Digital Prima Guides Come to Impulse

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Stardock's Impulse digital storefront will now be selling Prima's eGuides, which take all the fun and wonder of a video game guidebook and convert it into a digital format.

The initial selection of seven guides includes some odd choices, offering only four guides for currently available PC games. One of them, Fallout: New Vegas, is even a Steamworks game, which Stardock refuses to sell on Impulse.

There are also two guides for Wii games--GoldenEye 007 and PokePark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure--which is incredibly confusing, especially for PokePark, a game aimed at children. I doubt many kids use Impulse and parents will probably just grab the guide in-store when buying the game.

"Fifty-two guides from various titles are scheduled to hit Impulse in the coming weeks, making Impulse the best online destination for official guides," Brian Clair, director of publishing for Stardock, told Shacknews. Prices for the guides range from $14.99 to $24.99.

Only two of the games are currently sold by Impulse--Arcania: Gothic 4 and The Sims 3: Late Night--and I don't know who would buy something like Fallout: New Vegas on Steam only to then buy the guide in Impulse.

These eGuides, which are PDF versions of the print guides, are different from the integrated guides offered exclusively through Steam for certain games.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 17, 2010 3:21 PM

    Do they look like shitty scans of the book or are they nice and crisp, like from the master files? The purpose of a game guide for me is to have something to read on the train, at lunch, wherever, looking like a huge dork and getting excited to play when I get home. The Fallout 3 guide was one of the best I've ever read....so detailed and well-done. But I definitely wouldn't pay to read a PDF on my computer at home when I can get the same info (although maybe not as well-organized and put together) from various reputable and free sources elsewhere. If it's just a PDF I guess you could read it on a smartphone, but then you lose the appeal (and delicious, gluey smell) of a nice thick guide book.

    • reply
      November 17, 2010 4:53 PM

      I would feel weird spending the same amount (or close to it) on a digital guide as on the hard copy. And yeah, the wikis for most games seem to cover the same ground.

    • reply
      November 18, 2010 7:12 AM

      They are more or less html manuals with videos. Nothing you couldn't already find with a few minutes of searching on Google and YouTube.

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