The Death of the Game Manual

Ubisoft internal data shows that producing one ton of paper used in Ubisoft’s game manuals consumes an average of two tons of wood from 13 trees, with a net energy of 28 million BTU’s (equivalent to average heating and energy for one home/year), greenhouse gases equivalent of over 6,000 lbs of CO2, and wastewater of almost 15,000 gallons.

Official Announcement

This was the theme of the entire announcement. Recall that the purpose of the announcement is that they are discontinuing game manuals, but they decided to wrap it in about fifteen sugar-coating layers of how much they care about trees. I guess so we can’t be mad at them? Indeed every other line is about the environment or “going green”. Now, this point is at least true, there will be a savings in CO2 emissions, but I would just take this opportunity to quickly point out how little they are actually reducing their footprint. I ask to you weigh the environmental costs of making a few pieces of paper for a small booklet versus the cost of creating the DVD, the box, wrapping it all in plastic, and most of all, transporting the final product around the world. The emissions from the transport vehicles in particular outweigh their paper savings substantially. I’ll leave it to you to run the exact numbers.

“Ubisoft is often recognized for making great games, but it’s a special privilege to be the industry leader at saving trees.”

Laurent Detoc, president Ubisoft North America.

It is of course unusual for a video game developer to actively promote how environmentally conscious they are, but take this as a sign of the times. Typically, on a list of which industries need to work on reducing their carbon footprint, video game developers won’t rank very high, and, last I checked, Greenpeace wasn’t exactly banging down Ubisoft’s door.

But let’s not be fooled here, we’ve already seen this dance many times by many companies. Is Ubisoft Corporation truly doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and concern for climate? I think we all know the answer to that. Why does any business make these kinds of decisions? It’s about the money, Lebowski!

Though you might not have realized it, Ubisoft isn’t in the business of making video games, they’re not even in the business of saving trees, they are in the business of making money. In fact, they have a legal obligation to their shareholders to make as much money as possible. This is how just corporations are.

Also, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that creating those game manuals costs money. Beyond just the paper and ink, the salaries of writers, artists and layout designers all take away from Ubisoft’s bottom line. Cutting these expenses saves Ubisoft money, letting them in turn produce a cheaper product and passing the savings on to you, the consumers… Ha ha, that’s a good one!

Here’s a prediction that you can take to the bank: though the manual will be gone, all of the paper inserts detailing promotions or advertising will remain. These are especially pervasive in PC versions of games where there are about a dozen inserts for things like the newest nvidia video card, or laptop from Alienware. I am guessing the trees used to make these won’t be quite as green as the ones Ubisoft is saving, or the wheelbarrow of money they got for including them.

One point of curiosity I have is in regards to the “collector’s editions”. If you’ve picked up one of these at some point you’ll know the main difference you find over the regular edition is the magnitude of paper inserts included. Whether it’s bonus art, printed maps, cards with key-codes written on them to redeem some in-game item, it all comes from the same trees Ubisoft cares about so much that they can’t bear to produce a game manual. But who knows? Maybe the collector’s edition will feature an actual game manual as the bonus.

Though I’ve been condescending of Ubisoft’s disingenuous announcement, the decision to stop producing the manuals does make sense from a business perspective. As I previously mentioned, the majority of people just don’t use them, turning instead to their superior online counterparts. Five years from now the manuals will be long gone and no one will give them a thought. Whether Ubisoft actually follows through and implements decent digital versions of the manuals or simply refers their patrons to third party wikis remains to be seen.