2nd March 2010, 11:19 PM
It would be hard to disagree with a statement more than me with that... manuals are often very useful. They're an easy way to learn about a game. It's usually easier to look things up in the manual than try to find something in the ingame help, presuming that it's a game with that. Yes, of course in the last decade or so manuals became less important than they used to be, because of more ingame help, the rise of the overdone tutorial and pop-up tips, etc, etc. That doesn't mean that manuals are useless though! I still always look at the manual first, as long as I have it...
Also, older manuals, particularly for PC games, used to be fantastic. I have so many great manuals that have so much in them... the decline of the manual has definitely been sad. Still, again, they definitely still have value, as long as the people putting them together want them to. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but it's always better when they do.
As for strategy guides, I don't buy those usually, yeah, but I will say that the one advantage of paper ones, besides not requiring you to print off huge amounts of paper if there's something you want in print (so you don't have to memorize things, or switch back and forth between the game and your computer, or whatever), is that they have many more images and maps, which for some games can be quite helpful... I don't buy them either, sure, but there are definitely some cases where a printed guide would be nice... and I don't want to print off a 500 page GameFAQs document or something!
Also, it's more than just manuals... owning the physical game gets you an actual disc or cart or whatever, which I like, the box, which is great, and in some cases perhaps extras, like maps, etc. They come with actual physical things. As a result, they're more valuable than digital copies, really. I only buy games on Steam if they're very deeply discounted; I've never spent over like $5 or $8 for a Steam game, and I don't intend to. I don't like Steam very much, for one thing, it's far too controlled a system... but even beyond that, if I had the choice (and the extra money) I'd absolutely rather pay a little more to get a boxed copy of the game.
Of course these days I don't exactly buy many new games, but still, the sentiment is still valid I think. For instance, yeah, I'll pay a little more for a complete copy of a game than I would for a cart-only one. Sometimes I'll just get the cart-only copy, because the game itself is the most important part and it saves money, but getting the boxes and manuals can is definitely worth it sometimes.
Also, older manuals, particularly for PC games, used to be fantastic. I have so many great manuals that have so much in them... the decline of the manual has definitely been sad. Still, again, they definitely still have value, as long as the people putting them together want them to. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but it's always better when they do.
As for strategy guides, I don't buy those usually, yeah, but I will say that the one advantage of paper ones, besides not requiring you to print off huge amounts of paper if there's something you want in print (so you don't have to memorize things, or switch back and forth between the game and your computer, or whatever), is that they have many more images and maps, which for some games can be quite helpful... I don't buy them either, sure, but there are definitely some cases where a printed guide would be nice... and I don't want to print off a 500 page GameFAQs document or something!
Also, it's more than just manuals... owning the physical game gets you an actual disc or cart or whatever, which I like, the box, which is great, and in some cases perhaps extras, like maps, etc. They come with actual physical things. As a result, they're more valuable than digital copies, really. I only buy games on Steam if they're very deeply discounted; I've never spent over like $5 or $8 for a Steam game, and I don't intend to. I don't like Steam very much, for one thing, it's far too controlled a system... but even beyond that, if I had the choice (and the extra money) I'd absolutely rather pay a little more to get a boxed copy of the game.
Of course these days I don't exactly buy many new games, but still, the sentiment is still valid I think. For instance, yeah, I'll pay a little more for a complete copy of a game than I would for a cart-only one. Sometimes I'll just get the cart-only copy, because the game itself is the most important part and it saves money, but getting the boxes and manuals can is definitely worth it sometimes.
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