Just to repeat what everyone is saying, it doesn't matter.  Most game's don't come with real manuals now anyways, and EA did say they were gonna do away with paper manuals.

Yeah who gives a shit? they hit a new low when they pushed out dragon age 2 a few years early

having millions of unread game manual sat in game cases around the world is a MASSIVE waste of paper. the only time i would read on was while i was taking a shit. but i have my iphone now and my shitting time is used for words with friends

How is this a new low? Who the hell still reads the manuals anyway? Some games like RPGs I can understand, but others, who the hell cares.

It just doesn't feel right if I can't check out the units in a strategy game or classes in an RPG from a manual. I guess they should feel and be redundant but that's not always the case and I like stuff.

The Depths of DOOM Trilogy Instruction Manual is trying to tell me something..

I don't know. Things like manuals and nice packaging are the only reason why I buy physical copies. If the game comes without a manual in a crappy box that cracks after I drop it once, I don't see a reason why I shouldn't just buy it on Steam. The only recent game that I would probably buy a physical copy of would be The Witcher 2. Just look at all the goodies. 

Dear God, won't anyone think of the Trees !?!

It's saving trees.

They are useless, get over it.

@BestUsernameEver said:

It's saving trees.

Those assholes…

Manuals are gonna go. Kinda like cartridges.

What the FUCK!! Downloadable content doesn't come with a manual in the mail after you buy the game..Fucking Steam!!!! Yeah, this thread is a waste and like a previous post stated: All your info is in game anyways...Welcome to the current generation of games...

I miss big fat manuals.

No manual!?!?!? Grab your pitchforks men!

Pathetic...

@Deusoma said:

@MariachiMacabre said:

I miss big fat manuals.

I think the best manual I've ever seen was for Ocarina of Time, even though that's not my favourite Zelda. They had the concept artist draw illustrations for each point in the instructions, like how to block or throw a bomb or whatever, as opposed to just slapping a grimy screenshot in there and calling it a day.

Yes, yes and more yes.

I have been playing video games all my life, I think only once have I ever looked in a manual. Good on EA for looking out for the enviroment :)

I miss the manuals. If they're not going to include one they should at least reduce the price. 
EA will never pass the savings onto us, but they'll alternatively offer us DLC that should have been included with the game to begin with.

There's actually a very nice in game manual.

I'm happy manuals are gone!

Manuals... only crazy people ask for them...

I think it'd make more sense to produce thin cases for videogames that are half as thick as they are now. 

When was the last time I read a manual? Oh yeah, that's right when I picked up Red Dead Redemption LAST WEEK and read it a few extra times the following days. I read the manuals so the lack of a manual is FUCKING stupid.

Uh, a lot of Sony's manuals tend to be black and white. Most manuals are. Ubisoft have been doing away with them completely as well. There's nothing I love more than that nerdy new game ritual of cracking open a game and spending some time appreciating things like a good manual. However, I can't say I react with the OP's insane level of outrage to the discovery of a manual's absence.

Yeah, manuals have either been puny or non-existent as of late. 
It's sad, really, because I'm one who always loved having and reading manuals.  I guess it's because there's no real "point" anymore, with tutorials being included in just about every game, but still.  I don't endorse this trend at all.

We don't need no stinkin' manuals....

I thought EA hit a new low when they introduced the "online game pass" which meant u had to shell out an extra $10 if you bought the game used or rented it in order to play online. 
 
No manuals?  Ehh whatever.  Especially with EA's sports games, not much changes button wise with those games so no manuals doesn't really bother me.

I miss old manuals full of character and in-universe for the game. I think that companies should do it well or not at all. I want some character bios, backstory, cool tips, a bunch of cool shit. If it's gonna be a fold-out like Mortal Kombat, couldn't care less, but I'm still sad to see them go. Reading the manuals used to be the very first thing I did when I bought a game, and I'm still pissed when I buy used and there's no manual. It seems like a nice thing to do, is all.

I don't wish to offend but honestly I can't tell is this thread is supposed to be satirical or not. After their questionable marketing campaigns, limiting DRM and efforts to force online passes on players I find it a little implausible that someone would refer to this as EA's new low. For once EA's money-saving actions are probably a benefit to people overall, the phasing out of manuals is much better for the environment and while we'll all miss holding them in our hands a little quality tutorials and in-game instructions have made manuals more and more redundant over the previous years. Is this a joke I'm not getting or are you genuinely saying we should chop down forests so that a tiny fraction of games consumers have a secondary (or even tertiary) source of information on how to play their games?

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood did what you said.

@clubside said:

The "manual" business of this generation of consoles has been all over the place from Microsoft's early full-color Perfect Dark Zero to the modern four-page "fold" preferred by execrable Activision. However Electronic Arts has reached a new low with Alice: Madness Returns by including a four-page fold that itself is not a manual but a list of legal bullshit and a pointer to the manual being on disc. EA had previously descended to Activision's level of buyer-snubbing with black-and-white folds while Nintendo and Sony continue with fat full-color pack-ins, but it was never this bad. How many cents did this save you, you cheap bastards? Even 2K's release of Duke Nukem Forever has a full-color, albeit short, "manual" included.

Is it a fighting game you`ve never played before? Nope. Why do you need a manual?

Games haven't needed manuals since every single game has devoted at least the first level to teaching you how to play the game.

I used to be bothered by this, and I still get nostalgic for reading manuals on the car ride home (as well as for the huge boxes PC games used to come in), but now.. meh. It IS a waste of resources for nothing. 

Without the manual how am I supposed to know to press A/X/Space to jump? It doesn't really seem like a real big loss to me.

