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Ok two part topic!

Part 1- Are manuals useless?:
I think they are. Most people say they use they can see what buttons they need to use. Well you can see that in the game options! Ive never used a game manual, except for SW:Galaxies and thats it. Other then that i never use them unless i get bored and look at there cool pictures.

Part 2- Reason games are expensive!:
A few years ago i broke down how much games cost but turns out PC Gamer did the same thing.

Our games would be dirt cheap if it wast for all the extra money being spent on them.

Its $5 for the the fancy manual, $4 for the Box, $2 for the CD case(opposed to 25cents for a plastic sleeve), $3 for the shelve space at the store(we pay for shelve space ) ...etc

Its amazing, we pay for lots of things like the advertising, the games finishing party(sometimes) and a bunch of useless crap there had to be about 34 items.

I dont mind paying the guys obviously. But i can go without a box and manual! Give me a cheap plastic sleeve and thats all i need....err and the CD of course!

ASSHOLE.

It's because of idiots like you that we don't have nice bound manuals
like ACES OF THE PACIFIC's anymore that actually teach you how to
do stuff, or the supplements which came with XCOM TERROR FROM
THE DEEP or XCOM APOCALYPSE....

Assassin X wrote:Part 1- Are manuals useless?:
I think they are. Most people say they use they can see what buttons they need to use. Well you can see that in the game options! Ive never used a game manual, except for SW:Galaxies and thats it. Other then that i never use them unless i get bored and look at there cool pictures.

No, they are't. Games like Homeworld, SimCity 2000 and Civilization 2 had superb manuals that not only taught you the basics of how to play the game, but also a great deal of strategy and/or tactics.

I dont mind paying the guys obviously. But i can go without a box and manual! Give me a cheap plastic sleeve and thats all i need....err and the CD of course!

IIRC, it costs about $30 to produce a game and the other $20 is overhead. But you're assuming that pricing is done on a "cost plus" basis. It isn't. Prices are determined on the intersection of the supply/demand curve and will be priced at what the market will bear. This is basic economics. Furthermore, in both real and inflationary terms the price of games has dropped.

If I didn't get a manual with Homeworld I would have been totally stumped. I imagine it would be a billion times worse for flight sim enthusiasts if their games didn't come with manuals.

Assassin X wrote:Ok two part topic!

Part 1- Are manuals useless?:
I think they are. Most people say they use they can see what buttons they need to use. Well you can see that in the game options! Ive never used a game manual, except for SW:Galaxies and thats it. Other then that i never use them unless i get bored and look at there cool pictures.

It's people like you who go on multiplayer and constantly ask "how do I....?" and annoy everyone else in the room with questions we answer +20 times daily.

Manuals are definately not useless.

Manuals aren't necessary for a good game, but they are still highly appreciated. Something that tells us a story about the game can give us an understanding of the universe. Also recieving detailed information about the units is nice.

Homeworld and Cataclysm are prime examples of how good this is. Homeworld 2 is an example of how shitty things became. All the information included in the original Homeworld manuals now became an extra you had to pay extra money to get.

Manuals are useless for games like Roller Coaster Tycoon where there's really no background story to tell. But the manuals for Homeworld, the Fallout games, and others were essential to getting the full experience of the game.

Alyeska wrote:Homeworld and Cataclysm are prime examples of how good this is. Homeworld 2 is an example of how shitty things became. All the information included in the original Homeworld manuals now became an extra you had to pay extra money to get.

That Homeworld 2 manual still pisses me off. They could have easily put it on a pdef instead of making us pay an extra 30 dollars to buy the useless strategy guide.

Ah well. I just read it for free on the Homeworld Shipyards.

HW2 gave us good information on past history for HW. But it had shit for information on recent history and the rebuilding of the Higarran people. Even the story in the strategy manual was basicaly shit. Homeworld had wonderful information on Karrahk history as well as the building of the Mothership. Cataclysm had more Karrahk history and also imediate information following the landing on Higarra. HW2 gave us 3 thousand year old information and absolutely nothing else. We know next to nothing about the Vagyr and that makes the entire HW2 plot very contrived.

I think the question is whether or not it's worth it to have a printed manual instead of a PDF.

