R.I.P. worthless video game instruction manuals
Will Brinson
EA Sports announced on Monday that they’re making a move that not only makes a ton of sense, but which will benefit the environment: they’re getting rid of video game manuals.
You know, the little paper books that come stuffed inside the box with the disc? No? You don’t remember those?
Yeah, that’s probably why they’re dumping them.
Actually, EA’s getting rid of them in order to go “green” (so says spokesman Rob Semsey, per Owen Good of Kotaku, who also took the picture to the right) and make the games more environmentally friendly.
This is a pretty logical move: if 5,000,000 copies of Madden are sold, that’s approximately 12,000 trees smashed up into little pieces just so everyone can ignore the words that are printed on their dead tree bodies.
Also, eliminating the manual inside the game box significantly reduces the printing and shipping costs of each game. Whether or not that’s actually reflected in the retail cost of games, however, remains to be seen.
EA isn’t actually the first video game company to make this move, however — Ubisoft ditched manuals about a year ago. Based on Ubisoft numbers from that time, it’s pretty obvious why. They said that TWO TONS of wood (albeit from “only” 13 trees, which means my math was a little off) were required for a game.
Oh, and if you have a problem with this initiative, you’re obviously just an obstinate tree-hater. Either that or embarrassingly bad at video games.
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