UESPWiki:News/Skyrim Preloading on Steam

Skyrim Preloading on Steam — November 9, 2011

Skyrim is now available to pre-load on Steam. For those who haven't done it before, this doesn't mean you can play the game early, just that you can avoid the inevitable bandwidth problems by downloading an encrypted version of the game onto your computer that will be unlocked when the game is officially released.