Would you rather have Paper Game Manuals than In-Game Tutorials

Personally I've always preferred Game Manuals in paper form. Some games out there have really long, tedious and drawn out tutorials that aren't necessary, e.g. when the game is a sequel and is showing the basics/features again.

Also when a pause menu has a control manual/tutorial I find is a good feature. What do you prefer?

I am ok with in game tutorials as long as you can skip them. Paper manuals for me are only good when I buy the game and will not make it home for awhile. I can use it to increase my hype meter if it is a game I have been waiting to play.

I don't read manuals and excluding them saves resources. I can't imagine a modern game without a tutorial either and that is not a bad thing

I like to peruse a manual or two. Too bad that era is gone forever.

If I ever make a game, it will come with a manual... and a cloth map.

Neither is a substitute for the other.

Manuals are great to look through, if they're well designed. Some kind of (preferably skippable) tutorial should be in every game.

In this day and age they're not really made to be directly interchangeable; manuals are more for reference, while tutorials are actually more like a lesson in the game. I think tutorials have the potential to be much better than a manual at teaching you things, but even a lot of today's games have surprisingly bad tutorials. All in all though, people printing less paper manuals is good for the environment, and phasing them out means there's more pressure on developers than ever to actually make sure their tutorials are up to scratch.

a paper manual is nice but trees are better.

I wish tutorials were not a thing, just let the player figure it out with smart level design. EG: Classic metroids, super meatboy ect.

A big full color manual is the best thing to see when opening up a game box and every game that doesn't have one should be ashamed.

I'm also super bummed when a game comes with a huge manual but it's only 15 pages repeated in English, French, and Spanish.

If the manual is good. 
Like one of those manuals that have all kinds of stuff in it like story summary, character bios and stuff like that.  
If it's just "hit A/X/E to do whatever" then they're as useless as Tutorials in "FPS Shooter Game number 5 in the series"

No. Manuals are useless in this day and age.

If it's a good tutorial? I'll pass on the manual. But if the tutorial is shit, I at least want a manual to explain the game basics in brief.

The Internet has replaced game manuals. If there is something about a game that is cryptic or poorly explained, the developers expect you to look online for the answers. It sucks but paper manuals aren't the answer. Better designed, streamlined tutorials are the way to go.

Guess I'm indifferent. If there is a paper manual the game expects me to have read it and I can get to the action quicker so I'll go with that one. Some tutorials can be brutal....

I prefer when they work together. A quality manual getting you ready for a more thorough and hands-on tutorial.

Gawd I miss the days when game manuals we're thick and had additional lore within its contents. I always liked reading about the lore every game has to offer especially if get drawn into it.

Will it stop the first 5 hours of a game being one giant tutorial? If so, then yes. Yes I would. Nothing pisses me off the most than 1/3rd of a game feeling like an endless tutorial.

I recently started playing the first mass effect again, and unless I'm missing something there is no way to know what the buttons do unless you look at the manual. I was too lazy to get up and look so I just fumbled around for a while until I figured it out.

Put the manual inside the video game, that's the way to do it.

I like being naïve and innocent to a game's finer mechanics when I start playing. The sense of immersion and discovery is one of my favourite parts of a game, and forced tutorials kill every shred of that.

Could you imagine Minecraft with a tutorial? Fucking disgusting...

no

Only if the manual is loaded with awesome lore. Most games just need to cut the tutorials time in half, exploration and discovery can help a game immensely, just don't leave the player with too little information to actually play. One of my favorite experiences this generation was Dark Souls, it taught me the basics, then loosed me into the game. The more I played the more I learned, and that feeling of accomplishment just got more and more gratifying every time.

Having a physical booklet I can look down at to see the controls is a lot more helpful than a tutorial or digital manual that I have to dig through four menus to get to every single time.

In-game manuals, as long as they aren't laggy and janky as fuck.

no, but they should have a manual in game in the options menu.

I used to love paper manuals and missed them when console games mostly stopped supplying them - but recently when I thought about the days when a game just dropped you in the thick of it and you were consulting your manual about what button does what on your keyboard and how the game even works I don't want to go back to those days.

