What happened to game manuals!?

[Ninonybox_v1legacy]

They suck ass in today's world, I remember a time when they where the first thing I read before I played the game....but now. I was always aware that they sucked now but it was only until MW3 when I really took notice, but I let it slide. Then I got Assassins creed Brotherhood/Revelations in the mail, Brotherhood's manual is nothing more that a few pages of legal stuff and the controls....But Revelations Is just the cover image, Tech support, Heal warnings, Controls, and an advertisement for Uplay and TriOviz 3d glasses....DA FUK!? Let me give you an example of a game series that had good game manuals...The Halo Series. In those manuals you got the story, weapon details, enemy details, how to play (not just the controls) and In Halo: CE's case what happened before the game. Now that's A good game manual AND ITS LONGER THAN ONE PAGE OF ACTUAL GAME INFORMATION *glares at revelations*

Tell me escapists...what happened?

 

[krazykidd]

Games just got piss easy . That and ingame unskippable tutorials ( i fucking hate those ) . Oh and every game in the same genre basically plays the same . And we don't need the game manual to explain whats going on ( see the original zelda game ).

I loved it back then , even the original Final fantasy game ( along with 4 and 6) had and amazing manuals.

One thing i loved about manuals back in the day was the space to take notes in the back. Back then 3 empty pages were not enogh space for all the notes i wanted to riggt down , so i ended up writing all over the manual from conver to cOver . You should see my manual for FF6( it was FF3 back in my day) it would boggle young gamers minds .

I also like that sometimes they would give you false information in the booklet to not spoilthe story for you . Not tellig you who was the bad guy and who was going to betray you. I miss those times .


EDIT: Oh anyone remembers this for fighting games manuals?

Sub-zero: special moves

D, F ? +P
U ? D + K
? ? L + ?

Finishing moves

? ? ? D ? F + ?

 

[Kajt]

Its simple developers decided to include in game tutorials which made the majority of the information in game manuals redundant. If everything that you actually need to include in a game manual is now included in the game what is the point of the manual?

This could be it... but then again, many games that do have tutorials also come with nice, big manuals. The Pokémon games, for example. They all come with big manuals with lots of info, yet they have tutorials in-game.

 

[teqrevisited]

Probably to save money. With the pretense of "We're helping the environment!".

 

[Slash Dementia]

I hate the manuals now--if they could be even called that. A few games have, literally, just the cover and back. When I look back and see Morrowind's manual, it was huge. I forget how many pages it was, but it was a pretty thick book. I used to enjoy reading those.

 

[Space Spoons]

The last game I bought, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, didn't even have a manual. There was just... This little card with, like, all the warnings and copyright stuff printed on the back. It was nuts.

I honestly have no idea why manuals are going the way of the dodo, but I wish they weren't.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

...why do you need the manuals anymore? Everything you need to know about playing the game is more often than not presented in the tutorial when you boot it up for the first time. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of paper and ink to continue to print them.

Besides, anything in the manuals can be found on the internet, easily.

 

[Gammayun]

Hmmm i will miss them, like the witcher one that made the bible look like a light read. And when you buy a new game and you get home you just smell the game manual, no only me ok.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Itlooks like game publishers have sent manuals to that same corner of hell they all sent their integrity to.

 

[Ninonybox_v1legacy]

Hmmm i will miss them, like the witcher one that made the bible look like a light read. And when you buy a new game and you get home you just smell the game manual, no only me ok.

How could I forget that legendary scent!

 

[Xeraxis]

It's because our technology has advanced to the point where manuals are essentially useless now. Most of the time, the game itself just tells you what button does what and you're on your own. Other times you find out stuff about it through the plethora of videos on the internet. Also, packaging all that excess paper costs some money.

I actually don't recall seeing a full and descriptive manual for a game in years.

 

[zombieshark6666]

Need to know anything about Forza options, features and settings? Better find the forums quick, 'cause there sure ain't no manual in the game or in the box.

