If you’ve picked up the Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars on the 3DS, you might have opened the box to be welcomed by this:
Seriously, aside from the warranty and health & safety info, that’s the extent of the manual.
Game manuals can be one of the big advantages of a retail game over digital downloadable ones, but there might as well not be one than have this one. There is still the occasional publisher that puts effort into the packaging of a retail game – Atlus and Nintendo, for instance, but for the most part it’s a dying art. It would be nice to see the manual return as a collectible piece of a retail game.
How dare you not like that manual?! I'll have you know that it does have a use: Wasting paper and ink, and increasing manufacturing costs and price point!
Seriously though, I remember stealing manuals from rental stores when I was little. Not that I'm proud of that by any means, but it says something that they were nice enough to want to own so badly. Nowadays, most of them are still in black and white and that's especially grueling with big budget releases. I agree, it would be nice for manuals to return to their state as collectibles, especially now that instructions practically never needed anymore since most games feature tutorials in one shape or another.
How dare you not like that manual?! I'll have you know that it does have a use: Wasting paper and ink, and increasing manufacturing costs and price point!
Seriously though, I remember stealing manuals from rental stores when I was little. Not that I'm proud of that by any means, but it says something that they were nice enough to want to own so badly. Nowadays, most of them are still in black and white and that's especially grueling with big budget releases. I agree, it would be nice for manuals to return to their state as collectibles, especially now that instructions practically never needed anymore since most games feature tutorials in one shape or another.
I agree. I think publishers are really missing out on an opportunity to use manuals (which would not be *that* expensive to produce in quantity) as a way of convincing people to buy the retail, rather than digitally distributed version.
*sigh* Games retail does so many things wrong.
On the plus side, the likes of NIS, Tecmo Koei, Nintendo and Atlus keep the flame alive!
I agree. I think publishers are really missing out on an opportunity to use manuals (which would not be *that* expensive to produce in quantity) as a way of convincing people to buy the retail, rather than digitally distributed version.
*sigh* Games retail does so many things wrong.
On the plus side, the likes of NIS, Tecmo Koei, Nintendo and Atlus keep the flame alive!