Ubisoft Doing Away with Printed Manuals

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.

• toggle

  http://bathroomreader.com/ : cr00kedview
  • The internet seriously has an answer for everything... mind = blown : ElArabDeMagnifico

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.

• ITS A CONSPIRACY! : ElArabDeMagnifico

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.

• toggle

  Indeed. There's something beautiful about having a well-made book in your hands. : monchipeters
  • yep and everyones right about them saving money, its the first thing i thought : landaishan
• I love the original Fallout manual. Also, the original Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade game came with... : Bantha Fodder

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 31 replies.

• toggle

  Indeed. Another potential issue with this is one of ease of use. I'm not convinced this will make it e... : ckozlowski
  • toggle

    To answer your question, never. I can't think of a game I played in the last 5 years or so that was actua... : frank_bures
    • toggle

      You're playing the wrong games. : AxeMan808
      • ^ this : landaishan
• The extra money is going to buy more reliable DRM servers! : satsun
• the cost of those manuals is probably less than $1 per copy of the game. Most manuals are in black & whit... : jimvolk
• Yes. This isn't about being green. This is about lowering costs. In fact this will probably be a point of... : icedcool
• toggle

  On the other hand, it's pretty nuts that videogame prices have barely increased since I started buying ga... : House
  • prices actually went down briefly but now they are back up to where they were in the 16-bit era days : mikecyb
  • toggle

    I remember games costing roughly around 39.99-49.99 and now the average 360 or PS3 game cost 59.99. PC... : Wshmaster0
    • toggle

      Big boxes and tchochkes are psychological tricks, not the major reasons for the cost of games. If games f... : House
      • Most people were renting back then (well, on console at least). I think I owned perhaps 2 new games for t... : steauengeglase
    • toggle

      I remember standard PC games costing $29.99. Super Boxes like Ultimas were $59. Of course, this was Ultim... : AxeMan808
      • D`oh! Not 15 years! 25 years! : AxeMan808
    • packaging has very little to do with the cost of a video game... development costs have increased substan... : jimvolk
  • Makes you think about the Atari/NES/SNES days where they had to ship out PCBs in form molded plastic case... : steauengeglase
  • I'd imagine that publishers as a whole sell millions more games now than they did 25 years ago, though. : Bantha Fodder
• toggle

  You're talking about pennies in savings... : zxinfinity
  • toggle

    What starts out as pennies in savings leads to big-headed publishers taking bigger strides towards profit... : Wshmaster0
    • toggle

      You know what. We dont see game prices going down...but guess what is going up. Game DEVELOPMENT prices... : daroach1414
      • The fact that game development prices are skyrocketing is the biggest problem in the industry. With free-... : Peter Skerritt
• toggle

  I love how gamers see bad intentions behind literally everything. : UMG
  • toggle

    I love how some people go on about their days and pretend like nothing's wrong. : Wshmaster0
    • toggle

      He has a point, you do not. : eonix
      • wshmaster has a point, you do not : landaishan
  • You are kidding, right? Please tell us you're kidding. The advantages for Ubisoft outweigh the advant... : Peter Skerritt
  • We just don't want our shit changed all the fuck up and gone electronic! Why is this hard to understand? ... : uebersoldat
  • We automatically see the bad intentions because we've already seen it implemented in shitty ways in other... : jarek99
  • Corporations exist to make a profit by any means possible. They neither warrant nor deserve your trust. : loppsided
  • Just World Psychology'd : Sailor of Fortune

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 16 replies.

• The ends certainly justifies the means! How about abolishing actual physical copies of games? How about... : WilliamDecker
• Yeah, and I don't even look at printed manuals anymore. I'd almost prefer digital if I really need to hit... : FreshwaterAU
• I remember when you bought a game and you got a nice big box with artwork and a full colour manual. Now f... : Pandilex
• toggle

  It is both but now a days most people don't read manuals. I never look at a gaming manual except for the... : Azaziel
  • toggle

    They have stuff like crappy in-game tutorials now. I much prefer poring over the manual. : Pandilex
    • Even the shitty manuals nowdays? I don't see the point. : KePoW
• I stopped reading the "manuals" because these days you can hardly call them that. You get one crappy piec... : Johnnsen
• I actually do like having the manual close by for some games but I cannot disagree with this, especially ... : Thund3rball
• toggle

  Environmental benefits? Like what? : AhmNee
  • toggle

    You know... the benefits of printing out your own and using A4 sheets of paper instead of the tiny manual... : monchipeters
    • toggle

      Yes, because you desperately need manuals. I bet you read every single game manual from cover to cover, j... : master_disaster_17
      • I generally do read most of the manuals, unless they are only a couple pages and have nothing about back ... : monchipeters
    • I fail to see how the 'benefits of printing out your own' is an environmental benefit. Nor do I see ho... : AhmNee
• toggle

  To read the digital manual, you have to turn on your PC and open it. Now this is about 5 minutes, imagine... : hanged_man
  • People forget all about carbon footprints! Drives me nuts when people leave their computers on all night... : spyrext

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.

• Its probably one fact but here is another; "Ubisoft internal data shows that producing one ton of paper ... : alllivestaken

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.

