Another One Bites The Dust: EA Sports Has Dumped Paper Manuals
Starting this month, EA Sports games are no longer shipping with paper manuals. While EA's stated intent is to support the greening of the gaming industry, this move will also save the company in paper, printing and shipping costs. If you're one of the two or three people still reading game manuals, don't fret, as all EA Sports titles will now include an electronic manual with the game.
You may remember us reporting that Ubisoft made a similar policy change around Earth Day last year, as well as announcing that they would start phasing in 100% recycled cases for their games. According to Eurogamer:
Ubisoft has worked out that one ton of game-manual paper costs the planet roughly 13 trees (and all the squirrels and owls and snakes that live in them). And making that amount of paper pumps out 6000lbs of CO2 gas and 15000 gallons of waste water.
After doing the metric conversion, might I add: Holy crap, that's a lot of waste. 57 000 litres just to make paper that (let's face it) people stopped reading in the 90s?
So good on you, EA Sports and Ubisoft. Here's hoping more companies pick up the gauntlet. And while we're at it, don't forget Earth Hour this weekend.
At first I was shocked and thought, how could they?! But really, all the information should be in the game itself and if it produces so much waste, what's the point? So good on them. :3
Sach, yeah, as much as I love some of the manuals of the past, what I primarily loved were the extra bits of lore. For instructions? I just want to play the game. (Insert memories of getting a game for Christmas and convincing my brother to play first so that I could read instructions in the manual and fare better than he).
people stopped reading manuals because they stopped being worth reading. games started holding your hand through a bloody tutorial level (often unskippable) because by now we haven't figured out A (X) to jump, X (Square) and follow the quick time cues on screen to not die. instead of the manual containing useful information, concept art, etc. we are treated to the warning for folks with epileptic seisures (just wait, someone will sue the pants off one of these companies because there was no warning sheet) and if we are lucky a controller diagram if you somehow manage to find it around page 5 or 7. gone are the glory days of a full color spread, replaced by grayscale images and a general malaise of "just play the tutorial and leave us alone already!"