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Are Game Guides Dying?
Thanks to GameSpot for their guest GameSpotting feature discussing whether the print-based game guide is a thing of the past. According to the piece: "As long as there have been games, there have been game guides to help players beat them. Over the years they have evolved into slick, glossy (and thin) books with tons of valuable information and high-quality screenshots and maps... Guides make tough games easier. But are they worth it?" The author references a videogame-store friend laughing: "Why buy a game guide when I can just download the FAQ for free?" Is there any new presentation of paper-based game guides that might make you tempted to pay for them, or are they truly dying out for good?
first of all of course, they're free.
they're also available when you need it (just one googling away).
most importantly they're updated with various bits of little tidbits usually. the official kind of booklets can fail you miserably if there were some last minute changes to the game, or bugs. paper versions also aren't usually made by some mad gamer, which can be a plus as well as a minus.
also forums provide nowadays most of the information that such booklets would be useful for.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It used to be you would get a useful manual with a game. Now, all that you get is a "how to install" and a "how to play the tutorial" section in the manual. The rest of the useful information is printed into the game guide for extra profit.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
They may be almost completely pointless for somebody who knows about gamefaqs.com, but some are great as art books / reference for game programmers (especially RPGs). And they have nice maps and stuff.
What I want to know is who's watching those 'cheat code' segments of video game shows and G4's 'cheat' full half-hour. I mean, watching it hoping one of the games you own ends up there and then going to the web site and printing the codes? Why watch in the first place?
On another note: are "are X dying" articles dying? I haven't seen one in a few days.