For those that were born before the 2000s, do you recall physical video game guides? Popular publishers included Prima, Nintendo Power, and Piggyback. And how about those manuals that came with each game? Unfortunately, there’s a very apparent decline in physical game guides and manuals in the last decade. Has the advent of online guides and walkthroughs heralded the end of a pretty awesome era?
While there is still a market for physical video games a la Limited Run, VGNY, Fangamer, iam8bit, and Serenity Forge, guides or manuals you can hold in your hand are near non-existent. For the few that have come out as of late–I feel those are ghostly shells of what they used to be.
Before online guides and playthroughs became widely available, people relied on manuals to provide background on story, characters, and basic controls. Guides were the gamer’s Bible to get through the game’s most challenging spots. There was an actual need back then. You either figured the game out on your own, at the school playground by talking with friends, or you were that lucky kid who owned a guide.
The sad truth is that writing, editing, and printing media is costly (with prices continuing to rise), and it is much cheaper to publish guides online now. While physical guides aren’t completely dead yet, I feel that it is just a matter of time.
Take The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom guide by Piggyback. First of all, kudos to that team who spent countless hours creating that 496-page guide. I’ll admit I was slightly disappointed when I cracked it open. Yes, it had all the details you needed to beat the game, but the sheer amount of content in this Zelda title rendered this guide to blocks of miniscule text that made me feel like I needed a magnifying glass. Even the illustrations and screenshots were kind of small, and I still ended up looking online. Taking a step back further, the last few Piggyback published were: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption II, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. That’s only four games from 2017 through 2023. Now, I’m not picking on Piggyback (I own three of these four guides!), but rather, I’m proving that even the best aren’t publishing physical guides for every major game.
Do you have any fond memories of video game manuals and guides? Do you feel like there will be a day this type of media will be completely wiped from existence? Please share your thoughts with us on our Boss Rush Facebook Group or our Boss Rush Discord.
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Featured Image Source: Piggyback
I still have all my old guides and I even recently picked up a Link to the Past guide from someone in town who was selling all his old
stuff. I miss having the physical reading material, and even more so, I miss all the old manuals that came with the games. When I couldn’t be playing, I’d be rigorously pouring over the text so I knew all the ins and outs of my future gaming experience. I also love the art and care that could be found in all of the above.
It’s a shame the internet has taken away these resources. But at least we have access to so much more information.
I’ve noticed a slow uptick in useful manuals the last few years, from appliances to games. Lack of documentation was awful for users; it also puts weight on manufacturers when there’s a problem, which they hate. So I’m grateful those are slowly making their way back. I’ve gotten more help from manuals than from customer service.
I think there’s still room for physical guides, and a desire for them, the problem is that very few AAA and AA games require them. Deep mechanics, secrets, and a need for genuine strategy are rare among the games whose publishers are big enough to print a guide. I’m thrilled I have the two-volume Elden Ring guide from Future Press, which is fantastic. But how many mainstream games run deep enough or are mysterious enough to justify one (beyond it being an informal art book)? Most of the games I long to own a real guide for, like the Colorgrave games, are made by small teams.