Manuals - some of them, anyway - were an integral part of the experience. Get a game, open it up, first thing to do: read the manual! They helped with game knowledge, controls, strategies, spell and weapon descriptions, lore, character builds, all sorts of stuff.

I realize that we've "evolved" beyond that now, but personally I'd much rather have something to hold in my hands and read (the bathroom was the perfect place to expand your game knowledge!). I don't even like digital manuals that much. I think it's sad that we (generally speaking) seem to want everything to be automated and "easy" these days. "It's a game! Why for I need to look at a book?"

The physical Game Manuals for Civ3 and 4, were put to good use for me. First a perusal of it while unboxing the pre-order. Then reading it at breakfast, or on the can, etc. In short order however, they became obsolete -both by game having been learned, and by numerous big balance changes due to a buggy and ill polished and mal balanced release. Though occasionally it was referenced while playing, but not for long. The manuals ultimate fate thus far, is to occupy space on a memorables shelf., inside retail box with CD's.

I just love manuals they made in old times. They’re an important factor to build up game world immersion. Informed about every detail of game mechanism. Provided supplementary information about ‘real life’ technology (ex. Red Storm Rising, flight sims). Nowadays – thank you for buying, epilepsy warning, installing game instructions the end – bueh :-(

I remember how disappointed I was after I bought Warhammer: Dark Omen. Short instructions about how to play game, menu explanation, 1 sentence about units you meet – that’s it. In SOTOR – you got much more details about game mechanisms, world, maps, cool pictures, tables with detailed units characteristics&bonuses, magic, some stories from the past of Grudgebringers. On top of that – very good encyclopedia inside the game with terrific pictures.

If there is one reason that stops me from buying classic from here - it's lack of manual. All those goodies gog adds are nice but a manual is a must-have. No excuse for that.

I thought male nipples existed so that people could make this point.

Also for use on Batman's suit.

Good bedtime reading.

Well, I know it's tough to believe but a long time ago people used to read things that had more than 150 characters. Words weren't spelled with all caps or numbers and manuals used to be fantastic tomes of history, background, character profiles and lore. They were hundreds of wonderful pages and then, unlike putting down the average book and returning it to the ancient place known as the lib - ar - er - blib - li - 0 - tech, with a manual you could actually go explore that freaking world you were reading about! It was amazing! Of course if you think a game manual is a 3 page insert that tells you to push X to reload then I'm sure you don't give a lick that they're gone.

Touché.

If you roleplay you might get to the end without reading the manual at all. If you powerplay I'd say two hours tops. Due to open world nature of the game you can sidetrack to meet impossible enemies during five minutes out of the tutorial area. In this aspect BG is so old school. But in terms of interface and the amout of information you are feeded in-game I'd say it is surprisingly modern interface-wise (short of watch-bots-play difficulty level contemporary titles).

1. Not everyone finds discovering everything by themselves, entertaining.

2. Some of us like reading while on the toilet.

sounds like we don't need them!

In fact, screw extras altogether!

but seriously though, maybe if enough of us get together and proclaim we don't really care too much about the manuals, they'll disappear. and this is good because they aren't a necessity.

there was a lot of difference between manuals in terms of quality. some sucked, some were good. some were full of art and game maps as some people already mentioned. nowadays, manuals are useless compared to aggregated information on wikis and guides and the like, but they are still excellent sources of lore and world design for detail-heavy games. why give that up?

games don't have them anymore so why not include the ones that are there for the games that do? some manuals are fun. I recently started playing a game that has a pretty shitty manual. still read it and was thankful for its inclusion. I think why not is pretty much all there is to it in this particular case.

Try playing Hearts of Iron 3 without a manual.

I'm wondering whether the people that say we don't need manuals are the people who haven't gone for much deeper games than Command and Conquer and Medal of Honour?

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned already, but FAQs and strategy guides written by third parties are the most informative resources you can get about a game. These guys are powergamers, min-maxers or just enthusiasts who know the game inside out, and their information is much more useful than what you can find in a manual. Manuals give you just the basics, along with some background. They don't tell you which classes are the best, which skills are uselless, and what the recommended party for a beginner would be. True, you have to read a bland txt file instead of a colourfully printed manual, but at least the electronic version can be searched quickly for keywords.

I prefer not to engage in too much metagaming, actually, especially for the first run through a single-player game.