Cross posted on NA, but I know there's more current generation gamers here. Maybe you guys have already seen this, but it's new to me. The death of the manual may be upon us, and we may be moving in a direction of 100% digital games with no physical media.

As many of you, I probably have about 1,000ish games across several platforms. Until last week, I had only encountered one game that came without a manual... PS1 - Parappa the Rapper. The "manual" is really just a cover with no guts at all. However, it did come with a fold-out poster, so it's kind of considered the "manual" for that game.

And then in a matter of two weeks, I purchased back to back games without manuals. That's a hell of a ratio when you go from 1 in 1,000 to 2 of 2.

First was Mortal Kombat on X360:



Notice it comes with a bunch of junk, but no real manual. Some DLC codes for online play / costumes (DLC is another topic entirely), a Katalog to try and suck even more money out of you, and once again, a paper thin cover that is a "manual" with no guts. Not really a manual, but I guess it fills the "I" in CIB.

Next was Madden 2012 on X360:



That is it. Again, DLC code for Online play, and that stupid white sheet. Read the bottom, it says "Manual Included On-Disc". Great. But hey, let's say they saved 0.50 in costs per game by not printing manuals... sell a million copies and that's $500,000 in cost avoidance. It's bad enough that a roster update is worth $60 in the first place, but man EA is being cheap.

I checked my Madden 2011 just to make sure I didn't lose my mind, and sure enough, it had a manual.



So thoughts? As a gamer, I don't care. I'm going to get way more than $60 out of play value in Madden, probably at least 100 hours between franchises / friends / online. But as a collector, it's a bit disappointing to see that a brand new CIB is really a CB from the very beginning.

Also, any other games where the manual was never included?