I honestly have to say I will be sad if this becomes the trend. Whenever I buy games new (which I always do unless they are a couple years old already) I make sure to keep everything that comes with them including the manual and even the ads. Having that physical material come with the package makes it feel like an actual purchase rather than just buying some rights to play a game. I'm real disappointed that packaging trends in North America keep getting worse. If only we had the awesome packaging standards they have in Japan.
Companies like EA and Ubisoft have been skimping on manuals over the past few years. I won't mind seeing those stupid 5 page manuals go away. But then there's games like Oblivion which comes with a freakin map plus a large manual. Also GTA 4 which has kind of a novelty manual but I like it. I just hope not every company gets rid of them because some actually still do it right.
It doesn't surprise me. That being said, I always appreciate the presentation of a good, colorful, detailed manual. But ever since games started to have in depth tutorials inside the game itself, the need for these kinds of manuals really has gone away.
It seems that only japanese rpgs really have full color informative manuals these days. The lack of a manual as well as flimsy case design are the main reasons I don't really buy games anymore. If this is the way things are going there might as well be a subscription based gaming platform ala the zune marketplace. There is really nothing physical to own anymore.
Not surprised at all by this. I can't even remember the last time I opened up a game manual and when I did, I must have been extremely bored or the game must have been installing or something. I'm sure a lot of major publishers are going to start following suit. Though I admit, it's going to be weird opening a case and then there being nothing between the flaps.
This is purely a measure to reduce cost. Nothing more nothing less. The marketing is just taking advantage of the side effect of being "eco-friendly." My own company did this a year or so ago.
" This is purely a measure to reduce cost. Nothing more nothing less. The marketing is just taking advantage of the side effect of being "eco-friendly." My own company did this a year or so ago. "
Even so it does reduce the amount of paper being used. I'll take a company trying to reduce costs and making it seem like they really care about the environment as long as it's doing some good.
I get where ubisoft is coming from, and I probably won't miss manuals that much if they are completely gone at some point. Actually today I was looking through some of my old games and noticed how big the manuals were, with character bios and story info and concept art. Some of them were so big they actually weighed down the case, So I like all the extra stuff like that, But that was before I could get all that stuff from the internet.
Actually I do read them (provided they're worth reading which is rare and that's entirely their fault). It's bullshit, Instead of the "Iron Law of Wages"; think of it as the "Iron Law of Manuals". As time goes on games get dumber to match the average consumers intelligence. As time goes on no one gives a shit how cheap publishers get and soon we'll be swimming in it. Anyone who supports this garbage is the problem and whoever believes the whole "we're doing it for the environment Bro!" crap needs to quietly and calmly remove their head from their rectum.
Hummmm...this could be a problem. I'm not saying manuals are anything worth being excited about, but some games make good use of their manuals. I know the Rock Band games have codes in their manuals, what will happen to the codes?!?
It's been a long time since manuals have been a necessity in games. From a nostalgic perspective, I'll miss it but for practicality, I am behind this. The the weight of a manual can reduce the weight of a case by half in a lot of cases.
@Jeff: It was only a matter of time till this happened, with how bad the magazine and newspaper industry are doing. Print is just being pushed away, just look at things like the Ipad that is definetly going to be the future once it becomes affordable for everyone to own. The good trees wont be killed for print, the bad we loss out on high resolution print and get low resolution digital images. For instruction manuels when I was a kid in the ol' NES days I never even went through them, now that games have gotten more complicated i'll usually attempt to play and then look up any thing when I have questions. Its nice to have printed instructions but in the end its not really needed anymore. For me it became obvious that this would happen when EA started giving out those 4 page manuals.
Long gone are the days where you get a screen of informative text and have to fend for yourself. I think utilitarian manuals should have died long ago, once in-game tutorials became de rigeur, and the strategy guide market went mainstream. If manuals are made I appreciate more if they are contextual and well designed. The foldout sheet that came with the UK Heavy Rain box is pretty good. Interesting, informative, and succinct. I couldn't even finish flipping through the book for White Knight Chronicles. Not for size, but it's just dry.
