Hello, everyone.
I just decided to open a new thread.
I think it began on page 7 or 8 of what are you reading ? where the discussion on handbooks began.
I think I can relatively safely say that handbooks were better in "ye olde days", than they are today. Also, they are probably thinner, because thick boocks wouldn't fit into a DVD case.
Exceptions are jewel-cases and packages like the one of Age of Wonders : Shadow Magic, where both DVD case and handbook fit into a single kind of extended box.
What have handbooks actually to do with the "casual gamer", the newly-discovered cash-cow the industry favours ? Do both publishers & developers believe that they wouldn't want/need any thick handbook, maybe even with the argument "it costs time" and "everything should be intuitively useable" ?
Will we end up one day with no handbooks at all, only PDFs ? And if it is only in PDF format - why bother making handbooks at all ? Online-help, maybe ? (With "on-line" I don't necessarily mean "internet" but also "in-game".)
Alrik
I just decided to open a new thread.
I think it began on page 7 or 8 of what are you reading ? where the discussion on handbooks began.
I think I can relatively safely say that handbooks were better in "ye olde days", than they are today. Also, they are probably thinner, because thick boocks wouldn't fit into a DVD case.
Exceptions are jewel-cases and packages like the one of Age of Wonders : Shadow Magic, where both DVD case and handbook fit into a single kind of extended box.
What have handbooks actually to do with the "casual gamer", the newly-discovered cash-cow the industry favours ? Do both publishers & developers believe that they wouldn't want/need any thick handbook, maybe even with the argument "it costs time" and "everything should be intuitively useable" ?
Will we end up one day with no handbooks at all, only PDFs ? And if it is only in PDF format - why bother making handbooks at all ? Online-help, maybe ? (With "on-line" I don't necessarily mean "internet" but also "in-game".)
Alrik