April 2, 1936, in Lebanon, Ohio, Curry held several jobs throughout her life, including working at a candy factory and as an associate at Kmart, before she retired in 1991. She began gaming after being inspired by her son; her first game was Civilization II, and she quickly became very interested in the hobby. In 2011, she discovered The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Curry became completely immersed in the game, spending countless hours playing and enjoying its world.

In the same year, she started a YouTube channel to connect with other creators who also made content about Elder Scrolls. By 2015, Curry began sharing her own Skyrim videos. Her friendly personality and real excitement quickly gained her a large and dedicated fanbase. As of 2025, her channel has around 1.3 million subscribers – whom she playfully calls her “grandchildren” – and her videos have been viewed a total of approximately 31.3 million times. This demonstrates how a strong love for a popular game can create a thriving community, regardless of age.

Shirley Curry’s Retirement From Skyrim Is Not a Good Sign for Gaming

In the early 2020s, as Shirley Curry’s fame grew and Bethesda promised to feature her in the next Elder Scrolls game, she started reducing how often she uploaded new videos. She explained that she was feeling burned out and had some health problems, including a stroke around 2022 which made it harder for her to play Skyrim. In 2024, she announced she was partially retiring from YouTube, but she kept posting videos because her fans asked her to. She also started playing newer games, like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Then, on September 29, 2025, she posted a video saying she would stop playing Skyrim completely, because she was getting bored and fewer people were watching.

While Curry might continue making videos, Skyrim is probably losing its appeal on her channel. Both her own lack of interest and her viewers’ decreasing excitement point to a bigger problem: it’s been more than ten years since a new main game in the The Elder Scrolls, Grand Theft Auto, or The Sims series. Add-ons and side games can only keep these franchises going for so long. Now that people are expecting a lot, GTA VI and especially The Elder Scrolls VI really need to deliver when they come out, or they could make the feeling of things being stuck in gaming even worse this decade.

Video Games Used to Be Released at a Breakneck Pace

It’s difficult to emphasize just how quickly new games and sequels used to be released. Consider the Grand Theft Auto series as an example. The first game came out in 1997, and the series consistently received new installments or expansion packs every one to two years until 2009, when Chinatown Wars and The Ballad of Gay Tony were published. Furthermore, Rockstar Games also released other successful titles like Bully and Red Dead Redemption, which benefited from the success of the Grand Theft Auto series.

The peak period for Rockstar Games has passed, beginning after the release of Grand Theft Auto V in 2013. It’s been over ten years since a new GTA game came out – something that would have seemed impossible in the early 2000s. The series has continued thanks to GTA Online, which is one of the . Aside from Red Dead Redemption 2, launched with Red Dead Online in 2018, Rockstar hasn’t released many new games in recent years.

It’s truly frustrating that Rockstar Games didn’t release any new, smaller games in the twelve years following GTA V, instead relying on re-releasing their older titles. Thankfully, after a long wait, GTA 6 is now scheduled for release on May 26, 2026. While it has the potential to be an excellent game, many are upset about how long it took to finally arrive. Even more concerning, Grand Theft Auto isn’t the only series experiencing such lengthy delays.

Gamers Have Waited Way Too Long for The Elder Scrolls VI

Grand Theft Auto has been a popular series for 28 years, but the Elder Scrolls franchise actually started even earlier. The first game, The Elder Scrolls: Arena, came out for MS-DOS on March 25, 1994. Over time, the series has become much more customizable and captivating. Many players first experienced the franchise with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind or The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which both created dedicated fan bases due to their incredible freedom and options for personalization.

I think what really makes these games special is how huge and open the worlds are. Plus, there are so many interesting characters you can actually interact with, which has definitely boosted their reputation. That freedom and depth also helped this series stand out from Bethesda’s other big one, the Fallout series, and it became my go-to if I was craving a good fantasy RPG. It just really delivers on what I want from the genre.

I remember when the Elder Scrolls series was pumping out new games almost constantly, just like Grand Theft Auto used to. If you count all the story expansions, there was a new Elder Scrolls title every one to six years, starting with The Elder Scrolls: Arena back in 1994 and going all the way up to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dragonborn in 2012. Since then, we’ve gotten a bunch of spin-offs like The Elder Scrolls Online and The Elder Scrolls: Castles, but honestly, they haven’t really hit the spot. A lot of us long-time fans are still waiting for a proper, full-scale sequel to Skyrim.

Even dedicated fans, such as Skyrim grandma Shirley Curry, are starting to get impatient as The Elder Scrolls VI remains without a release date. The Elder Scrolls series can’t hold everyone’s attention indefinitely, and it’s not the only game facing this issue. While long development times are increasingly common, they’re ultimately detrimental to the gaming world, and if this pattern persists, we may see players shifting their focus to other games.

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2025-10-03 06:48