Slashdot Mirror
Ubisoft Says No More Game Manuals
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?"
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 :))
the brown paper written in black with anti-piracy codes (remember Sim City?!)
how long until
They've been all but useless for ~20 years anyway. Contextual help and tutorials within the game are usually more useful and intuitive. If I need more help, it's usually easy enough to find what I'm looking for online anyway.
Nobody reads instructions. As noted in older /. articles, nobody even reads Terms of Service, even if they end up surrendering their soul. Instructions are always included in the game itself, and if they aren't, are fairly easy to figure out. I've never used instruction manuals, except for when I'm looking at character bios not included in the game, or artwork.
they plan on developing only simplistic titles for the brain-dead masses; instead of huge, complex, detailed games that demand printed reference materials.
Since games now ship without a manual I am sure all of those savings will be passed on to the end consumer, right?
I have not seen a decent printed manual for a game in about 10 years now. Sometimes they've got some nice fluff or stories, but as the writeup mentioned, in-game tutorials work a lot better. Having the instructions only printed in the manual is an anachronism in this day and age. Manual designers know that too, since most are at best anemic these days. When you download games from Steam you don't get the manual either. It's only an issue if you're attempting to play very old games like the original X-COM. Even then, the manuals are often available as a PDF.
I read the internet for the articles.
No, not "GREEN", more like "It's a helluva lot less expensive to just not print the manuals!"
On-line help in HTML or PDF form would suffice for a "manual" and often does in many games nowadays.
Besides, I have seen manuals get smaller and smaller and smaller to the point where they are really just a few pages of basic "How to install game" paragraphs and "How to contact support" *plus* two pages of advertisements for the company's other games, subscriptions, merchandise, etc.
Real men don't read instructions
What will kids read on the way home from the game store now? I have also found game manuals helpful in many instances where commands and instructions that weren't put into the game were put there. Not every instruction or tip you need to convey can be put into the game without breaking the flow. The game manual helps. Besides, sometimes they're really pretty.
Human beings are the biological version of Von Neumann machines.
...either in software form (nothing more fussy than html or pdf, please) or within in-game help, that would merely be a disappointment.
But what really going on here is that they're turning their manuals from a cost to a profit by outsourcing their manuals to BradyGames, Prima, and other publishers. I'm sick to death of paying for games which need manuals (rts/tbs yes, fps, no), but I'm only provided with a razor thin command reference sheet, if that.
UbiSoft wins. The game strategy guide industry wins. The customer loses. More of the usual.
So to be green they're removing the most environmentally friendly part of the product?
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.
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.