Prima Games shutting down

[Aussie2B]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/prima-games-shut-down

It's the end of an era. Prima already bought out BradyGames a while ago, so with Prima shutting down, we've now lost the two big players players in strategy guides. I'll be the first to admit that I've been poking fun at the quality of Prima for decades, since some of their guides have left much to be desired, and I can't remember the last time I bought a brand new Prima guide, but nevertheless, it was nice to know they were still around. If I'm not mistaken, the only companies still doing English print guides now are in Europe, so with this, the strategy guide market in the US is dead. I can't say I'm surprised, with how people are turning their noses up to print books in general, and with how people just turn to Youtube or what have you for help in games these days (which, personally, I find a lot more troublesome than looking something up in text), but it's still saddening.

[gbpxl]

Well on the plus side, it's reducing global warming and deforestation

[kupomogli]

I'm surprised it took this long. When people can read through a guide from Gamefaqs, most are going to do that over spending $20+ on a printed guide. I bought the Witcher 3 and Skyrim Complete Edition guides because they're practically bibles of the two games, but I've never once used them other than skimming through a few pages. I also bought the Final Fantasy 12 guide when I saw it for cheap, although I do hate the game and think it's by far the worst in the series, it was during this time that I still wasn't to really like the game so was still up to giving it another chance(because everything about the game it should be amazing, and I'll keep it short here because I don't want to write a book, but the gameplay and way it progresses, even with the updated PS4 version, the game is trash.) As a fan of Final Fantasy I'd purchase the Ultimania guides, not interested in the half assed 25th memorial release that's released as several different guides for those of us in the west.

*edit*

I get that the Final Fantasy guides are Japanese guides localized by Dark Horse, but these are some really pathetic guides, showing a bit of information about the characters, the maps, artwork from the game. You've got a 300 page book that spreads across six games with character pages taking around 4-6 pages per character, maps themselves are each on individual pages, and then art, so you really have barely any true content and it's little more than an artbook.

While we get the Ultimania 25th Anniversary guide released as several different guides rather than one big book like in Japan, making it even more half assed of a release in the west, Japan gets the full Ultimania guides with that are 700-1000+ pages depending on whether it has one or two volumes with every game released.

[Aussie2B]

Back in the day, the advantage of a print strategy guide over GameFAQs was that they were usually available at a game's launch, while it could've been weeks or more till a game got a GameFAQs guide (let alone a complete one).

It seems like GameFAQs is in decline too, as far as FAQs go. I see a lot of modern niche games, even ones that are multiplatform, go months or even years without receiving a guide. It seems like we're in an era where it's actually sometimes harder to find info on games than it was, on average, in the past. I don't know if it's because the volume of games coming out is greater, or because games are easier and less cryptic on average, or what.

[Pr3tty F1y]

Back in the day, the advantage of a print strategy guide over GameFAQs was that they were usually available at a game's launch, while it could've been weeks or more till a game got a GameFAQs guide (let alone a complete one).

It seems like GameFAQs is in decline too, as far as FAQs go. I see a lot of modern niche games, even ones that are multiplatform, go months or even years without receiving a guide. It seems like we're in an era where it's actually sometimes harder to find info on games than it was, on average, in the past. I don't know if it's because the volume of games coming out is greater, or because games are easier and less cryptic on average, or what.

It's social media and videos. Why type up a guide if you can put a "long play" up on YouTube (and probably monetize it, to boot, and make some cash).

[Aussie2B]

I hate trying to get game info that way myself. Jumping around in a video, trying to find the specific info I want, is usually more time-consuming than Ctrl+F and skimming a little bit of text, and I find videos a lot more spoiler-y than text guides. When I want help, I usually only want a nudge in the right direction, not to see exactly what needs to be done.