Manuals with rental games in the rental days?

[NESfiend | 1,517]

I cant ever remember getting a manual with a game rental for nes or snes. I have seen a few copies of the manual that were included with rentals buying stuff for my collection, but even those seem few and far between.

Seeing this manual cracked me up. I cant imagine an original manual surviving the rental days, but I guess a 60 dollar fine in 1990s money would be a fairly strong deterrant. 

Did anyone rent games including manuals? And use them? I never read manuals as a kid and didn't know any other kids who did

Edited January 22, 2021 by NESfiend

[Tabonga | 2,348]

I used to work at a video store that rented NES games - they photocopied the manuals  and sent those out.  Technically illegal I suspect.  And the customers were charged a fee (I don't remember how much) if they didn't return those - they would get bent out of shape on it - but the same ones would bitterly complain if that copy of the manual wasn't there when they wanted to rent a game.  We never sent the boxes out either since they had a habit of not coming back - or often coming back seriously damaged.  We had generic plastic cases they went out in.

 

[Code Monkey | 2,014]

Just about every NES game I rented as a kid had a manual inside, sometimes photocopied, sometimes not. Usually it would be in pretty bad shape, held together with tape. I always looked through it, some of them had some interesting things inside.

The Super Mario Bros. manual has a variant that gives the wrong name to one of the enemies, I think it was Bowser.

The Super Mario Bros. 2 manual confirms that Birdo is actually male but has an identity crisis. I always see everyone refer to Birdo as a female but they're wrong.

It was in the Super Mario Bros. 3 manual I first learned you could turn Tanooki Mario into a stone statue by holding down and B. I did not know that prior to reading the manual.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

The local rental store usually lent the game out in a generic plastic case and included the actual manual or a photocopy. There were definitely a few times where the manual had been lost and we got nothing, but I think it was included most of the time.

When I was really young and the NES was new, I didn't bother with manuals. It wasn't until the SNES/Genesis generation that I really started caring about what was in the manual. After that, I would excitedly read through the instructions on the car ride home.

[Link | 2,738]

I would say $60 is still a pretty strong deterrent in 2020s money.

I don’t think rentals included manuals in my town. I don’t remember ever getting one. Although renting was a rare treat.

Hell yes I read manuals. Obsessively. They used to have actual well-done content. It extended the experience when you couldn’t actually play (in the car, at school, etc). I even used to trace the pictures on the lightbox in my mother’s studio. 

[mideast | 144]

They also had those Permastruct Instructions. I don't remember them as a kid, but I see a bunch of them now. Here's a couple I found online. Does anybody collect these? Or have a list of what titles they actually wrote up manuals for?

[Tabonga | 2,348]

9 minutes ago, Link said:

Hell yes I read manuals. Obsessively. They used to have actual well-done content. 

I just wish switch games would come at least with simple booklets that would describe the controller functions specific to the game.  

For example I accildentaly  discovered a function in the switch Langrisser 1/2 that changes the characters to a colored profile that lists their health from 1-10 (which the original had) rather than a health bar.  

[phart010 | 1,708]

Some places included the manual. Then a lot of manuals got lost.

A lot of places then started photocopying manuals. Then it became apparent that this was illegal.
 

So then some places started taking the essential info from the manual and typing it onto a card and photocopying that.

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by phart010

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

19 minutes ago, mideast said:

They also had those Permastruct Instructions. I don't remember them as a kid, but I see a bunch of them now. Here's a couple I found online. Does anybody collect these? Or have a list of what titles they actually wrote up manuals for?

I thought we had a thread for these on the site, but I can't find it. @Mega Tank may have a personal list.

[Link | 2,738]

I contributed a few scans to CZroe’s Permastruct project. I wonder if he ever got it off the ground. And I wonder why he never came over here. No sign of Ichinisan, either. 

[croagunk | 798]

Great to see back in the days of NES, SNES, etc. there were manuals to be rented with the games. I was not around for those days, so my earliest memories are renting GameCube games. I don’t recall ever missing the original manual, but I do recall a $10 charge sticker on the manual if it went missing. That was a solid deterrent from losing or stealing them. I remember a few manuals looking pretty rough. I actually bought some rental GameCube and Wii games when the stores were closing. It’s so nostalgic to see those stickers, and I swear my copy of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2 on GameCube still smells like the free popcorn they handed out there.

[AlternatorDelux | 61]

Rental stores stopped providing photocopied manuals (or at least most of them did) when Nintendo sued Blockbuster over it in 1989.  I can remember renting exactly one game that included one, Bart vs. the Space Mutants.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,650]

I recall a $10 charge if the manual went missing and they would note "no manual" on your rental if someone had already lost it.

