atw: Re: Report from a parallel universe
- From: "Elenbaas, Dina" <Dina.Elenbaas@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:20:02 +1000
As a gamer myself (and partner or friend to many more hardcore gamers),
I must say there is a difference between a game manual and, say, a
manual for your mobile phone or washing machine. As many people
mentioned in those comments, in-game tutorials, tool-tips and
customization menus make paper manuals laughably redundant.
Also, as games evolve through patches and added content, paper manuals
become laughably out of date. Take World of Warcraft, for example - it's
still distributed with a paper manual that discusses skills and
attributes that haven't existed in-game for years! Obviously a
massively-multiplayer game like WoW is an extreme example, but with more
and more single-player games adding downloadable content (that you're
not likely to get a paper manual for anyway), paper manuals are becoming
increasingly irrelevant.
------------------------------
From: LEWINGTON Warren <Warren_LEWINGTON@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:27:26 +1000
Subject: Re: Report from a parallel universe
These are both interesting posts, given that one grabs the by-line, they
are essentially the same article. But is not for the content of the
article, it is the discussions that blog post predicated that are most
interesting.
It seems that UbiSoft has decided, on reading the article, to completely
stop producing manuals, my bet is that they will (probably) supply pdf
or soft-copy format versions of the manual. The cynical responses, which
are mostly universally condemning - along with many posts claiming never
to use the manuals anyway - is very interesting.
Many of the users of the products are saying that they will refuse to
buy games that they see don't provide the support they want. So form our
perspective, the posts are most illuminating about the sort of attitudes
people do have about poor or good manuals. Those posts also offer some
interesting notes about the physical appearance - kept as much for the
artwork (like my comments about the latest CorelDraw version) as for the
information, considered "collectable" and so on. These are issues I have
made a point about in my documentation over the last few years -
presentation should be representative of the company and should display
quality, both in information and delivery.
So it does seem on reading some of the replies that there is a
significant notional value-add to products with good documentation -
even if the value-add is not directly measureable. This would possibly
make an interesting study. Questions along the lines of whether the
appearance of comprehensive documentation being present (as opposed to
whether it actually was useful) makes the user more comfortable with
purchase and actual use of the product would be what I would be
interested in having answered.
Regards
Warren Lewington
Technical Writer
Compliance and Enforcement Branch
-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James Hunt
Sent: Monday, 28 June 2010 9:52 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Report from a parallel universe
A debate re-played:
http://www.thegamersblog.com/2010/04/22/printed-manuals-no-more/
and
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/04/22/1728207/Ubisoft-Says-No-More-
Game-Manuals?art_pos=8
(Yes, I am behind in my reading...)
James Hunt
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