EA, or Electronic Arts are the latest games developer to take a Green Pledge and have announced they will be eliminating Paper Manuals and reducing printed materials in their packaged products by 40 percent.
This will apply to all of EA’s Xbox 360, Playstation and PC games worldwide going forward. EA has stated that all game manuals will be replaced by “easily-accessible” on-disc manuals available through the options menu.
On top of the game disc manuals, EA will also put all game manuals online and free to view at http://support.ea.com/app/manuals. EA is one of the largest games developers in the world with Game franchises such as Fifa, Madden, the Sims, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Medal of Honour and many more.
John Schappert, Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts has stated that the reasons for the change is:
“EA is committed to a healthy and sustainable environment, We are reducing packaging materials, eliminating printed manuals and increasing the availability of digital content at EA.com.”
Last April, rival games publisher Ubisoft began removing paper manuals from its games and started a movement which is not only good for the environment but we are sure that its not bad on the games publisher’s wallets either.
But the biggest issue for us is losing that “new game smell”, excitement and coolness. It seems that gone are the days when you receive a game, open the box, take in the new game smell and sift through the manual for hints and tips.
We miss those times already!
Are you going to miss paper manuals in your games? Let us know on our official Twitter page @Gadget_Helpline.