The Death of the Game Manual

Since the beginning of time there were two things you could count on discovering when you first cracked open a game box, the game itself, and a manual explaining it. Ah yes, the manual, complete with that new manual smell – you know what I’m talking about. Whether you read through it cover to cover or ignored it nonchalantly it was always there, ready with the game’s backstory, artwork, and game controls.

Recently, video game publisher Ubisoft announced they would break tradition and no longer be providing a physical game manual with their games. Let’s take a minute to go over why Ubisoft claims to be doing this, what their real motivations are, and what it will mean to you and me.

First, breaking down the main points in the official announcement itself:

“Including the game manual directly in the game will offer the player easier and more intuitive access to game information, as well as allow Ubisoft to provide gamers with a more robust manual.”

Official Announcement

This is fantastic news! I’ve always struggled with how one is supposed to use a book to access information. I’ve been saying for years they need to find a way to make it easier and more intuitive, and at last they have listened! My struggles would often end in defeat, my game manuals left but a shredded mess as I endeavored to acquire the information within. Honestly, who thinks to lift a page from the right side and flip it over to the left side? It’s not as though this is a format that has been around for thousands of years:

</sarcasm> Yes, I mock the ridiculous PR spin on their claim of “us providing less is actually good for you.” If these digital manuals are so great, why are they not already using them? Why wait until they stop providing the physical manual to implement them?

Now, cynicism aside, the fact is that yes, manuals are indeed largely obsolete. Since the advent of the google and even game specific wikis when was the last time the manual was the first source you consulted for the answer to a specific problem? It would have been nice if Ubisoft felt they could just be honest with us, maybe include some statistic, such as, “87% of people don’t even read the manuals thus we are discontinuing them”, we wouldn’t ask too many questions. As you’re about to see, they certainly don’t seem to have any trepidation in throwing numbers around:

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