Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ubisoft Says No More Game Manuals

Posted by timothy on from the that-would-bug-me dept.

thsoundman writes with this excerpt from The Gamers Blog: "No more manuals? Ubisoft announced last week that they will be ditching the trend of printing instruction manuals for new games under the 'green' initiative. While no other publishers have jumped on that 'green' train just yet, it is likely that others will follow suit. Printed manuals have been part of gaming since you bought PC games in plastic bags. There have been many standout eras for manuals, such as the NES-era booklets to the manuals that accompanied Electronic Arts vinyl-sized game sleeves. Some may argue that the advancement in on-screen contextual commands and first-level tutorials have made the manual pointless, but is this really the case?"

12 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. Why bother with manuals? by PolyDwarf · · Score: 5, Funny

    When no one can play your game due to drm servers being down?

    (come on, you know it's going to be said many times in this thread.. Might as well get it going early :))

    1. Re:Why bother with manuals? by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yeah, obviously I didn't even read the summary.

    2. Re:Why bother with manuals? by need4mospd · · Score: 5, Funny

      That sounds more like a "brown" initiative.

    3. Re:Why bother with manuals? by Nahor · · Score: 2, Funny

      And more importantly, they haven't found a way to put DRM on a printed document yet. By going digital, they can now use their DRM servers to stop the piracy of instruction manuals.

    4. Re:Why bother with manuals? by RoccamOccam · · Score: 2, Funny

      To guarantee that the warning is read, the splash screen should flash rapidly.

  2. Who reads manuals anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    I just mash the controls with my fat hands or dialing wand until I figure out what does what.

  3. So games will be cheaper then? by Manip · · Score: 5, Funny

    Since games now ship without a manual I am sure all of those savings will be passed on to the end consumer, right?

    1. Re:So games will be cheaper then? by T+Murphy · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's called 'green' for a reason, you know.

      --
      My webcomic
  4. RTFM? by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 3, Funny

    So now I am going to look stupid telling people to RTFM. I don't know, but RTFCH (read the F. contextual help) just doesn't feel as catchy.

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  5. Greed, not green by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    surely a typo.

  6. Re:Well at least they dropped by adonoman · · Score: 5, Funny

    I liked the ones that came with a red filter that you had to hold over a paper with a bunch of seeming gibberish to reveal the secret codes. It's like getting a computer game AND a fun spy toy at the same time...

  7. Re:Green? by MattskEE · · Score: 2, Funny

    It'd be a much more green initiative to replace the plastic case with a paper and card case that could include basic controls printed on it's various surfaces. They could even go all out and switch to all digital distribution.

    What, you think game disks are analog?

    (And yes I know what you meant ;-) )