[DefaultGen | 5,436]

My neighbor rented games and I used to borrow the manuals because without the internet I was starved for anything video games.

[T-Pac | 7,590]

I'm sort-of fascinated by the legal issues around photocopying manuals.

One one hand, manuals are like tiny art-books, so it would make sense that they can't be reproduced without permission. But on the other hand, they are operational instructions for a product, which would lead me to believe they should be open to copying and distributing for the sake of end-user. A bit of an unfortunate dilemma.

-CasualCart

[DefaultGen | 5,436]

1 hour ago, CasualCart said:

I'm sort-of fascinated by the legal issues around photocopying manuals.

One one hand, manuals are like tiny art-books, so it would make sense that they can't be reproduced without permission. But on the other hand, they are operational instructions for a product, which would lead me to believe they should be open to copying and distributing for the sake of end-user. A bit of an unfortunate dilemma.

-CasualCart

The gaming industry understood the importance of this legal quandary so eliminated manuals entirely.

[phart010 | 1,708]

20 hours ago, CasualCart said:

I'm sort-of fascinated by the legal issues around photocopying manuals.

One one hand, manuals are like tiny art-books, so it would make sense that they can't be reproduced without permission. But on the other hand, they are operational instructions for a product, which would lead me to believe they should be open to copying and distributing for the sake of end-user. A bit of an unfortunate dilemma.

-CasualCart

The photocoping of manuals wasn’t really the issue. It was actually the concept of video game rentals. If kids could rent games for $5, they might beat the game and then never want to play it again. That’s a lost $40-60 sale for Nintendo or the publisher. Multiply that by the hundreds of kids that will rent each copy of any given title at the rental store and that translates to millions of $$$ of lost sales for publishers.

For this reason video game companies lobbied in Japan to make game rentals illegal (that’s probably why there’s so many copies of games to buy in the used market in Japan). Game companies tried to make game rentals illegal in the US but they lost the court battle. So instead of accepting the loss, they tried to make things more difficult for the rental companies. Among other things, this included threatening them  with legal actions for copying manuals 

[MiamiSlice | 3,100]

A bunch of my CIB NES games are from a former rental store owner who kept some of his stock. I think he was lending out just the carts because he kept the boxes and manuals in great shape. 

I have a Blockbuster rental copy of Metal Arms for the PS2 that doesn't have the manual... I assume they tossed it. It's interesting because the box is a lot like a GameCube box (you might know the whole story there). 

I used to have a former rental copy of Space Station Silicon Valley for N64 with a laminated manual... so I assume the manual went with the game when people rented it. 

[austin532 | 467]

It would be a dream to find a game or manual with the rental sticker from my local video store which closed up.

[phart010 | 1,708]

9 hours ago, austin532 said:

It would be a dream to find a game or manual with the rental sticker from my local video store which closed up.

What was your local video store called and where was it

[MiamiSlice | 3,100]

How funny that just today I got this in the mail: 

[austin532 | 467]

7 hours ago, phart010 said:

What was your local video store called and where was it

It went through a couple of name variations but it would most likely be called Video $1 & Gifts at the time. 16301 Harbor Blvd, Fountain Valley, CA 92708

I also had a local Blockbuster which eventually became Hollywood Video. I only rented a few games there. 810 S Harbor Blvd. Santa Ana, CA 92704

Edited January 26, 2021 by austin532

[OptOut | 8,892]

On 1/21/2021 at 11:10 PM, Code Monkey said:

The Super Mario Bros. 2 manual confirms that Birdo is actually male but has an identity crisis. I always see everyone refer to Birdo as a female but they're wrong.

If Birdo identifies as female, then that's what she is dude! Don't matter whats on no birth certificate or instructions, sheesh! 

I want a little less transphobia and a little more understanding of the life choices and lived experience of weird Egg-shooting pink dinosaur creatures up in here, it's 2021 after all!

[OptOut | 8,892]

Also, Birdo and Ostro originally had their names swapped in both the instruction manual and the actual game credits at the end of Mario 2.

Poor trans bastard just couldn't catch a fucking break, lol! Getting her identity denied AND her name wrong in one fell swoop, lololol!

[OptOut | 8,892]

On 1/22/2021 at 12:24 PM, Link said:

I contributed a few scans to CZroe’s Permastruct project. I wonder if he ever got it off the ground. And I wonder why he never came over here. No sign of Ichinisan, either. 

Yeah, I miss those guys too!

As far as I understand they are still active on a few other forums, and the Ultra HDMI N64 modding is keeping them busy too, covid related delays notwithstanding, right @Jeevan?