I love a good game manual. The ones for Blizz games, the Fallouts, Conquest: Frontier Wars and the Homeworlds are all excellent reads. But is it worth it to be able to read it in bed at the cost of a more expensive game?

Manuals can be useful. Have any of you seen the Fallout and Fallout 2 manuals? They're hilarious and informative.

You've got to respect a manual which can tell you how to play a game and how to cook "Carrion Kabobs" (Fallout 2 manual, Appendix 8).

Don't businesses already use economic efficiency? Wouldn't they already be trying to produce something the cheapest way possible to get the most profit?

Why would they make something more costly to produce and package if they didn't have to?

Businesses have to make the decision on whether making the packaging smaller and cheaper will cost them customers. In the case of computer games the answer appears to be that the consumer will generally accept inferior packaging. We'll gripe about it but at the end of the day we're still buying.

Publishers also discovered that "strategy guides" could contain what the manuals of yesteryear did and furthermore they also discovered that except for some types of games most people simply did not read the manual. Thus it was taken out except for flimsy quickstart guides.

Assassin X wrote:Ok two part topic!

Part 1- Are manuals useless?:
I think they are. Most people say they use they can see what buttons they need to use. Well you can see that in the game options! Ive never used a game manual, except for SW:Galaxies and thats it. Other then that i never use them unless i get bored and look at there cool pictures.

I used to always read the manuals from cover to cover. With the newer games I don't, but thats because I make sure I already know everything about the game before I buy it

Part 2- Reason games are expensive!:
A few years ago i broke down how much games cost but turns out PC Gamer did the same thing.

Our games would be dirt cheap if it wast for all the extra money being spent on them.

Its $5 for the the fancy manual, $4 for the Box, $2 for the CD case(opposed to 25cents for a plastic sleeve), $3 for the shelve space at the store(we pay for shelve space ) ...etc

What's the etc?
You listed almost everything.
The reason they are so expensive is that more developers are needed for the new games.

I dont mind paying the guys obviously. But i can go without a box and manual! Give me a cheap plastic sleeve and thats all i need....err and the CD of course!

Here's the sad bit. A new game costs $40 with case and manual. You go to a store, find it used without a case, or manual. It's $35. Wha?
I saw this just yesterday.

I really miss the good old Microprose manuals for the flight sims.

100's of pages dealing everythin from the landingear and tarmac to the wight of a cannon shell.

Assassin X wrote:
Part 2- Reason games are expensive!:
A few years ago i broke down how much games cost but turns out PC Gamer did the same thing.

Our games would be dirt cheap if it wast for all the extra money being spent on them.

Its $5 for the the fancy manual, $4 for the Box, $2 for the CD case(opposed to 25cents for a plastic sleeve), $3 for the shelve space at the store(we pay for shelve space ) ...etc

Its amazing, we pay for lots of things like the advertising, the games finishing party(sometimes) and a bunch of useless crap there had to be about 34 items.

I dont mind paying the guys obviously. But i can go without a box and manual! Give me a cheap plastic sleeve and thats all i need....err and the CD of course!

you do realize that they also have to cover things like . . .i dunno. actually paying the people that designed and made the game itself? it's not as though gamemakers are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. well. most of them.

Faram wrote:I really miss the good old Microprose manuals for the flight sims.

100's of pages dealing everythin from the landingear and tarmac to the wight of a cannon shell.

As well as full history of each campaign area and the weapons used there. I remember manuals for games like F-117 Stealth Fighter and Gunship 2000.

Usinc cheapo paper sleeves or even thin plastic ones for CD's IMHO increases your chance of getting a damaged disc. Don't get me wrong, that's why In one case I'm happy for the DVD cases that are used now. Some games had huge boxes with sod all inside, Hostile Waters for example had one or two CD's and a thin manual.

Manuals are definetily not useless - as has been stated, they're informative and can make for rather good read in some cases.

What about, though, the idea of making the manuel a part of the actual game? At whatever start screen you'd get, you'd have your standard options, and sandwhiced inbetween would be "Manual." Select that, and it gives you all the information about the game in question, without the need to pint one up.

Sharpshooter wrote:Manuals are definetily not useless - as has been stated, they're informative and can make for rather good read in some cases.