I'm a little bummed that they are going. At first, it's going to make me feel like my game package is incomplete. I would feel better if they were ditching the manuals to bring back solid cases. I, like others have mentioned, worry about those eco-friendly cases and how they will break while I'm taking out my game or something poking through the packaging and damaging my game.
How about they take the money they saved from this and give us back game cases without the fucking shitty holes in them. Sure would be nice to be able to pick up a game case without feeling like it was about to collapse in upon itself from the minimal pressure required to simply hold it. This is what I see every time I open one of those cases.
Seeing as I refuse to purchase a game that does not have the manual and case fully intact with it, I see this as a severely bad thing, even though I rarely if ever actually use the manual. Just an...OCD thing, I guess.
Oh, and going green? A stupid, stupid fad. I'm all for not trashing the planet, but come on, we're doing just fine already.
While I can understand the mentality of the studio not wanting to do a game manual I think that it does have some limited uses but the most important one at least to me is when I stop playing some game after a while & get back into it to forget the controls COMPLETELY meaning a lot of trial & error trying to remember each button & whatever combos they entail. Definitely reduce the amount on the manual size as that part is useless (like telling me what new game means) but put in a simple card showing the controls to glance at every now & again to remember how to play the game.
This needed to happen. Regardless of what people think of Ubisoft's recent activities, a company needed to make a stand and point out to everyone how silly it is to continue shipping games with manuals when we live in the age of the internet.
In my opinion, this is kind of lame but the good thing is that it's only Ubisoft that is implementing this idea. The only game series I'm interested from them is the Prince of Persia.
" Only reason we went with these lengthy cases was to accommodate VHS racks at retail stores. I wish all optical discs went with PS1's jewel case format. "
Well we're getting there. Blu-Ray cases are thinner and shorter.
If publishers want to forego instruction manuals for games, why not put in artbooks instead? All that promotional and concept art can go somewhere, right?
" If publishers want to forego instruction manuals for games, why not put in artbooks instead? All that promotional and concept art can go somewhere, right? "
Promotional/concept art should just be released to the Internet in the highest resolution possible. Easy for all parties.
Most game manuals suck these days so I don't really care. All of the info is usually in the game and the first level tutorial does a better job of explaining game mechanics then any manual ever has for me. The only really good manuals, imo, come with RPGs and even then they usually don't answer the questions that I have.
If they really want to go green though they should get rid of the plastic cases and go with those cardboard things that albums use sometimes.
@Hamz: Sorry, unlike a minority of the U.S. I don't have a bunch of internet enabled devices to take with me everywhere I go. I'm not really interested in spending even more of my day staring into eye strain inducing LCD screens either. There are far better arguments for phasing out manuals than "Interwebs." A manual can be much more than just a FAQ or quick look at the control scheme. Though that wasn't often the case when talking about Ubisoft manuals.
I think people are outraged because the perceived "value" of the game package as a whole has steadily declined since the 90s. Lets be honest, the majority of the games on the shelves aren't worth full MSRP. Declines in package quality, included perks (Manuals, maps, whathaveyou), and the length of games has made the value proposition for each game purchase an even more important consideration for many consumers. Then you have other avenues of acquiring games like the iTunes App Store entirely changing consumer price expectations for "just a game" and you have to think that consumers are going to expect more from their much higher priced, retail products.
I do have an almost nostalgic fondness for games that threw you into some shit and forced you to have to look in the manual. I distinctly remember having to look at manuals for a lot of JPRGs to figure what the symbols for status effects were, what items healed them, and more bits and pieces of info. Anymore, games just hold your hand through all that stuff, even when anyone who's been a gamer for a while can figure out a lot of it out on their own (FFXIII being a perfect example of this, but my recent rental of Assassin's Creed 2 is also quite guilty of doing it).
The way manuals are now, I won't miss them at all.
I'm in the process of playing Infinite Space, and for how Goddamn complex that game is, you'd think the manual was for Hello Kitty Island Adventure. There's a part in the manual that actually directs you to a website to get better information. I support Ubisoft in this.
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