Where Have All The Manuals Gone?

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FrenZi

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#1  Edited By FrenZi

 I was throwing out some useless memorabilia/junk and stumbled across a box of old game manuals obviously I had to start reading them instead of continuing the cleaning. Back in the day they really put some effort into these things hundred or more pages of lore, unit descriptions and other useless but cool stuff.  Now days it’s just a small booklet with installation instructions and a few words about the HUD or something like that.

Am I the only one who misses useless information in book form? I would go as far as paying extra to get a proper thick manual full of lore with my games. How about you?

 

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Venatio

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#2  Edited By Venatio

They have alot of more tutorials and stuff in-game nowadays and they wanna save money by spending less money on manuals

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General_D23

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#3  Edited By General_D23

What would they put in game guides that would justify them costing $20 if they had all the info in the manual already?
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Willy105

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#4  Edited By Willy105

I agree.
 
Today's retail boxes are absolutely pitiful. They really put up a hard case for pro-retail business.

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ProjektGill

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#5  Edited By ProjektGill

I remember back in day they used to have entire character back stories and random factoids in a nice 30 page manual. Now manuals are like 5 pages (Modern Warfare 2, I'm looking at you) and you have to buy limited editions to get "art books" to get what used to be in manuals.

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MAN_FLANNEL

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#6  Edited By MAN_FLANNEL

Yeah, I used to always read through the manuals too. 

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Callumrides

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#7  Edited By Callumrides

I remember the old half life 1 manually that was easily 100 pages I miss those days 
 
Bring back the mauel

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RHCPfan24

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#8  Edited By RHCPfan24

I used to love manuals, it is a shame they are disappearing or shortening in length. EA seems to be the most consistent offender of this as all of their manuals are extremely small and black/white.

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Claude

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#9  Edited By Claude

The Tiger Woods 10 manual is a joke and has been for years. People bitch on the EA Forums all the time. The forum community usually answers all the questions.

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meteora

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#10  Edited By meteora

I kind of liked reading manuals, but in this day and age they are pretty obsolete with the internet being a viable source for tips and tutorials (GameFAQs), or just installing the tutorial into the game itself. Not only that, but it saves them a bit more money and helps environmentally with less paper being used to make manuals. Nowadays I never bother reading the manuals for instructions.

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ZmillA

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#11  Edited By ZmillA

In the old days, whenever I bought a new game I would always read the manual while pooping before playing the game.

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deactivated-5f8ac39b52e76

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I miss them too.

 Homeworld: 119 pages | StarCraft: 95 pages | Baldur's Gate II: 150 pages (none of them multi language)
 Homeworld: 119 pages | StarCraft: 95 pages | Baldur's Gate II: 150 pages (none of them multi language)
Now those were manuals. It all started to go south when Valve shipped Half-Life 2 without any manual and opted for a pathetic flyer with only the most basic information on it.
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ThePhantomnaut

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#13  Edited By ThePhantomnaut

Blame Halo.

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Cerza

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#14  Edited By Cerza

I also loved the manuals we got back in the day. I remember I'd read through them and look at them and study them over and over. I thought they were awesome. Unfortunately it seems most other people didn't agree with me as I am under the impression that a lot of people and possibly most people never read them, which is why I blame all the manual stuff being in the in game tutorials now, which leaves little reason to include a proper manual.

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Chyro

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#15  Edited By Chyro

Yeah I've definitely noticed that they've shrunk over the years.  I picked up Modern Warfare 2 and the size made me literally laugh.  It's kind of sad as that game could actually use a bigger manual to understand the story as it's a little fragmented.  Above poster is right though.  As in game tutorials have become the norm, the manuals have lost their size.
 
If you want a game that could have used a bigger manual but didn't include it, check out Mass Effect. But it didn't need one.  As the in game codex did a excellent job of keeping track of all the lore and races from that game.  I wish more games would have something like this in them as it's an easy "to go" guide on everything the game has in it.  I'm trying to think of a couple other games that had this in depth look at everything but nothing immediately comes to mind other then ME.

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FrenZi

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#16  Edited By FrenZi
@Chyro:  Yeah ME codex is great. Read everything in it but it's just not the same. On the plus side half of it is like a book on tape :D
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Systech

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#17  Edited By Systech

The Great Recession, yo.

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juanvaldes

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#18  Edited By juanvaldes
@atomic_dumpling said:
" I miss them too.
...pic...
Now those were manuals. It all started to go south when Valve shipped Half-Life 2 without any manual and opted for a pathetic flyer with only the most basic information on it. "
Not to mention Civilization, SimEarth. Hundred plus pages with actual history and science in them. 
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iam3green

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#19  Edited By iam3green

i use to read the manual also. it would be great there would be a story behind the game, the controls. now in days there is always a tutorial in the beginning of the game. i kind of just want to read the manual and jump into the game.

