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Why so few guides for switch games?


Tabonga

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I have a few guides for switch games but by and large they don't seem to exist.  I generally like to pick up a physical guide for a game and play through a game at least  twice - once without the guide and once with it to see what I likely missed.  

I would be tempted to say that online resources have negated the appeal - but by and large there don't seem to be very comprehensive guides there either (at least that I have seen).

Anyone else ponder on  this situation?

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Unfortunately it seems to me to be the same reason there are no longer printed instruction manuals in most new games. It’s a combination of the Internet resources you touched on such as YouTube tutorials and typed walkthroughs and the fact that Nintendo still largely sees their main demographic as young kids. Young kids often don’t bother with or even dispose of manuals in video games, so they for sure won’t bother buying a guide book. Nintendo just doesn’t want to “waste” the money on the paper and ink anymore.

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30 minutes ago, croagunk said:

Unfortunately it seems to me to be the same reason there are no longer printed instruction manuals in most new games. It’s a combination of the Internet resources you touched on such as YouTube tutorials and typed walkthroughs and the fact that Nintendo still largely sees their main demographic as young kids. Young kids often don’t bother with or even dispose of manuals in video games, so they for sure won’t bother buying a guide book. Nintendo just doesn’t want to “waste” the money on the paper and ink anymore.

A lot of the guides for older consoles weren't made by for Nintendo (who in any event only are responsible for the creation/production of only some of the games out there).

Not trying to argue with your point - I just think there is something else at play here besides that (and I am not sure what it is).

Edited by Tabonga
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Last I checked Prima, Brady, and the others went out of business or dramatically scaled back to near nothingness doing digital publishing only.  So the few we get, at least I've seen, have largely been guides made by the game makers themselves such as the multiple Switch based guides published by the Pokemon Company & Nintendo for those games (Let's Go, Sword/Shield) and Nintendo for Breath of the Wild which is sad.

The guides towards the end started getting pretty annoyingly expensive too I think they were up to like $30 for a paperback and higher for hardback.  I get the expenses behind making them and with a reduced pool of people buying them is likely why.  When you have a pile of people making them free on the AAA level tier media sites, and then other people doing typed up HTML style(ugh miss TEXT as I save them) gamefaqs, and then the youtube long plays and hit video guide series stuff they've been bullied out.

I find I basically NEED a guide these days due to time problems and my unwillingness to waste what little of that I have getting lost in large environments, or just wanting an in game detailed map for spaces I seek out guides.  I don't mind some light even moderate exploring, but when you get a vast game and it has no guide other than some ehhh ok online one I get demotivated quickly such as the case as some RPGs on Switch (like DQ11S which I stopped on like a year ago.)

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3 hours ago, Tabonga said:

I am currently tied up in Battle Worlds Kronos - which sucks up a massive amount of time - this is one that really needs a guide since the in-game tutorial is largely worthless.

Google Battle Worlds Kronos and sort by text guides or video guides. The fact is, there are more guides today than there has ever been. They're just on the World Wide Web. 

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1 hour ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Google Battle Worlds Kronos and sort by text guides or video guides. The fact is, there are more guides today than there has ever been. They're just on the World Wide Web. 

I have looked - but the information is not terribly well organized - the stuff I am looking for is mostly really basic* - like how to access certain functions or a list of all the unit types and how you promote them for enhanced functions. Some things I have been able to find on the web and some I figured out on my own.  But some still elude me.  

There are videos for all of the battles (I think) but wading through them is tedious since they are all really long - some over 4 hours.  And all I really want there is a map of the battlefield since everything is in fog or war (which I don't mind as far as enemy units are concerned) but a lot of the mission goals aren't terribly clear - such as you need to take bases in the north -which is kinda vague since the battlefields can be really really large - especially since there may be obstacles like rivers in the way so you really can't go directly north.  

*Things which a good manual as opposed to a guide would have answered.  There is an online deluxe manual put out by the company who made the game but it doesn't address these simple things (not much of anything actually - has some nice pictures of units though) and some of the information it does give is flat out wrong.

Edited by Tabonga
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10 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Last I checked Prima, Brady, and the others went out of business or dramatically scaled back to near nothingness doing digital publishing only.  So the few we get, at least I've seen, have largely been guides made by the game makers themselves such as the multiple Switch based guides published by the Pokemon Company & Nintendo for those games (Let's Go, Sword/Shield) and Nintendo for Breath of the Wild which is sad.

The guides towards the end started getting pretty annoyingly expensive too I think they were up to like $30 for a paperback and higher for hardback.  I get the expenses behind making them and with a reduced pool of people buying them is likely why.  When you have a pile of people making them free on the AAA level tier media sites, and then other people doing typed up HTML style(ugh miss TEXT as I save them) gamefaqs, and then the youtube long plays and hit video guide series stuff they've been bullied out.

I find I basically NEED a guide these days due to time problems and my unwillingness to waste what little of that I have getting lost in large environments, or just wanting an in game detailed map for spaces I seek out guides.  I don't mind some light even moderate exploring, but when you get a vast game and it has no guide other than some ehhh ok online one I get demotivated quickly such as the case as some RPGs on Switch (like DQ11S which I stopped on like a year ago.)

I would think that print on demand (which is pretty common in a few of the genres I read) could fill the void - basically avoiding a publisher for independent efforts.  The print on demand stuff I have gotten is well made and not out of line price wise with more traditional books  - the stuff I get is simply print so color and graphics are not involved - not sure how those would affect things price wise.

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14 hours ago, Tabonga said:

A lot of the guides for older consoles weren't made by for Nintendo (who in any event only are responsible for the creation/production of only some of the games out there).

Not trying to argue with your point - I just think there is something else at play here besides that (and I am not sure what it is).

Ah, yes, that is true. Thanks for pointing that out!

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Administrator · Posted
27 minutes ago, B.A. said:

I miss them.  It's not about need, as obviously there are plenty of sources if you get stuck.  I just like having them to collect, a lot of them have cool art and are just fun to flip through. 

Yeah I always liked the ones for SNES especially. Just cool to read and look at, many had a lot of fun text in them with little tidbits of neat info. 

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