Ubisoft ditches paper manuals


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Why? ?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,? said the company in a statement.

?Eco-friendly initiatives are important to the global community and introducing in-game digital manuals on Xbox 360 and PS3 is just the latest example of Ubisoft?s ongoing commitment to being a more environmentally conscious company,? said Laurent Detoc, president of Ubisoft North America.

Tomato Source

I wish they just had the balls to come out and say: "We're doing this to min/max our profits. **** the enviroment lalz." Going to miss the new game smell. :(

Obligatory sensationalist statement: OMGZ ONE STEP CLOSER TO DD TO FOR THE CONSOLES! DOOM I TELL YOU!

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Whats a manual?? :shifty:

Really, who reads them anyway?

Our company stop printing manuals a few years ago, and just went with PDFs to "Save the environment"

If they are ditching manuals completely (i.e. no soft copy) then yes maximising their profit, we still have to spend crap loads on writing and translation.

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Yeah it's to do with saving money, where the **** is our reduced prices on the consumer end for things getting skimpier?

Used to remember all the pretty coloured manuals... Surprised FF13 was in colour.

Only thing I appreciate now with manuals looking like trash is the inside game art on PS3 games, looks pretty.

vc3.jpg

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I remember when manuals were dual purpose, also acting as authenticity verification:

Enter the 4th word on line 7 of page 12...

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I remember reading manuals on the bus home when I bought a new game.

I remember for some reason when you first started using Final Fantasy 9 a big message came up saying something like...

'Good News! You don't need the manual!'

... But we've still supplied one.

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I bet they still have the chance to bundle in all the **** like: BUY THIS LOGITECH HEADSET TO BE AUTOMATICALLY BETTER AT THE GAME!

Maybe if they actually bundled $5/?5 off vouchers with those things it would be bearable...

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Alone in the Dark for the PC!

Spears of Destiny was the same way too. I never had a legal copy of the game, which made it more challenging.

If they don't include manuals any more, they should reduce the cost of games.

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Maybe if they actually bundled $5/?5 off vouchers with those things it would be bearable...

Ha from the official store? Isn't there a ?10 mark up already? :p

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Ubisoft ditches paper to make more money, not to save trees. I'll ditch Ubisoft because I like well boxed games too. Where are those days of real box art, with content of real value and not just a disk for 60 euros?

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No biggie, manuals are useless anyway and I haven't read a manual in years.

I do agree though, they should knock a bit off the price as it saves them money and that saving should be passed on to me, as a consumer.

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Ubisoft ditches paper to make more money, not to save trees. I'll ditch Ubisoft because I like well boxed games too. Where are those days of real box art, with content of real value and not just a disk for 60 euros?

Blame Walmart for that, there was a page article some time ago about moving PC games from boxes to DVD cases to save on space and so they can fit more on the shelf.

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I doubt it costs more than $.50 for them to bundle a paper manual in each copy, so the end user won't benefit from it. Ubisoft is the one who will. If they make 3 million copies then that's $1,500,000 saved :)

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So basically the only difference between retail and digital distribution will be a disc, box and price difference. Shame it's generally retail that is cheaper than digital :(

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I always like reading the GTA manuals but other than that the only manuals i read for console games would be the RPG types which have information about classes etc.

Hopefully it won't happen to more complex games though. It would be a shame for me to buy something like Civilization and not get a manual. Theirs are usually really good.

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in that case they should lower the price on games. Since we are not paying for the print anymore.

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So basically the only difference between retail and digital distribution will be a disc, box and price difference. Shame it's generally retail that is cheaper than digital :(

Games in a plastic wallet coming soon to a store near you! :D :p

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I doubt it costs more than $.50 for them to bundle a paper manual in each copy, so the end user won't benefit from it. Ubisoft is the one who will. If they make 3 million copies then that's $1,500,000 saved :)

Your probably right, it won't be a lot of saving between paper and digital copy (if they supply a digital copy), I think we worked it out to be a few euros per item (maybe 10-15 euros). Those savings where passed on to the consumer, via cheaper product prices.

Now, if there is no maual than thats a crap load of money, translations alone could be several ?100,000's for EU and thats not covering the DTP costs and the actual writing :p

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GTA always has good manuals.

Indeed, those manuals were always really well done, and the maps thrown in were a nice touch (can't remember if GTA4 had the map, but Chinatown Wars did).

As for Ubisoft taking the manuals out, I can't say that I'm too choked up about it. If you look at a lot of game manuals nowadays, they're really cheaply done. I think MW2 and Forza 3 (not Ubi games, I know) had little five page manuals that gave you the bare minimum in terms of information. If that's what companies are planning to do with their manuals, then they may as well not even bother.

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Seems you just can't make anyone happy. Stop printing manuals, save trees and the environment to satisfy the ecologically minded people and the corporate conspiracists turn it into maximize profits.

Having had to purchase large numbers of printed documents in the past, a typical manual's cost is about $0.50 per unit when purchased by the million. What's 50 cents to you? And what is 500,000 dollars per million games distributed to the developer?

I don't know what you think but a half million extra dollars could go a long ways towards making a game that much better. Or they could just drop the price from 29.99, 39.99, 49.99, 59.99, 69.99 to 29.49, 39.49, 49.49, 59.49, 69.49.

Now you have a half-dollar more in your pocket.

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TBH, unless it's a really well done manual (like GTA and a few others), there isn't much need for them with handholding tutorials in-game, end-game credits, information online like soundtracks, etc. It's reduntant.

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