I'm not surprised that game manuals are starting to go away (at least for Ubi-soft games). But the thought did occur to me, that this might alter or completely destroy "new game smell".
Yeah, new games smell awesome. And some of the aroma will disappear with the removal of the manual i think. It's a shame really. They say it's for the environment but we all know that's not the case. Cheaper for them, but we consumers still have to pay the 60 bucks.
I guess the real question is what is the root of "new game smell"? Is it solely the manual, solely the disc (or cart) or an impossible-to-disentangle amalgamation of both smells co-mingling for weeks in a shipping container on a slow boat from China. If you remove one element does the whole house of cards fall?
I will miss the nostalgic feeling of being driven from the store and eagerly reading the manual, But like Jeff, It's been years since that happened, Now I just jump right in and play unless I really need to read it,
They'll probably come up with some kind of artificial new game smell that they can spray inside the box. But you know it will never be as good as the real thing.
Honestly does manuals really help the gaming experience? To me they don't, I mean in gaming world where most the games start of with tutorials, there really is no need for game manuals. If you can't understand the concept of "this button does this and this button does that", then should you really be playing video game. Now I know the game manuals do bring some sort of a nostalgia to it. The older day gaming like Sega and SNES, they had the manuals and it was something to read about the game and get yourself pumped up before playing the game...but in a good portion of the manuals it gave away the story of the game and the characteristics of the main character and his fellow friends or enemies...hence the story element of a game...I don't want to know early on before I even start the game up, why these people are doing what there doing. I want to be engrossed in the story and find these things out on my own.
So I guess what I'm trying to say, manuals went the way of the 90's teens...and I for one hope they don't return.
New game smell is pretty awesome and I think it can be attributed to the manuals. The best new game smell for me was Grand theft Auto 3. It smelled different and from that point on, I knew I was in for something special.
Man I love the smell! :D You can smell it really bad when you pass my local GAME, then you pass Gregg's and at that point I faint it's that nice. I'm pretty sure it's mainly the case, 'cause the book doesn't smell as good to me. But that's just me. :)
" New game smell is pretty awesome and I think it can be attributed to the manuals. The best new game smell for me was Grand theft Auto 3. It smelled different and from that point on, I knew I was in for something special. "
I just got a funny image of Jeff Gertsmann sniffing a game and saying "tripple A."
Jeff's article made me crack open a box of old cardboard game boxes and manuals that I saved when I last moved house. It made me seriously regret throwing so many away.
I have the original Baldur's Gate manual here - it is glorious, 160 sides of A5 long, and bigger and heavier than the Dragon Age box and all its contents. The last page is a piece from Brian Fargo C.E.O. talking about the launch of Interplay's 'World Wide Web site', which I think dates it pretty nicely:
"As a company of fanatic gamers, we love the idea of gamers all over the world tapping into cyberspace to see, touch and feel our latest games. No hype, no marketing campaign: just great games. To make it work, our goal is to keep this site fresh and new, to make it a place where you can tell US what you like about our games... and what you don't like about them. So use the feedback options on these pages and sound off."
There's a picture of their 'Web site' and it's just about the worst thing ever. This manual is so awesome.
It will be missed. I am twenty years old and I should not feel so nostalgic for thing that were standard five years ago. I still remember having to read the manuals for Shadow of the Colossus and Ico to get the story out of it. Man, I feel so old.
Maybe game prices can go down $5 then. It seems only right, considering that you usually have to pay somebody to lay out and print the booklet. It only seems fair.
If you think games will be all downloadable in this lifetime you are delusional. Ubi is insane if you haven't figured this out and they will probably stop printing discs all together if it will save them a few pennies. This is the same company who thinks their online DRM is a good idea. I'm guessing you're going to have to be online to read the damn manual as well.
We have to boycott this trend, if they think we are ok with it, every publisher is going to implement it, come on, manufacturing a manual is more expensive now than 10 or 20 years ago?, they just want to save some money per copy and they are screwing us in the process. They are coming for the manuals, then they will be coming for the entire package and they will make us go digital. I don't want to live in that world, at least as a gamer
It was just a joke. There's always been debate as to whether "new game smell" actually even exists in the first place. Around the PS1/PS2 era I pretty much stopped reading game manuals. I generally flip through them once to see if there are any cool extras in them, but for the most part, I don't read them and I won't miss them when they are gone.
That begin said, I've always loved game manuals, some of my favorites were the original manuals from The Legend of Zelda and Ninja Gaiden. Manuals used to be completely essential to the game, because that is where you found details around the story and pictures of the characters the blocks on your screen were supposed to be representing.
With in-game tutorials and more modern narrative structure in the games we have today we have absolutely no need for manuals. But, hey, I'm a librarian. I like books.
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