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SadisticApathy

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#20  Edited By SadisticApathy

I miss the longer manuals of the past as well. When I was younger, I'd always read the entire manual for a game after playing it for the first time. It kinda added to the 'being sucked into the world' aspect of gaming and made me even more excited to play the game again.

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Black_Raven

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#21  Edited By Black_Raven

Yea I miss those huge manuals you used to get, probably the best manual I've got in recent times is the one that comes with The Witcher Enhanced edition, no so much the manual but the fact that it also came with a game guide.

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Yummylee

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#22  Edited By Yummylee

I just hope the GTA series will continue their manuals much like its a city brochure. Always enjoyed readin through them for that reason and looking at all the funny commentary.
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hojufixter

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#23  Edited By hojufixter
@Abyssfull: I have to agree with you, the GTA brochure manuals rock.
 
Seeing that pic of the Baldur's Gate 2 manual brought back so many memories. So much lore, so little time...
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Barrock

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#24  Edited By Barrock

I miss them too. I always felt jipped when I opened a new game and it was a crappy manual in black and white. I loved GTA's manuals. I can remember finding GTA 3's fascinating.

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infininja

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#25  Edited By infininja
@ThePhantomnaut said:
" Blame Halo. "
Halo's manual wasn't Starcraft in size, but it was full color and had loads of story information. I don't know what you're talking about.
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Vinchenzo

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#26  Edited By Vinchenzo

I always read through the manuals on the toilet. Now I can actually read through a whole manual in half of a sitting. :'(

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Cazamalos

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#27  Edited By Cazamalos

activision for sure will stop making game manuals and just put ads like  the  movie's dvd, but yeah the price of that massive quantity  pf paper books sure is high in the recession 

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xionpunk

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#28  Edited By xionpunk

Yeah, I agree, I miss the cool game manuals.  There was some great stuff in the PS2 era (I liked the Red Faction one), but all of them have sucked so far this gen.  Still, I thought the downloadable Metal Gear solid database, while not quite the same,  was kick ass.  Can we please get more of that kind of stuff?

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ThePhantomnaut

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#29  Edited By ThePhantomnaut
@Infininja said:
" @ThePhantomnaut said:
" Blame Halo. "
Halo's manual wasn't Starcraft in size, but it was full color and had loads of story information. I don't know what you're talking about. "
I mean the tutorial.
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deactivated-57b1d7d14d4a5

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I loved the old manuals, but I'm glad to give them up in favor of intuitive mechanics and good tutorials.

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hockeymask27

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#32  Edited By hockeymask27

Ya I recenlty found my old snes manuals. D.K country 2 and Super Mario world manuals were so awesome color pictures big. Now we got 2 pages black and white crap :(
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TobyD81

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#33  Edited By TobyD81

Those cool manuals became premium art books and limited editions.

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Verit

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#34  Edited By Verit

I miss the old days of getting a game and having to go to school the next day, eagerly sitting in class to run home and play it. Game manuals helped satisfy that insanity. Nowadays everything is simply, "Troubleshooting"/"Join XBL"/"Here's your only 3 pages to read". Modern Warfare 2's manual was heartbreaking.

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Illmatic

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#35  Edited By Illmatic

I miss them but my eco friendly side is glad they're gone.

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Emandudeguyperson

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I always try to get the copy of the game with the manual when I go to the GameStop.

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SoothsayerGB

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#37  Edited By SoothsayerGB
@General_D23 said:
" What would they put in game guides that would justify them costing $20 if they had all the info in the manual already? "
Wall Posters?  But the guides don't really make sense anymore with the internets and all.  Google is free.
 
I miss them too.  It would be cool to see a game released with an old school theme attached.  Thick manual, instruction booklet, intro story, character bio's, and some other random awesomeness.  Like a mini poster or CD sound track.  I even framed my poster from the MGS3 guide.  
 
But isn't digital distribution a good thing?  I completely agree that the game cases of today are flimsy and cheap.  Seems all the money was put into copyright protection.   Which is still weak.
 
I also miss cartridges.  But like paper, it's near useless when most people have color printers and internet browsing capability at a stone's throw away. 
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#38  Edited By Diamond

Manuals were cool, there were a lot of great NES manuals...
 
Manuals cost extra money to make, lots of people didn't bother reading them, practically speaking in-game tutorials are a better game-learning tool.
 
I miss nice manuals, but like disk artwork or box art they're really an unnecessary extra.

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#39  Edited By AndrewB

Nothing beats the spiral-bound goodness of a western RPG manual. Those things are always quite useful, since you don't have to sit in a game's menu running over tooltips to try to figure out exactly what something does. It's also easier for party pre-planning.

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lemon360

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#40  Edited By lemon360

The Persona 4 manual was pretty big compared to most game manuals these days.