Valve and Prima bring in-game strategy guides to Steam

Prima has teamed-up with Valve to provide their strategy guides in-game through Steam’s user interface overlay system. The initial offerings include guides for: Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Just Cause 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction. The guides are priced the same as their printed counterparts at $19.99, but the initial batch is 50% off to celebrate the launch.

This seems like a logical move for both Steam and Prima. As publishers also begin to move to paperless manuals, digital game documents are quickly becoming the norm. While nostalgia may hold some back on the idea of not being able to flip through a thick strategy guide, the in-game, wiki-style guides make a lot more sense, especially for a purely digital distribution system such as Steam.

While the key feature touted here is the ability to utilize the strategy guide in-game without having to alt-tab out for a quick peek, the guides can also be accessed outside of the game.