EA drops paper game manuals

[aj_the_kidd]

I'm Old Skool, one of the first things i did when i got a new game was read the manual, oh well, gotta save the environment i guess.

 

[Guest]

Here is the flaw on the logic here, what if you can't get something to work in the first place? Well then you NEED a manual. It's getting way to easy to just pinch a few pennies here and there for the sake of being "Green". To be honest I'm about fed up with all this green crap. I have allways put my trash where it goes and recycled long before it was the "cool" thing to do. Now there's all these people telling me I "Got to do it or else". To hell with green...gimmie Red!

 

[TekGun]

"The company will undoubtedly save money too, but it hasn't shared any figures and has decided to focus on the environmental angle"

Yea right EA, pull the other one. This has absolutely nothing to do with the environment, and everything to do with maximising profit.

 

[negroplasty]

captaincranky said:

Sweet. Save some trees!

Right. Why not plant some trees to make paper from? Does that sound like a plan? No, wait a minute, we need that ground for a housing development and strip mall.

Oh, and before I forget, land for low income housing in furtherance of unrepentant and uncontrolled breeding of the social entitlement set. Wow, they make some paperwork.

In the meantime, why don't you set up a memorial for the trees that died to make your copy book.

What the hell is your problem? Get a life and quit trolling.

 

[Darkshadoe]

""EA is committed to a healthy and sustainable environment," said EA COO John Schappert. "

Translated : EA is committed to making a profit at any cost. Rather than passing the savings to our customers, We will relieve them of the clutter of having instruction manuals laying around everywhere which we feel is worth far more than any monetary savings to them.

 

[ET3D]

I found it very annoying that for years now no game I bought on Steam came with a paper manual. And yes, even EA started on this path a while back. My download copy of Dragon Age didn't come with a paper manual at all! The nerve these companies have.

 

[Benny26]

Sweet. Save some trees!

One up, one down, one to polish.

If only everyone adopted that method...

 

[mosu]

Paper manuals are futile for most players

 

[TorturedChaos]

techb0t said:
WAIT money is printed on paper! 2 birds, 1 stone. I'm all about saving trees.

The US's money is printed on cloth. Most other countries use some sort of cloth mix or plastic. Sry not saving trees there.

 

[Lurker101]

Am I the only one who's going to miss that weird smell of a fresh games manual?

 

[Route44]

Paper manuals are futile for most players

That is a very broad sweeping statement. So, why are paper manuals futile for most players?

 

[gwailo247]

Back when I only had one computer, not having a paper game manual made it kinda hard to read the PDF manual while playing the game. Not as much of a problem now I suppose, so I guess it kinda makes sense.

But I wished until they waited until tablets became more prevalent, nothing makes better bathroom reading than a game manual.

 

[Lurker101]

Benny26 said:

Sweet. Save some trees!

One up, one down, one to polish.

If only everyone adopted that method...

Rimmer?

 

[captaincranky]

What the hell is your problem? Get a life and quit trolling.

Aw, did I hurt your widdle feelings? Do you feel self important now that you've called somebody a troll? Does that validate you?

A blatant fact is this; humans need food and shelter, there are too many humans.Trees provide a great portion of that shelter.

You can't conserve by simply abstaining from use. Land needs to be preserved and even reclaimed.

My son, (at age 13), felt sorry for poor little christmas trees, struck down in the prime of life, to die ignominiously in somebody's house for decoration.

Guess what, the trees were planted to become christmas trees, and hence no harm was done.

Now, EA is just going to pocket your money they save by not giving you a manual. And you're going to self delude yourself by thinking you're, "saving a tree"! Hooray, U da man!

I actually have a life, and only a small portion of it involves debating with gung ho delusional do-gooders. Now, go back to twiddling you thumbs into your iPhone, preferably behind the wheel of an SUV. I don't care, you can't hurt me, since you're out in Arizona, and there's not much to collide with. Live a little, burn some fossil fuel!

I drive a motorcycle year round. I enjoy screwing OPEC. I enjoy saving money. But I hardly think I'm a conservationist. After all, some of the gasoline for the bike might have come from as leaky oil well. And God knows, it takes a lot longer to grow a crop of oil, than it does a crop of trees. Much as many trees have died not so very gallantly, putting roofs over this year's crop of crack baby's heads.

See you on Twitter! (Is that an oxymoron? No matter, it's not going to happen).

You seem like you might enjoy Twitter though, as all your social concepts and ideals seem to occur in less than 136 character spasms.:wave:

Back when I only had one computer, not having a paper game manual made it kinda hard to read the PDF manual while playing the game. Not as much of a problem now I suppose, so I guess it kinda makes sense.

C'mon man, one computer to play, one computer to read from? And you don't get that you're being led?

At least you could serve up a viable reason for having 2 computers. Hm, such as, "one for porn, and one for paperwork". (Not sure if that "paperwork"pun was intentional or not).

Good. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

One up, one down, one to polish.

If only everyone adopted that method...

And how many trees are going to die in support of your pansy a** royal wedding? Just make sure all those gilt edged invitations are printed on "recycled" paper, so that the hypocrisy doesn't go national.

Rimmer?

My sentiments exactly.