 

[Insanity72]

They suck ass in today's world, I remember a time when they where the first thing I read before I played the game....but now. I was always aware that they sucked now but it was only until MW3 when I really took notice, but I let it slide. Then I got Assassins creed Brotherhood/Revelations in the mail, Brotherhood's manual is nothing more that a few pages of legal stuff and the controls....But Revelations Is just the cover image, Tech support, Heal warnings, Controls, and an advertisement for Uplay and TriOviz 3d glasses....DA FUK!? Let me give you an example of a game series that had good game manuals...The Halo Series. In those manuals you got the story, weapon details, enemy details, how to play (not just the controls) and In Halo: CE's case what happened before the game. Now that's A good game manual AND ITS LONGER THAN ONE PAGE OF ACTUAL GAME INFORMATION *glares at revelations*

Tell me escapists...what happened?

I remember making the same post quite awhile back, I love reading the game manuals, i remember when i bought Oblivion and it's manual was huge, explaining all the schools of magic and all that, now i remember when i got Gears of War 3, all it is, is, A cover, a small maybe 4 line back story, the controls, then the other age is just all the small print that no one reads, copyright etc.

 

[Freaky Lou]

Bully, at least the PS2 version, has my favourite game manual ever. It's done like a brochure for the school, written by the principle. I think the GTA series does something similar, designing its manuals as local magazines for the cities they're set in.

 

[skywolfblue]

Its simple developers decided to include in game tutorials which made the majority of the information in game manuals redundant. If everything that you actually need to include in a game manual is now included in the game what is the point of the manual?

This.

Most of the games back in the day were rather poor about being intuitive and including a basic tutorial, and memory was so tight they couldn't include a help encyclopedia in the game itself.

I'm glad they're gone. It was kinda annoying to have to step away from the computer, search the bookshelf for the right manual, and then read through the pages till you find the control sequence you were looking for.


...Although, I must confess that I do have rather fond memories of the gigantic Falcon 4.0 manual. Flying a realistic F16, for dummies!

 

[Hal10k]

Games just got piss easy .

This. Is there even a need for them anymore in 90 something % of games these days ?

I wouldn't say that it's necessarily because games have become easier; it has more to do with them becoming less obtuse. There's a difference between being challenged in a game and simply not knowing what you're doing. Tutorials, preferably those that are well integrated into regular gameplay or entirely optional, can tell you pretty much everything that a manual could tell you unless you happen to be oddly fascinated with the consumer safety information. What you need to play a challenging game is information. Manuals and tutorials are both separate means to that end, and have no bearing on the difficulty of the final product. The industry as we know it simply prefers using tutorials at the moment.

 

[Braedan]

Amazing, but looking back I can think of specific game manuals as if they were their own media. I loved them. Starlancer was a "Flight Manual" with notes written in from previous pilots, and don't mention Diablo (1), or Guildwars. Those books had bestiaries, as well as dozens of pages of lore, and so much information that wasn't necessary. I think I've read Diablo's manual 4 times.

It's a damn shame that the manual has died off. I mean, not every game needs a detailed manual, but the fact that none come with one anymore is a travesty.

Edit: People saying that manuals are obsolete are missing the point. Of course they are. That doesn't stop them from being a great addition to opening the box.

 

[Guardian of Nekops]

As others have already noted, more space on the media has resulted in the much better tutorial to teach you how to play, but that's only part of it.

In the old days, the stuff in the manual was the only story you were going to get. The manual had to be there, to replace the cut scenes and setup sections of the game... they just didn't have the bits to make any more of the game than (in extreme cases) that one level that got progressively harder the longer you played it. And a couple of recolors.

All you're seeing now is the result of all that good stuff being absorbed into the game itself. They don't need to spend thirty pages teaching you the magic system... they managed to stramline it so that it's intuitive, or to teach you how to think about it in a tutorial. They don't need to write an impassioned short story to make you care about the girl you're supposed to save, because they have the space to show her to you now, let you get to know her before they snatch her away from you. They don't need to tell you how evil the Empire is because they have the diskspace for a cutscene in which they curbstomp widows and orphans, etc.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

Perhaps I missed some amazing manuals, but what could they add? Any game that requires a manual for you to understand the gameplay has clearly failed at some fairly important steps in the design.

 

[Vault101]

shame..they are a really nice touch

like the one for fallout 3 GOTY edition had a really nice little intro...reading that made me feel like this was somthing special and got me totally pumped for the game