@Slaker117 said:

Why does this matter?

In fact, I'm hoping that soon we won't even have discs.

We can't be friends anymore.

EA like the economy in general is still hurting, badly.

Get used to these cuts, more stuff like this on the way, along with penny pinching methods such as "Online VIP passes" to garner as much money as they can.

It was only 6-7 years ago that EA was sat on the throne of videogames, with a near monopolistic grip on the sports market.... and now look at them. Pitiful. Babylon has fallen.

@FourWude said:

EA like the economy in general is still hurting, badly.

Get used to these cuts, more stuff like this on the way, along with penny pinching methods such as "Online VIP passes" to garner as much money as they can.

It was only 6-7 years ago that EA was sat on the throne of videogames, with a near monopolistic grip on the sports market.... and now look at them. Pitiful. Babylon has fallen.

I can't tell if you're being serious. It's...a manual. That many publishers are doing away with entirely.

EA like the economy in general is still hurting, badly.

Get used to these cuts, more stuff like this on the way, along with penny pinching methods such as "Online VIP passes" to garner as much money as they can.

It was only 6-7 years ago that EA was sat on the throne of videogames, with a near monopolistic grip on the sports market.... and now look at them. Pitiful. Babylon has fallen.

@FourWude said:

EA like the economy in general is still hurting, badly.

Get used to these cuts, more stuff like this on the way, along with penny pinching methods such as "Online VIP passes" to garner as much money as they can.

It was only 6-7 years ago that EA was sat on the throne of videogames, with a near monopolistic grip on the sports market.... and now look at them. Pitiful. Babylon has fallen.

I can't tell if you're being serious. It's...a manual. That many publishers are doing away with entirely.

Many publishers are also losing revenue hand over foot. Many publishers are also cutting development studios all over the world. And many publishers are also doing their best to generate revenue through more "insidious" means. Markets in Japan and UK have shrunk drastically in size this generation, whilst others such as the US do not possess the same spending power they once did. Outside of a handful of triple A IP's, the videogame market isn't quite what it was even a few years ago.

This industry is sick. It's on a path to collapse.  You're merely witnessing it slowly crumble.

@Slaker117 said:

Why does this matter?

In fact, I'm hoping that soon we won't even have discs.

Because you're a crazy person. Only crazy people don't want discs. I mean it's one thing to want to have the option to download digitally, but another to say that you wish for a discless world. Crazy. Discs will always be better for games,

  I imagine the Board of Directors is looking at Riccitiello with an evil eye.  If all these crazy initiatives fail and Old Republic can't keep subscribers for more than a couple months, that man's ass is going to be on the unemployment line.

If The Old Republic MMO is a massive failure, not only will Riccitello be unemployed, so will at least 10% of all EA employees.

You heard it here first.

@Hunkulese said:

@clubside said:

The "manual" business of this generation of consoles has been all over the place from Microsoft's early full-color Perfect Dark Zero to the modern four-page "fold" preferred by execrable Activision. However Electronic Arts has reached a new low with Alice: Madness Returns by including a four-page fold that itself is not a manual but a list of legal bullshit and a pointer to the manual being on disc. EA had previously descended to Activision's level of buyer-snubbing with black-and-white folds while Nintendo and Sony continue with fat full-color pack-ins, but it was never this bad. How many cents did this save you, you cheap bastards? Even 2K's release of Duke Nukem Forever has a full-color, albeit short, "manual" included.

Is it a fighting game you`ve never played before? Nope. Why do you need a manual?

Games haven't needed manuals since every single game has devoted at least the first level to teaching you how to play the game.

Although MK didn't have a manual either, lol. As my first MK game (missed the arcade era, first console was a N64, wasn't allowed to play M games for the longest time) I found it hella confusing until I noticed there was an in game tutorial lol. Although for most fighting games nothing, not the manual or in-game training, is sufficient enough to learn the game. Tried getting into SF4 but don't understand how it works at all.

I always find the concept of reading manuals so alien. They've been useless for at least 2 generations here, and the vast majority aren't very visually interesting either.

The only manual I ever cared about was for Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, because it was styled like Indy's journal and had little notes scrawled in it. That was pretty cool.

Modern game manuals suck.

the video game market about to crash?! but.. but i buy 2-3 games per month! all new!

@Slaker117 said:

Why does this matter?

In fact, I'm hoping that soon we won't even have discs.

Because you're a crazy person. Only crazy people don't want discs. I mean it's one thing to want to have the option to download digitally, but another to say that you wish for a discless world. Crazy. Discs will always be better for games,

@Slaker117 said:

@LiquidPrince

@Slaker117 said:

Why does this matter?

In fact, I'm hoping that soon we won't even have discs.

Because you're a crazy person. Only crazy people don't want discs. I mean it's one thing to want to have the option to download digitally, but another to say that you wish for a discless world. Crazy. Discs will always be better for games,

Just to be clear, I don't actually want there to be no physical option. I just think digital distribution should become the norm. And what about games makes them inherently better on disc?

Having a physical copy I can keep, potentially forever, as opposed to a digital copy I can lose the moment a hard drive dies or the related online service goes dead. Tell me, did you ever try playing Final Fight: Double Impact while PSN was down?

@Slaker117 said:

@Hailinel I don't think digital copies should require an internet connection to work, but other than that I'm fine with it. Hard drive failure sucks, but so does disc drive failure. And you'll be able to download the game again after loss. It's not a perfect model, but I think it will make more and more sense as time goes on.

Sure, now. But maybe not in twenty years.

Either include one, or don't.
 
Worse are the 1 page manuals, more advertisements on them then anything worthwhile, ugh.