Since I've been in Germany in the last six years and wasn't as much involved in the gaming universe as I used to be, I experienced a lot of surprises coming back to America. First, Blockbuster was gone! Holy schmoly! Second, the printed game magazines disappeared almost completely from the mag stands. After I got used to this second 'holy-schmoly'-moment, now I discovered the full extent of the trend with no manuals or just digital manuals in games.
My first worry: buying used games, how can I know if the game came with a manual or not? Is there somewhere a list of games which were released without a printed manual? (I only buy newer games complete; I'm afraid I might pass on a good deal assuming the game came originally with a manual)
I have so far three games without a manual that I know of: Ratchet and Clank Nexus, Puppeteer, and Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen. (I bought the latter at a Gamestop when the sales guy assured me that the game came without a manual; I checked, he was right)
Probably I have a lot more. I read that EA, Sony and Ubisoft don't use printed manuals anymore. Is this true? Obviously Ubisoft was in 2012 already the first one who announced that.
Besides making my life very difficult when I buy used games, I find this trend terrible. Printed manuals are a part of gaming culture. From the first instruction booklets (in color!) for Zelda and one of the NES - Mega Mans to the Wizards Companion in Ni NO Kuni, from the bad translations of the first NES games to the great manuals by Working Designs, they are part of gaming history.
I understand that digital manuals safe trees and as a nice side effect increase the profits of publishers, I also understand that nowadays the first ten minutes in a game are mostly tutorials, but it feels just awkward and terrible to open a game case with nothing in there than just a disc.
Online movie streaming, online mags, online guides, online games, and now online manuals. If there will be times without a physical copy for games, I'll certainly play much less and certainly will not collect games anymore. If I have only something in digital format, I just don't have the feeling that I 'own' something.