Ubisoft ditching paper manuals for Xbox 360, PS3 games

[Matthew DeCarlo]

If you're a diehard gaming traditionalist, you may want to rethink your stance when it comes to game manuals. A new "environmental initiative" is underway at Ubisoft that will end the bundling of paper manuals with the publisher's games. The company will instead provide digital in-game manuals for all titles on the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360. The new paperless project will commence this holiday with the launch Shaun White Skateboarding.

Ubisoft said its internal data shows that producing one ton of paper used in its game manuals consumes around two tons of wood from 13 trees, with a net energy of 28 million BTUs -- the average heating and energy for one home per year. In addition to ditching paper booklets, the company has teamed up with Technimark to release the industry's "most environmentally-responsible DVD case" (made from 100% recycled polypropylene) for all of its future PC titles in North America.

"Green" talk aside, the developer believes going digital will allow it to create more robust manuals as well as provide players with easier and more intuitive access to game information.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/38648-ubisoft-ditching-paper-manuals-for-xbox-360-ps3-games.html

 

[Wagan8r]

Woohoo... except that it doesn't mean that somebody will get free heating and energy for his house. All of this "going green" buzz is just a marketing ploy, and I'm sick of it.

 

[matrix86]

Ubisoft is ditching paper manuals, Crytek is ditching free demos, Sony is ditching the "other os" feature on it's PS3, and Google is ditching (well, "hiding") the HTTP that you see before an address...and we're not even half way through 2010 yet. What other surprises are in store? Sheesh.

 

[Guest]

it might be a marketing ploy,and i know no one in particular will benefit from this well Ubisoft will..bu either way it does save energy.and this day in age that is what counts..so i'm all for it..in my opinion other publishers should follow in Ubisofts shooes..i mean lets face it, we all look into the manuals mkaybe one or twice until we get the hang of the controls

 

[Guest]

Yea, its the the way to go. Besides.. who reads game manuals this days ?? o_O
The earth is dying and its time the game industry contributes to being Eco friendly

 

[TomSEA]

I don't buy it. MUCH cheaper to just load a .pdf manual on a disc than print out thousands of copies and stuff them in a case. "Being green" is just an easy excuse.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

How dare you people accuse a company of trying to save a few bucks under the guise of being environmentally aware!

In all seriousness, I'm not sure the last time that I looked through a game manual. Good riddance!

 

[Guest]

Cool, now they just have to give up their draconian drm, and I'll be very happy with Ubisoft again.

 

[ET3D]

You'll have to be constantly online to read the manual. If your connection fails for a moment, you will lose your position in the manual.

 

[rufio]

does this mean we will pay less for games too? probably not...

 

[Timonius]

Yup, the good old 'green' excuse. Ummm... with all the 'economy in trouble' talk it makes more sense to admit that it costs money to print all these manuals. It is waaaay cheaper to include it electronically (not to mention it will be harder to 'lose' the manuals now ). And of course we probably won't notice a cheaper game price because they want to make more money with all the savings on production.

 

[Guest]

The Earth is not "dying", at least not because of man-made global warming since that has been thoroughly debunked as an NWO hoax. The whole point of it is so that the NWO can take control of the world to "save it".

The climate constantly changes naturally and solar activity affects the Earth, these are scientific FACTS. Other facts include the world being hotter many times in the past (I'm talking human history, like the middle-ages, not just in prehistoric times) and having more CO2 in the atmosphere which clearly didn't come from anything man-made.

Even Paul Smith (I think it was Paul Smith) admitted that there's been no global warming for the last 10 years. (Although he calls it just a "blip" and is still trying to convince people that man-made global warming is real.)

Think about it, if the the government is so concerned about the enviroment then why are they (illegally) building all over green-belt land here in the UK and have used rainforest wood to refurbish parliament? Why are they importing millions of immigrants into the country which uses up lots more resources? Stop being brainwashed and start thinking properly.

