Video Game Manuals - Where Did They Go?

[Sarpedon]

That said, I do miss the old style. They made great bathroom reading material.

Oh my god I thought I was the only one who did that. I sometimes go through game boxes to re-pick them for that very purpose. GTA listings were very good.

I've been known to do this myself. Not only that, but I've also been known to grab a game case to read the back and admire the artwork while I'm on the can, if no other material was readily available.

 

[thelastmccabe]

I definitely miss manuals. It's often easier to read something physical as you play than jump back and forth alt tabbing out to read stuff in the manual. And for strategy games, manuals in some form are still very necessary, and it doesn't mean the game has failed because you actually might have to read the manual to understand the complexities of the game. A tutorial for Civ 4 or Europa Universalis 3 that would actually teach you everything you need to know to play would be nearly impossible to make. Games like that need a manual, and it's much easier to deal with if you can have it open in front of you as you play.

 

[MammothBlade]

It is a shame, and what's more manuals rarely contain anything useful anymore. Standard health and safety warnings. Controller labelling. Maybe a short synopsis and (incomplete) list of major characters. If they're particularly generous, perhaps a very incomplete list of weapons/spells/items, just a tiny taste of what lies ingame. These days, reading a manual lowers my expectations of a game's content.

Overpriced, useless strategy guides just take the mickey, too.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

It's sad...We have freaking tree farms and you can make paper for game manuals out of hemp if you really want to conserve the trees.

I think a big factor though, other than the ecological one, is how everything is digital. Don't know what a Paladin is? Don't know how the conquer the Swamp Beast? Don't know what spells you learn as you level up? At this point you can go to one of tens-of-dozens of websites and find every last scrap of information you could ever need.

 

[MammothBlade]

It's sad...We have freaking tree farms and you can make paper for game manuals out of hemp if you really want to conserve the trees.

I think a big factor though, other than the ecological one, is how everything is digital. Don't know what a Paladin is? Don't know how the conquer the Swamp Beast? Don't know what spells you learn as you level up? At this point you can go to one of tens-of-dozens of websites and find every last scrap of information you could ever need.

Walkthroughs and game wikis are rarely official, though. That, and the point of manuals isn't really to hold your hand through the game, but to give you a basic idea of what you'll be in for, important things you should know about gameplay, something to wet your appetite, etc. Manuals don't even do that nowadays, and all that's left is a CD, a case, and a decorated health and safety booklet.

All superficial of course, but I think the finished package should be a part of customer service. Then again, often the game on the shelf isn't even the end product, and games usually require alot of patching from their original retail version.

 

[StarCecil]

It's sad...We have freaking tree farms and you can make paper for game manuals out of hemp if you really want to conserve the trees.

I think a big factor though, other than the ecological one, is how everything is digital. Don't know what a Paladin is? Don't know how the conquer the Swamp Beast? Don't know what spells you learn as you level up? At this point you can go to one of tens-of-dozens of websites and find every last scrap of information you could ever need.

Walkthroughs and game wikis are rarely official, though. That, and the point of manuals isn't really to hold your hand through the game, but to give you a basic idea of what you'll be in for, important things you should know about gameplay, something to wet your appetite, etc. Manuals don't even do that nowadays, and all that's left is a CD, a case, and a decorated health and safety booklet.

All superficial of course, but I think the finished package should be a part of customer service. Then again, often the game on the shelf isn't even the end product, and games usually require alot of patching from their original retail version.

I agree. A manual isn't a world-shatteringly vital thing to have, it was just really cool to have a nicely done one.

 

[ChaosEternal]

Yeah, I noticed this too. For example, when I played TES:Arena recently which was made in 1994 or so, I couldn't figure out how to attack or do much besides moving and jumping. There were no ingame tutorials. I had to find a manual online to figure out how to play the game. Now instruction manuals only tell you how to operate the main menu.

(As for guides, I don't bother anymore. Plenty of good online ones and I like to figure things out myself. Only good for 100% completion sort of tasks to me. >.>)

 

[Something Amyss]

Name some games with a small manual and a strategy guide out. Do it now. If you can't name 3 games with manuals under 5 pages and big selling strategy guides, admit this is a retarded point and say you're ashamed you typed it.

I'm not going to confess to a "retarded" point simply because you have set up arbitrary and frankly ridiculous standards to go by. Sorry, but if you really want to play that game, get a job for Fox News.

If you have to slant crap that far (five pages? Come now), then you don't have a point at all.

 

[MysticToast]

Oh man, I loved a nice, chunky manual so much. Now this completely retarded push to "go green" (I hate that phrase) has gotten rid of them almost altogether.

 

[Something Amyss]

Ah, I see, you know you can't, so when someone calls you out on the bullshit

If you call your making up my standards "the bullshit," Then yes.

But then, you had to lie to get there, and you got nothing. So I'm not too terribly concerned by your standards for "bullshit." They're probably just as made up as your standards here.

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh man, I loved a nice, chunky manual so much. Now this completely retarded push to "go green" (I hate that phrase) has gotten rid of them almost altogether.

Those two really aren't related.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Man I miss them...it gave me something to read on the car ride home.

 

[Iron Glorfindel]

I love manuals. The manuals were very good bathroom reading material, as others have mentioned. I don't have a smartphone or any of that stuff, so I can't "just look it up on your phone". I have a PC, which is on an entirely different floor than my Box and Cube. And I always seem to get a little stream of endorphins when I see a manual in the freshly opened box, but then I am usually disappointed once I see that it's only about three or four pieces of thin glossed paper.

 

[MysticToast]

Oh man, I loved a nice, chunky manual so much. Now this completely retarded push to "go green" (I hate that phrase) has gotten rid of them almost altogether.

Those two really aren't related.

You sure? I've seen it explicitly stated on modern "manuals" that companies are slimming them down in order to save the environment or something to that effect. It's one of the biggest reasons game manuals have almost disappeared

 

[EmzOLV]

I've been known to do this myself. Not only that, but I've also been known to grab a game case to read the back and admire the artwork while I'm on the can, if no other material was readily available.

I've done that too...
And I used to do it with album artwork and lyrics sheets on the insides of CDs.

I'm not sure whether I'm saying this with pride, or about to hang my head in shame.

 

[Something Amyss]

Only a tiny, tiny manual would be so small that it would leave out vital information that would need to be in a strategy guide. (Fact 1)

And you're lying on fact one. That's ridiculously disingenuous, and to try and hold me to that is just dishonest. So...Are you going to keep trying to assert lies, just to try and make me refute a claim on standards that are false?

Probably.