Game Manuals?

Hi all!

It's really something how times are changing. Having picked up Battlefield 3 when it came out on Tuesday, this is the first new, physical console game I've owned that doesn't include a paper instruction manual. It's not a terrible loss, but it is quite different. What do you think? Should games have paper manuals? Or are you cool with digital manuals? In recent years, I've noticed manuals getting thinner and while games are including extensive tutorials in-game.

I'm kinda split on the topic. Though I like having the manuals, I rarely use them. I guess it's just because I'm anal about things like that. On the other hand though, how many people really go to them when they have a problem? They also contain a lot of useless information for some people (the game's story, enemy types, weapon types, etc). Considering you can really find the most important info from within the game itself, I see this becoming the trend now: manuals with control diagrams, but little more, if anything else.

Love Paper manuals and always will.

The lack of them is a disgrace.

Seems it's only happening to FPS type games. Though I'm not fond of the genre, I picked up ME2 and was surprised no manual was there.

Love Paper manuals and always will.

The lack of them is a disgrace.

cprmauldin

Hi all!

It's really something how times are changing. Having picked up Battlefield 3 when it came out on Tuesday, this is the first new, physical console game I've owned that doesn't include a paper instruction manual. It's not a terrible loss, but it is quite different. What do you think? Should games have paper manuals? Or are you cool with digital manuals? In recent years, I've noticed manuals getting thinner and while games are including extensive tutorials in-game.

Yes,More manuals because I love to sniff them.:idea:

It's only those greedy bastards at EA that don't include manuals. All other developers/publishers still have fairly large manuals (especially Rockstar, Nintendo and Bethesda).

I was just talking about this topic the other day when I purchased 'Batman: Arkham City.'

I legit thought that they had forgotten to put in the manual when I bought the game.

It turns out it was there but it's just a flimsy piece of paper folded in half with little to no information inside.

Not to get all nostalgic here but didn't game manuals used to be a thing of art in themselves? I used to always read the manual before I even considered turning the game on!

For me it is probably my sickness of clinging to the past and my uneasiness with change that has me wanting them to stay.

I like my game cases feeling heavy not light as if someone had taken half my birthday cake before bringing it to the table(Dad).

When I bought gears of war 3, it just felt so odd to me with how light it was. It just felt unnatural to me to have a new game and to have the case be so light and to open it and discover."Ooh that's why it's so light! There is no book in here! There's in nothing in here but this game, which I am sure will be good seeing how this is the conclusion of an EPIC trilogy J . Oh and look at that! They even included some useless stickers well isn't that sweet of them".

It just felt incomplete.(much like Gears of War 3..hmm putting it that way perhaps they were trying to be symbolic?)

I do like them but with the growing laziness and cluelessness of people today and the internet becoming everyone's silent best friend I don't think they'll be around much longer.

A number of games can be handle in just ingame tutorials. They are simple games with simple ideal and can be explain and remember easily. Screen goes red then you're hurt.

That is not true for all games. A good RPG can not be handle that way. I know I am contently looking through the manuals for what I need. I have stop to look up what a symbol. It not easy since some times these symbols can look similar. I game manuals just does not work that good for these things.

I miss those little booklets:)

I saw on the online manual for BF3 its says about saving 'yawn' paper and protecting the enviromentzzzzzzzzzzz

I miss the days of the old manuals. One of my favorite manuals has to be from Chrono Trigger. So detailed and full of information, everything you needed to know about the basics. It also didn't hurt that it included drawings from Akira Toriyama! :)