If you don't want to be accused of being compulsive then my advice is to not be so compulsive.

Also, changing quotes isn't cool. If you're going to do it, you're supposed to bold the changes.

Well I seriously don't know what gaming universe you're living where games have LESS need of manuals now then they did before. If anything games nowadays go out of their way to hold your hands and treat you like you're a slow two year old. Whereas older games just said here's the game, you work it out.

Maybe because nerds or geeks or just gamers liked reading too years ago, and now the majority just want to 'plug in play' and don't really mind to 'master' the game, but just finish it once. Heavy manuals like Cossacks', Civ 2's or Arcanum's have vanished. Since many people have a huge backlog or don't really like video games (but like playing them though), finishing a game concerns a minority. And I was only talking about finishing a game once, most of people don't need to understand the whole game mechanics, especially if these are complex to master or to beat. Maybe most of gamers are lazy, or hate reading because they remember school, or don't have the time to have two 'nerd' hobbies, or don't want to 'waste' their time around gaming...

And since publishers and developers seem to appeal to this majority, they use this ideology to limitate their production costs, making less complex games, or games without the need to refer to a deep manual.

But there is some devs which are still providing manuals for the minority who read them, but sadly printed manuals are a bit expensive especially if the gamers interested in those games reprensent a tiny portion. So most of manuals are low quality compressed PDFs.

Maybe people should take a breath, there is nothing wrong to read books and video game books. With actual text, and not only pictures from artbooks.

I think I get where he's coming from where today's games, by holding your hands and treating you like you're a slow two year old, does mean reading a manual for basic gameplay is less necessary.

But that's not why I read every manual of every game I play anyway. I read it for specific details. The kind of details that are now only found in game guides that one pays extra for. It was one thing to buy a game guide in the past for a detailed walk through, but game guides today are more about specific character builds, skill results and how they mix and match, etc. that used to be part of a good manual.

And still should be.

Yeah I hear you on that. I remember reading through the entire Civ 3 manual for precisely that reason. I suppose it helped that the web wasn't really as much of a thing as it is now.

Depends on the game. In some cases the manual comes with the installer (actually it's just hidden somewhere in the main folder, but well, at least it's there) but usually it's secluded with wallpapers and such for no apparent reason.
I guess GOG simply doesn't pay much attention to these details, it's hilarious having to download 2gigs of extras when all you're looking for is the manual though. :D

Any progress with Theme Park?

It would be if it was true, but it isn't. All you need to download to get the manual is the manual. Except that in most cases the game installer puts the manual in the game folder on installation, so really all you usually need to download is the game itself.

You haven't seen a manual until this one.

http://indul.ccio.co/yB/hF/4/41tMsuR85IL.jpg

Age of Wonders is another very good example. Sure you can play the game without the manual, and if all you own is the gog version, that's your only choice, because gog doesn't have the manual. But I've got the boxed edition that came with a splendid manual, full of details that can make you a more informed player and for me, provides a more enjoyable experience. When something strange happens in a game without a manual, you're left wondering if it was just some lucky or unlucky roll until trial and error over and over again provides SOME evidence (you can still never be sure unless you're really ANAL and do a statistical analysis and control for all the variables, something you wouldn't be able to do unless you had access to data in a manual) but if that same strange thing happens in a game with a manual, and you open it up and look and see "Aha, that weapon gets 3X damage against that foe" then you KNOW.

Games used to provide manuals with a pretty good detailed explanation of what's going on and WHY, and that's why even with today's games that hold your hand for basic gameplay, they should still include a manual with specific details to allow gamers to make more informed choices. If one could see the Age of Wonders manual one would understand exactly what I'm talking about. And those types of manual used to be the standard, not the exception.

Today they would be the exception, and that's too bad. If a designer cares enough to put a lot of details into a game, s/he should care enough to explain them in detail to purchasers of his product with a thorough manual.

Much better to have a manual than pile a billion tutorial screens, with teeny tiny text in the middle of gameplay; looking at you Last Federation.

edit: as to whether games should have manuals or not, depends on what info the manual can provide by existing; for example, I wouldn't turn to the manual for basic controls of a game.

But I don't think it's right to say that whether a game has good/complex game design depends on whether a manual is provided or not. Complexity isn't always an indication of good game design, where "good" is some design which "makes you think" etc.

Sometimes the manuals aren't in the installers so at least you can get them on the extras section.