 

[yRaz]

If they want to start charging $60 for PC games I want a damn manual. It's fun to flip through as the game installs. If they make the CDkey on just on slip of paper I'm going to be pissed. I lost my BF2142 CDkey because of that. What I do now is buy a game, activate it on steam and keep the case on the shelf for some sense of ownership(Eula says otherwise). I still have my Oblivion, BF2142, CoD2, and CoD4 case in near mint condition.

 

[w3b0n]

Rick said:

TFA said:
EA drops paper game manuals.

Headline next week:

EA raises game prices.

lol im pretty sure its happening now, every AAA game costs 60 dllrs and they even reduced the cost for shipping and burning copys on DVD's since digital copys are getting the major sales on the market.

One thing for sure is that cost of life nowdays is way more expensive than before and yeah we might feed greedy monsters when we make a purchase but think that behind the project a lot of cool dudes get payed too. Programers, designers, technitians, etc.

I do care where my money goes but i know that what goes around comes around $$$

 

[TrekExpert]

I never use those manuals anyway... They only have maybe one page of useful information (controls) for the 50 or so pages. Them being printed in with both English and french doesn't help either,

 

[ramonsterns]

TrekExpert said:
I never use those manuals anyway... They only have maybe one page of useful information (controls) for the 50 or so pages. Them being printed in with both English and french doesn't help either,

You most've bought the wrong games, then.

 

[Benny26]

Captaincranky said:
And how many trees are going to die in support of your pansy a** royal wedding? Just make sure all those gilt edged invitations are printed on "recycled" paper, so that the hypocrisy doesn't go national.

Be careful of falling into the stereotypical trap that all Englishman drink tea and worship portraits of the royal family. (Although I do enjoy the former)

That aside, Sadly i'm not on the list of either the guests or the servants so i can't answer your question.

Lurker101 Said:
Rimmer?

Correct!...Although i will point out that i don't use that method myself. (it requires some skill that i just can't master )

 

[TrekExpert]

You most've bought the wrong games, then.

If you know of a game manual that is actual a decent read I would like to hear it...

 

[captaincranky]

Well boys and girls, I simply can't fathom most of your responses to this topic.

The most of the time you're railing about how "new games suck, that's why we download, (steal) them, because they're not worth paying for"!

Then you spend time in the hardware forums trying to figure out if you need an 850 or 1000 watt PSU because you "like to play your games with everything on high". (Yeah, you're that self important). Who cares about how much electricity that new GPU uses. Does the juice come from fossil fuel power plants? More than likely!

Then you spend the rest of the time with faces buried in some piece of crap "smart phone".

You don't aspire to built anything, grow anything, plant anything, or manufacturer anything, meanwhile consuming everything you possibly can that comes from countries with virtually no environmental protection standards.

Then everybody wants to be in, "IT"! Didn't anybody ever tell you that you can't "eat information". No wonder Obama has to print more money on a regular basis, to bail you dullards out.

But yet, when some suit at EA rams a bunch "eco-crap" down your throats, you swallow it, hook, line, and sinker.

You talk out both sides of your mouths, neither of which makes any sense whatsoever.

Here's a blinding revelation, "video games aren't a necessity"! (paper instructions or not). You're so addicted you can't think straight.

 

[Guest]

Captaincranky may be as irritable as his name implies, but the act of being objective is sometimes difficult... I think he is quite accurate in the ideas he presents.


---Qriist

 

[Guest]

Addendum to the above:
I am quite the avid gamer myself and I do enjoy reading manuals. I have a gray attitude towards piracy but I still buy the ones I feel deserve it.

For my part, if I am not saving any money over the 60 dollar price tag on something I fairly regularly buy then by golly I want some physical substance to it.

 

[Lurker101]

Not exactly the most eloquent argument you've ever produced cranky, but you are right. If any of this lot every got raped, they'd end up feeling all happy and joyous that somebody finds them attractive, blissfully unaware of the long and hard being forced up their tight and smelly.

But, I'd rather address the argument about manuals being pointless, crappy and/or useless.

For the most part, they are. Then again, the same could be said for most books, comics, movies, music, games, cars and just about anything else. A lot of manuals are three pages of what your system should look like, two or three pages about the games controls (usually the first of which is a picture of the input device) and a page or two for the legal and credits. Some games don't even give you that, but at least you've gotten a small booklet with a smidgen of artwork with your purchase.

Not all manuals are like that though. The Sim City 4 manual, for example is thick enough to kill a small rodent, even though it's all in English. Taking the time to illustrate and carefully explain all of the features and mechanics within the game, enabling you to play a smarter, more informed game.

The Rumble Roses manual for the PS2 not only gives you a detailed guide on how to get started, how to fight and perform special moves, but also comes with a person-per-page illustrated biography for each character.

Metal Gear Solid games included a short comic strip (on average 8 pages long) to teach players the controls for various situations, alongside a very detailed manual on how to perform most techniques and detailed descriptions on most in-game items.

I could keep going with examples of well presented, well written manuals for the next couple of hours if any of you wanted, and if I could be bothered. Not all manuals are horrible and bland and if we ditch gaming manuals completely, I think we'll lose something special and unique for the sake of profit-pinching and fake eco-mentalism.

 

[spydercanopus]

You mean physical game boxes are still produced?