 

[Richy2k9]

hello ...

masked or hypocrite statements is of no importance if the action really does something good.

i almost never check a games manual (typically masculine huh!) so won't really miss them, but yes ditch also the DRM & some bad ports, let us enjoy the best of a game without feeling guilty or annoyed.

good move Ubisoft, hope others follows then would be more than significant,

cheers!

 

[isamuelson]

Means nothing to me, Ubisoft. When you ditch your draconian DRM, THEN there will be reason to celebrate and cheer you on. Oh, and if you really ARE trying to save costs and the environment, then lower the price of your games that won't have the printed manual anymore. Let's see if they do that.

I doubt it.

 

[Vrmithrax]

ET3D said:
You'll have to be constantly online to read the manual. If your connection fails for a moment, you will lose your position in the manual.

Hah! Well played, ET3D... Post of the day for me, I think

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Well played, indeed.

 

[Wendig0]

ET3D said:
You'll have to be constantly online to read the manual. If your connection fails for a moment, you will lose your position in the manual.

lol! Oh man that made my day

 

[Renrew]

Personally, I never read the printed manuals unless I have problems.

It's nice to have one however if you really want to take advantage of all the attributes of the game. On-line manuals are a no-brainer.

It seems Ubi--- is jumping on the green bandwagon, for whatever reason, but at least they're doing something about it. I'm sure we all remember the autrocious game packaging of yesteryear and I wonder how many trash mountains were created by that packaging.

 

[Johny47]

I'm a 'pro gamer' I don't need these 'manuals' you speak of hahaha =P

Seriously, if Ubisoft want to save a little money and even maybe save gamers money by bringing the cost of games down by a tiny bit then cool, it's good for the enviroment too I suppose(can't these manuals be recycled if you have no use for them anyways?)

 

[ET3D]

It's another step towards pure digital distribution. All you're left with is a box and DVD, which aren't all that needed. In "the good old days" games came with quite a bit of stuff. I remember Infocom adventure games in particular, but there were RPG's with cloth maps, and other cool stuff.

 

[isamuelson]

ET3D said:
It's another step towards pure digital distribution. All you're left with is a box and DVD, which aren't all that needed. In "the good old days" games came with quite a bit of stuff. I remember Infocom adventure games in particular, but there were RPG's with cloth maps, and other cool stuff.

I'm pretty sure you can still get those, which are known as the "Limited Edition" or "Collector's Edition".

Overall, I like the digital distribution. No need to go to the store to get the game. In fact, the Wii does this with it's WiiWare, DSiWare and for all of it's emulator games (for NES, SNES, Genesis, Turbo Grafx16, etc). I wouldn't be surprised if consoles go this route eventually as well.

 

[Guest]

Ubisoft says it will save 13 trees. I say 13 people at a printing company, 13 artists, 13 packers, 13 lumberjacks, and 13 tree planters just lost their jobs.

What's sad is I won't even save a nickle out of this. Even worse seeing as I can't even view Jpeg pictures with my PS3 while in a game, I don't see how I am going to be able to launch a PDF.

 

[Guest]

Here's the URL to the ad shown to me by www.techspot.com while I was reading this article/post.

http://www.hp.com/canada/promotions/commercial/ipg/gaplan/pdf/hp_green_action_plan.pdf

Apparently someone got an ironic sense of humour

 

[ET3D]

isamuelson, in the past these were not special editions, but standard editions. It was standard to get a cardboard box with stuff inside, including hefty manuals, maps and so on, like it's now standard to get a DVD style box with less stuff inside, and apparently soon with nothing inside but the game disc.

 

[Guest]

man i love this ridiculous "green" Sh1t, they are doing it for the capital gain, 100 percent, thats it. if they fu<king cared about the environment then they would not be thinking of copying EA's ridiculous "10 dollar plan" because that reuses the damn games and doesn't have them end up in a landfill after they are done playing it. why in this day and age, where everything is supposedly promoting recycling, would a major company, EA and potentially Ubisoft, make people pay a penalty for "recycling" their unwanted games.