Allow me to give you a comparison of how amazing Skyrim really is.

There's a game out there, a multiplayer called RuneScape.

RuneScape has a game tick of .6 seconds. It has severe lag. The combat is unbalanced, low-skill (waaay lower than Skyrim, even hitting a moving target is better than RuneScape), and all styles are clones of each other with a different weapon.

RuneScape has won dozens of awards.

Now replace all those terrible things with Skyrim... usually runs smooth, balanced combat, higher skill than RuneScape, styles are actually different... plus a game world that you can't run across in five minutes. (Seriously five minutes, I've done it myself).

Now you can see why Skyrim gets awards.

I love the idea that combat is not the central theme and that you can play the game as a pacifist or a merchant. Almost everything in the game is programmed to kill you first. Even your mindless raised dead will attack you if you provoke them. Every dungeon has deadly enemies. Bodies are meant to be looted. You are meant to be the dragonborn. Sure can you delay the main quest but it wasnt designed for you to be a merchant. If that was the intent customers would come to you to buy.

This is an RPG.

In RPG's one roleplays.

If I want to roleplay a merchant I can do this perfectly well in Skyrim.

I do not have to be Dragonborn if I don't want to.

Don't tell me what I can and can not do or be in my own single player sandbox game.

Skyrim to me is easily the best game this generation. I said best game but not best RPG which would go to New Vegas IMHO, Dark Souls could be another choice for best RPG.

Skyrim does a lot of things well, it's not linear, you have a huge amount of freedom, where in other games you are hand hold linear corridor type games or games where you don't even play the game like Uncharted and Tomb Raider. Skyrim has an open world, at least 100 hours of gameplay, if not higher, other games are like 6-12. You have a Character Creation, choice between male and female, add in the DLC's and it puts it over the top for me.

There's no doubt that Skyrim deserved all of it's awards. Is it the greatest game ever made, I would argue no but Skyrim will give you your money's worth tenfold and it will still allow you to roleplay a character. Maybe not as unique as past games but you still have the option of being a Hunter, or a Barbarian, Dragonborn, Listener, a Dunmer who wears robes and jumps on people all day and picks up only Iron Ingots, etc. Other games your stuck as Marcus Fenix or a looklike type character instead of your own unique character. Me personally I like playing as a unique character that I created because I feel more of an attachment towards it then the Marcus Clone and I can roleplay that character. My current character is a Nord Warrior who was the Grand Champion of the Arena in Cyrodill but lost her title because she spoke out in favor of Talos. I can't create a unique character like that in most games and that is one of Skyrim's strengths.

Merchant is a person who sells/buys stuff for a living. When stuff is sold or bought it affects the economy.

You can't affact your living via selling stuff nor your actions affect the world in any way.

Conclusion you can't be a merchant or being amerchant is so shallow that you might as well not a be a merchant.

...wat

I'm selling and buying stuff all the time in Skyrim, but this still doesn't make me a merchant?

This is a roleplaying game.

I'm sorry you don't know what roleplaying is.

Don't expect that no-one else knows.

No. You gotta stretch it out like Leeloo does. Muuulti-pass.