Yes! I'd rather have paper manuals any day. I always read a manual before putting a game in, but that's getting impossible to do now that the "manual" is just an epileptic warning and legal stuff.

Also, to everyone who's reasoning is "No, because I love trees!" I'm going to blow your mind by telling you that paper companies.....actually plant trees! Whooooa!

@LikeaSsur said:

Yes! I'd rather have paper manuals any day. I always read a manual before putting a game in, but that's getting impossible to do now that the "manual" is just an epileptic warning and legal stuff.

Also, to everyone who's reasoning is "No, because I love trees!" I'm going to blow your mind by telling you that paper companies.....actually plant trees! Whooooa!

yeah? that doesn't mean we should waste all that paper for something that doesn't even matter.

I would rather have nether I.e. super Mario 3.

Hell yes, I would!

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

If it's in the game, it should be _in the game_. Paper manuals are the gameplay version of transmedia novels and comics that set up the narrative. They are this extra thing you need in order to understand the game. If you think a game doesn't need in game tutorials, it also doesn't require any sort of story setup, it should just say "World 1-1 start killing the Ravjaak, Tony!" And you're like "What are the Ravjaak, who's Tony?" "Get the iOS app to find out more!"

Tutorials are the exposition of gameplay.

I would probably take in-game manuals after seeing how the Vita does them. Although manuals of the older games look terrible and illegible at points, so as long as they use decent high res images, I'm sold on in-game manuals.

@Animasta: If they're written well and actually explain things, they definitely matter. Dynasty Warriors and most old RPGs are a perfect example of this. There's almost no tutorial anywhere, and no indication in game that this button does this. The manual covers all of that. For all the complaints about long, boring tutorials, games could practically do away with them entirely when everything is explained in the manual.

A good paper manual is awesome. Artwork, character bio's, maps and story bits are what used to draw me to them but now they barely qualify as a pamphlet.

Yes I would prefer an actual manual to a crap tastic in game tutorial. Too bad paper manuals cost money and game companies are going cheap these days due to over all rising costs in general and profits becoming more slim unless your name is activision or ea.

There's no proper way to include tutorials that isn't "make your whole game a tutorial" a laBraid/Portal or have a super-retro game a laSuper Mario/Super Meat.

I very slightly prefer a good manual, but I also usually don't read the tutorial part. It's nice to have something to check against, though.

There isn't any need for the manual to be paper. Have it be a menu option or something.

Tutorials are okay. Handhelding through the whole game like Assassin's Creed is not.

Absolutely not. Everything should be inside the game.

Only if the manual is a proper tome and not just a few legal pages and a "Notes" page.

Yes! It's a a pain in the ass to try to dig up an in-game manual when I can reach over and look up the information in the manual faster than having to dig through menus.

In game only. Paper manuals are a waste.

@LikeaSsur said:

@Animasta: If they're written well and actually explain things, they definitely matter. Dynasty Warriors and most old RPGs are a perfect example of this. There's almost no tutorial anywhere, and no indication in game that this button does this. The manual covers all of that. For all the complaints about long, boring tutorials, games could practically do away with them entirely when everything is explained in the manual.

or, you know, there could just be a manual in the game like the vita does.

also not everyone likes reading, so tutorials would have to be there anyway

@Animasta:

also not everyone likes reading, so tutorials would have to be there anyway

Let them suffer in the game, then. Paper or electronic, if people can't be bothered to figure out how to play the game, they deserve every game over they ever get.

When the game world is well realized and it has a lot of game mechanics to go through I do prefer a manual. I think they are fun to read.

I liked when manuals had a lot of back-story content not found in the game, so that's the part I would like to bring back to physical copies. Other than that, brief in-game tutorials are good to get your hands a little dirty before taking on the game itself.

Fuck manuals* and fuck forced tutorials. Give me the option to practice the mechanic the game wants me to use or to review it later, but don't force it down my throat. Even if the whole mission is based around it.

*Because fuck physical copies of games, too.