Game Manuals - dying off?

[baddude1337]

One of my personal positives about a boxed game is a manual. It's nice to get a flashy manual with some more back story to the game, a run down of the basics and explanations of weapons and enemies, but lately this seems to be disappearing. A game I picked up recently (I think it was Alice: Madness Returns) had a manual that literally consisted of 2 pages of the health warnings. Are developers finally just not caring about them anymore, in favor of training and tutorials, or are they just cost cutting? And what are your thoughts on manuals?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Cost cutting, in most cases, I'd assume. Under an "eco-friendly" guise.

I was shock when Catherine came with a think, full-color manual.

That said, I never usually read them anyway, so I don't really care.

 

[Stall]

I remember always reading the manual to the game I just bought on the ride home as a kid. I grew up in a fairly rural area, so the car ride from the city to back home was long, so it was always a fun way to pass the time.

But despite this, I don't have any particular nostalgia for game manuals. Ever since I moved over to digital media and stopped buying physical copies (which I have been doing since I was like... 14?), I stopped caring for the most part. I think that developers are just starting to incorporate more and more of the information you'd find in them in tutorials, thus eliminating the need for them, which isn't a bad thing.

 

[Kahunaburger]

If the reception of Witcher 2 taught us anything, it's that your average modern gamer really doesn't want to RTFM.

 

[omega 616]

There not really needed anymore, we all know the buttons in all games.

We all know what saving is and we shouldn't turn it off while it is doing so, we know how to charge a controller and all that other crap in there so why bother?

Unless the book has some lore in it or shows some art work of some kind nobody will glance at it, so why waste time printing it.

 

[dyre]

Tutorials > Manuals

When I saw the manual for Arcanum (I think it was like 80 pages or something), I almost died.

 

[Sariteiya]

I used to love manuals, especially those that had Character profiles in them, but I never found them really useful I suppose. I've found recently that any EA games generally have very lame manuals. Le sigh.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

I'd say they're already dead, and have been for a while. Say, since the creation of youtube. Or possible the internet as a whole.

Oh, those manuals. Yeah, I'd say so. It's a way better strategy to put all the instructions in the game. Not sure why we ever had game manuals to begin with, actually. Was there ever a point where games had a manual and NOT a tutorial at the beginning?

 

[NightRavenGSA]

I think they've mostly been either incorperated into the content, or moved online

 

[KarlMonster]

I've had recurring problems where IF I really, really had a problem and went to the manual to try to figure it out. The answer wasn't even IN the frikkin manual.

Examples:
What the number on the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mini-map means.
How the trap bolt works in Bioshock.
etc
etc

 

[Ando85]

I used to read them all the time as a kid. Long, full color, an interesting. Nowadays I don't even remove the manual from the case ever. But, funny thing is if I buy a used game, I get pissed if there is no manual, yet I will most likely never even look at it anyway.

 

[Traskelion]

No no. Not dying. Dead. Like, years and years ago.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Meh. The majority of games are so similar nowadays it really isn't needed. Besides Nintendo put a hatred of inserts into me.

If I want to look at pictures of enemies or guns, I'll find full prints online. Or better yet, just rip them out of the files.

 

[thereverend7]

Tutorials > Manuals

This. Anything from the game i learn IN the game, for the most part. a well done tutorial teaches you the game better then any manual can.

that being said, i do miss the days of detailed story and art in manuals. but i dont really read them unless im bored or can't remember something specific and dont want to go online for some reason.

 

[Javarock]

I Wish they were not, and they changed it from "Instructions" To A Bit of lore, Or things.

 

[Valiance]

I love them...I still have a giant bookshelf full of some old strategy guides - my X-Com [http://www.amazon.com/X-COM-UFO-Defense-Official-Strategy/dp/1559587644] one alone is 384 pages and over a pound, with all sorts of lovely charts and graphs and reference sheets. I miss when games came with stuff like this - I remember them, I cherish them, and never expect one, but I am mildly disappointed when Duke Nukem Forever came with - no joke - a 4 page "quick start guide" and said to download the rest of the manual as a PDF online (again, it was a mere 16 pages or so...)

Tutorials are well and good but I prefer figuring stuff out on my own rather than being spoon-fed tactics. Give me the information and knowledge and I'll translate it into combat prowess - don't say "Oh, since you have (DEBUFF) ability, use that before this one, but not against guys with shields because they'll reflect it, blah blah" - just throw me into the action so I can figure that out and feel like a badass for playing optimally. heh.

just kiddin. I love me some good tuts.

 

[Techsmart07]

Well, a couple things (don't know if they've been said)
1) game manuals were there to give you a mindset for the game. Having recently played doom, I couldn't personally tell you that the possessed human things looked human. Nowadays, it's no longer necessary to get that going, since you can tell things like that better.
2) game designers have learned "show, not tell" is very effective. It's a whole lot more engaging to a new player to a game to run a tutorial in-game than it is to spend 20 minutes reading a book before gaming.
3) I wouldn't really consider it cost cutting, if they still release a box set. Making a book is fairly cheap compared to paying developers to program an extra tutorial (unless you make tons of sales on the boxed versions). Even when the cost of the book exceeds the development cost, it is only after the game has sold enough that you have guaranteed profit on it. When you pay development, you havent guaranteed profit yet.
4) I skimmed through manuals back when I played, mostly for the art and a backstory, but I usually preferred to let practice/tutorials teach me how to play.
5) lack of required reading helps a game sell better.

 

[Koshok]

I'd say they're already dead, and have been for a while. Say, since the creation of youtube. Or possible the internet as a whole.

Oh, those manuals. Yeah, I'd say so. It's a way better strategy to put all the instructions in the game. Not sure why we ever had game manuals to begin with, actually. Was there ever a point where games had a manual and NOT a tutorial at the beginning?

Believe it or not, there was a time when games simply didn't have enough memory to give a proper tutorial. If you wanted to learn anything about the story or how to play the original Metroid, you had to resort to the little booklet.

OT: I can't say I miss manuals that much. These days, everything we need to know is on the disk. Besides, I usually get digitally distributed copies, so I wouldn't have one anyway.