What about, though, the idea of making the manuel a part of the actual game? At whatever start screen you'd get, you'd have your standard options, and sandwhiced inbetween would be "Manual." Select that, and it gives you all the information about the game in question, without the need to pint one up.

many games do something similar when the incorporate tutorials in them, especially in the rpg market. though for some types of games, such as fighting games, it'd be somewhat impractical imo.

Anyone remember the Aces of the Deep CD version? It had a manual done in the Windows help style on the Disk as well as a paper manual, as well as detailed information on the U-Boat war.

Printed manuals are moste certainly not useless. How, pray tell, do you read a PDF on the bus, in the tub, on the loo? I like to have read the manual before I install the game so I can get right into it.
Furthermore, sometimes they're a damn good read. The Fallouts have been mentioned, I'd like to add BG 1& 2.
If printing costs are a serious issue (which somehow I doubt), while spiral-bound manuals like BG2 anf FO2 are nice, the little glued style manuals like IWD2 or ToEE do suffice. But don't make me read the fucking PDF on my computer.
Furthermore, a printed manual I can keep at hand to look up stuff at any given time. For a PDF, I have to pause the game, switch to the desktop (presupposing the game actually supports that), open the manual PDF, find the page I'm looking for because half the time there aren't even proper
bookmarks so I have to look through the index which is preceeded by 7 pages of fancy but utterly useless graphics and credits I couldn't care less about...
Case in point: I'm currently spending a lot of time with Privateer Remake, which incidentally is a damn good game. The manual's a PDF. As this is a fan-made downloadable freeware product a printed manual was of course not an option, but it illustrates the problems quite well:
Whenever I have to look something up, which basically includes every command I don't use at least once every other mission (or when I have to look at the map), I have to pause the game, switch to the desktop, open the PDF, correct the fucking stupid zoom the PDF defaults to (did I mention that thanks to it being PDF, I can't edit shit so I can't even configure to my preferences?), go through the index to find what I'm looking for, go back to the game, unpause...
Whereas with a printed manual all I would need to do is pause-read-unpause.
Privateer Remake has an excuse. Commercial games do not.

Games are expensive, at least on first release, because programmers need to make a living, lawyers and marketers have to be paid, the market is competitive, and all the other obvious reasons. Not every game evades the bargain bin as well as City of Heroes and The Sims, and their money here isn't going to be redistributed to the commercially challenged.

A good manual is not useless, PDF or hardcopy, and neither is a nice box with good cover art. Even in a well-developed game with a very intuitive interface, a manual to set backstory, gameplay hints, development trivia, and the aims of the game designers is good to have, and would encourage me to support the company's future products. I've bought games based on nice cover art as well; there is something to be able to tangibly hold and see a work of art that is part of an enjoyable game.

Producing games to satisfy elite gamers and computer wizards is OK, but movies, for example, do not cater exclusively to jaded reviewers and University-educated film critics. Most cater to the mass market as best they can, and customers like that. Depending exclusively on direct-download or cheap marketing or being the next blockbuster by word-of-blog is a big gamble I don't see paying off.

I love reading manuals. For console games I never look at the controls, but a decent manual gives you tips and backstory that you'll rarely get elsewhere. For instance, who would have known that the Chozo created Metroids and that the word metroid was Chozo for "ultimate warrior" if it hadn't been for the Metroid Fusion manual?

As for expensive, I keep my cases to hold my games, and I'd rather shell out a few extra bucks for a game case if it'll keep my games in decent condition for a few extra years.

Praxis: wtf? $35? That seems expensive for a used game.

Assassin X wrote:Its amazing, we pay for lots of things like the advertising, the games finishing party(sometimes) and a bunch of useless crap there had to be about 34 items.

So programmers, artists, musicians, writers, designers, and so forth are all "useless crap" now? They have to paid to create the game, then the company has to charge enough for the game to make that money back and then turn a profit off of it.

Games are also getting more and more expensive to produce (more man-hours put into development, and those hours must be paid).

Why would they make something more costly to produce and package if they didn't have to?

Because people aren't computers... they're bound by aesthetics and feelings and other difficult-to-quantify crap. In essence, people don't like to feel like they're buying cheap products.