News - Ubisoft ditches manuals in effort to go green

[HEXUS]

Now what are you going to read while sitting on the loo?

Read more.

[Saracen]

Are you likely to miss the reading material or do you think it's about time more effort was devoted to saving the trees?

I think it's more likely to be effort devoted reducing costs .... or shifting to a download-only distribution model, which is largely the same thing. Yes, I read the manuals, certainly for the more complex games.

[kalniel]

Eco friendly cases are a great idea. Manuals.. well good ones had already gone the way of the dodo well before this announcement. It's not like Ubisoft have published any meaty RPGs that need them recently anyway.

[GheeTsar]

While I prefer games to not require a manual and have an in game tutorial or steady learning curve to learn as you go, if there is a need for one I much prefer a hard copy and will very rarely look at an electronic one.

This smacks of a penny pinching exercise to me.

[finlay666]

I'd like to see them integrated into the game instead of having to faff on online

Open start menu> Read manual and have a reader pop up would be nice, more convenient too especially as you can't really read a manual and play at the same time

[jim]

Haha - "green".

Bit like M&S making carrier bags chargeable for "green" purposes and then donating the profits to charity. Smooth.

I agree though, in-game manuals are the best. You can learn so much more with a brief tutorial than a paper manual in the same amount of time. And if the game has a decent interface, then it will provide a decent encyclopaedia that fits smoothly into the game, which removes the need to look up data in the manual. And it also improves immersion in my eyes, so no real problems there.

[finlay666]

Bit like M&S making carrier bags chargeable for "green" purposes and then donating the profits to charity. Smooth.

I agree though, in-game manuals are the best. You can learn so much more with a brief tutorial than a paper manual in the same amount of time. And if the game has a decent interface, then it will provide a decent encyclopaedia that fits smoothly into the game, which removes the need to look up data in the manual. And it also improves immersion in my eyes, so no real problems there.

To their credit the M&S bags are stronger than regular carriers if you get one of the for life ones, and you get a replacement if it breaks

I think a tutorial is good for teaching what is not commonly known e.g. analogue sticks move, or doing something like combat, but anything else should be included in almost a simple encyclopaedia, similar to Viva Piñata for getting info on the plants and animals, it's quite a good interface

[Avenger1324]

Considering Ubisoft will be making pretty much all their games multiplatform, and are still required to include manuals with the console versions, this is purely a cost cutting excercise for PC gamers who have no body to stand up for them.

Anyways manuals are the least of my worries when it comes to a Ubisoft game - until they ditch their current DRM I won't be buying their games for PC anyway.