• toggle

  really? you thought steam was gonna send you game manual when you started purchasing digitally from them? : landaishan
  • Why do you think that's what he meant? ... : mollikka

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.

• This is a good point. Printing off A4 sheet after A4 sheet can't possibly be good for the environment ei... : monchipeters
• toggle

  The only stuff I print out are contracts and documents that needs to be signed. Why not try an ebook read... : Lukiopimp
  • toggle

    I would agree except you don't take into account the manufacturing process (and carbon footprint) for suc... : spyrext
    • Yes .. there is a carbon footprint and also recycling may not be doable without hazardous waste ingredien... : Lukiopimp

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.

• yes.. : landaishan

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 21 replies.

• toggle

  That manual was glorious. I still have it. =) Other great ones? Homeworld 1's manual. : ckozlowski
  • Any game from Origin Systems. It wouldn't even be fair to call the documents they packed with their games... : Loxodrome
  • Civilization...A-Train...Frontier : Elite 2... : Mentawl
  • I still have the Homeworld manual as well. Also Aces Over Europe. Half of the manual was a full-on ency... : swiftB3
  • ^^ Homeworld also brilliantly included PDF versions of their manuals on the CD as well. : quanta88
• toggle

  Any Blizzard Manual. I especially loved the lore in the Diablo and StarCraft manuals. : David Craddock
  • Definitely. Even back in middle school with less attention span as a kid, the back stories were intere... : Dr_Tran
• I remember when old manuals used to include a bit of fiction from the game. IIRC the Tribes manual had a ... : DeBurgo
• toggle

  <3 my ringbinder from Falcon 4.0 http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/23/0,1425,i=237874... : losimagic
  • Wow, hmm. I had the smaller one. I don't think I got that with the version I had bought : mobab
  • Wuz about to post this! : vezatron
  • Oooh, good one. Got this as well. Never before could I recall a time when I had to study just to play ... : ckozlowski
• Or ultima 9. It had a cloth map. : icedcool
• Indeed. That was epic. I actually miss the really nice manuals that contained useful info, artwork and ... : monchipeters
• Yes.. the old manuals were very nice to read, entertaining and often useful, indeed. As someone who doesn... : Lukiopimp
• Big Manuals rock. Secret Weapons Of The Luftwaffe, Red Baron, All the old Microprose stuff. The stuff we ... : RookieCAF
• Fallout 1 had a good manual : ckennedy79
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Your own Grail Bible! : quanta88
• I went digging through my box of old manuals to see what I had overlooked: X-Wing: This thing was smal... : ckozlowski
• baldurs gate 2 : landaishan

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.

• toggle

  Happen to remember the old Microprose era manuals? Or the Wing Commander ones with the blueprints from t... : bored
  • I definitely remember them! My Master of Orion II manual is 164 pages! Heavy Gear 2 : 120 pages Total... : Epsilon Sector
• I completely agree with you. However, I don't mind if manuals for games go digital as long as someone ... : mrflamey

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.

• toggle

  If it were really for the trees, they would use recycled paper. But I agree with you, it is a lot of bul... : monchipeters
  • toggle

    Recycled paper does more damage to the environment than cutting down trees to make paper does. We have m... : Sludgehead
    • *more forest... than we ever have before : Sludgehead
    • I'm in total agreement with you. Here in New Zealand, we have vast forests that are replenished as we us... : monchipeters

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.

• Fucking LOL. : LemonJoose
• Just like once CD's became mainstream their prices would go down??? your inverted answer answered it well... : bored

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 6 replies.

• toggle

  All the game manuals I've seen in recent years pretty much give me no information. I'd have to say that ... : hillemania
  • You said what I was thinking perfectly. No manual is OK, but PLEASE tell me something about the game on ... : spyrext
  • toggle

    This is because they're effectively forced to squeeze what they can into whatever skinny manual will fit ... : JimladSeraph
    • Which is entirely fine, I really don't want a printed manual, I just want to know all the details about t... : hillemania
• I agree with you overall that I barely look at manuals. The one time I find them useful is if I'm returni... : House

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.

• Wasn't it id software or VALVe that said, "the game mechanics and story for our FPS should be simple enou... : spyrext

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.

• One better: it's not printed, but available in PDF format as $15 DLC. : the archvile
• You'd think that a company so interested in the environment would stop producing Collectors Editions of t... : pigvomit

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 7 replies.

• Drains you out o' money with DLCs and what not. : Gylis
• They have people skills!! : Grimmadog
• toggle

  Lets see. They protect you from larger external forces and take a cut of your money. So they are either o... : steauengeglase
  • rofl! : GenBanks
• Publishers "help" developers to figure out what to cut from a game so that it can be sold as DLC after a ... : Peter Skerritt
• http://tinyurl.com/yyfovad : Johnny Law

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.

• I would gladly return to that style of DRM instead of Ubi's bullshit if it were possible. : Loxodrome

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.

• toggle

  Hardly anyone touches a game manual because nowadays they are all pieces of crap. : PrawnWonton
  • ^^^ Exactly. : Edges

Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.

• this is a good zing : mort
• Haha! Pretty much dead on. : kingdepork