About that Manual.........

[a300mech]

Well I printed the manual, and after about an hour's time, and 20 dollars worth of ink I have a question for the guys in charge....
Fellas, how much would it have added to the cost of the game to include a printed manual?
I want to say up front, that I love UV, as far as I'm concerned it's an awesome game, and I can't wait for WITP.
However, this whole industry-wide trend towards eliminating paper manuals (especially for games with this much depth) is quite troubling to me. I know this issue has been debated endlessly elsewhere, but I would like to hear it straight from the horse's mouth so to speak. Why was the decision made to ship UV with only a PDF manual? I honestly would've gladly paid an additional 5, or 10 bucks to save 20 bucks worth of ink.
In addition a printed and bound manual would be smaller and easier to use than my current sheaf of 137, 81/2" X 11" pages.
Well, that's my question, and my humble opinion. Now back to the bloody Solomons.

[ChrisF]

First let me say congratulations to Matrix and Gary Grigsby and team. You guys have hit a home run with UV, it will be on my hard drive for many years to come. Thank God somebody is making and publishing serious wargames again.

But....I would love to see a printed manual for WITP and would also be happy to pay for it.

[ratster]

This "issue" was raised many times previously. I too would have liked to have seen a printed manual come with the game. Printing costs for a 200 page bound 8 1/2 by 5 inch manual is about 2.50 a copy with small quantities(500-1000), it gets cheaper after that.

Before we start another debate on this(and all the "fanboys" leap to matrix's defence), yeah I know it might cost more to ship, and has to fit in the box, etc, etc, etc, but given the number of people willing to pay 20-30 extra dollars for express shipping of one form or another, I hardly think a couple of more dollars would have made a significant difference to sales. :p

As an aside I read a recent discussion about how including a printed manual(as opposed to one on disk) may curtail piracy to some extent (more so with complex games than simple ones for obvious reasons).

[Svar]

Originally posted by ratster
This "issue" was raised many times previously. I too would have liked to have seen a printed manual come with the game. Printing costs for a 200 page bound 8 1/2 by 5 inch manual is about 2.50 a copy with small quantities(500-1000), it gets cheaper after that.

Before we start another debate on this(and all the "fanboys" leap to matrix's defence), yeah I know it might cost more to ship, and has to fit in the box, etc, etc, etc, but given the number of people willing to pay 20-30 extra dollars for express shipping of one form or another, I hardly think a couple of more dollars would have made a significant difference to sales. :p

As an aside I read a recent discussion about how including a printed manual(as opposed to one on disk) may curtail piracy to some extent (more so with complex games than simple ones for obvious reasons).

I would think anyone low enough to pirate the game would be capable of copying the manual as well. My manual for the SSI Award Winning War Games (PAC WAR, WIR, COS, and CS) has been used so many times in the last 10 years that it is literally falling apart but it is still usable and I have never lost a page (about 350 total). It would be nice to have a printed manual as I play both the Matrix version of PAC WAR and WIR and have never printed the PDF manual that comes with those games because my old manual is identical and printed on both sides. I will however promptly print the UV manual as soon as it arrives.

Svar

[Sledge]

Here's a thought, how about offering a "PRINTED MANUAL" as an option?

I'd be willing to pay a few bucks more for a real manual, not one of those midget sized things that require a magnifying glass to read, instead of a pdf file.

Bob

[Paul Vebber]

You'd have to pay to ship it, and it would rapidly cost the $7.50-15 it costs to go to a print shopt (I've found that maller local print places will do it cheaper than Kinkos, especially if you can find one where the guy is basically standing around. Make him a "deal- deal", maybe he's a Republican...

For a number of reasons we settled on the DVD box format for our games.

Those of you that have it can see that not much more than the hot-key insert will fit therein. A larger format box is less sturdy, more expense to buy and ship and would raise the price of the game ultimately about 10 bucks.

So that leaves the "buy a seperate printed manual" option. Since you can do that yourself for roughly the same price we can offer it to you for, its basically a "wash".

Don't print it on your home printer, you can get it for easily half that. And often with a little finagling under 10.

[Charles2222]

So would one of these print shops be able to extract the pdf without installing the game onto their computer? I ask that, because a lot of us can't burn pdfs onto a cd or a zip drive.

[IKerensky]

Hum, Paul I just openned my Destroyer Commander DvD box and he got a 44 pages printed manual in it. Dark Age of Camelot 65 pages, even, the IL 2 sturmovik 88 pages can fit in there.

Perhaps next time you could add a 80 pages printed manual AND a more detailed .pdf ?

[David Heath]

The problem is we do not order printed manuals in the amounts of 15,000-35,000 range as do the games you stated do. Also our manual was 132 pages and that in some cases is more then double the size of some of the manuals you stated. Our cost in fact are much higher not just to print but to layout, pack it into the game and then add the shipping costs. With th e current sales trend of the game, we will be lucky to breakeven let alone make profit.

Wargame companies looking to keep the great designers like Gary Grigsby making wargames are going to need to find a way to make more profits in order to make it worth the time of both the publisher and the developer. Table top wargames have a gone from $20-$40 to $60-$80 and some $200.00 and we are talking new design here not the old SPI games. I see computer wargame prices only going up to the $60 - $80 range.

Trust me Matrix and 2 by 3 games look into this long and hard and the good old days of dozen or so wargame release a month and detail printed manuals are for the most part a thing of the past. I do not think we will be printing our full manauls anytime soon. I am always looking and you never know what may change but that is pretty much where it stands as of now.

David

[a300mech]

Originally posted by David Heath
The problem is we do not order printed manuals in the amounts of 15,000-35,000 range as do the games you stated do. Also our manual was 132 pages and that in some cases is more then double the size of some of the manuals you stated. Our cost in fact are much higher not just to print but to layout, pack it into the game and then add the shipping costs. With th e current sales trend of the game, we will be lucky to breakeven let alone make profit.

Wargame companies looking to keep the great designers like Gary Grigsby making wargames are going to need to find a way to make more profits in order to make it worth the time of both the publisher and the developer. Table top wargames have a gone from $20-$40 to $60-$80 and some $200.00 and we are talking new design here not the old SPI games. I see computer wargame prices only going up to the $60 - $80 range.

Trust me Matrix and 2 by 3 games look into this long and hard and the good old days of dozen or so wargame release a month and detail printed manuals are for the most part a thing of the past. I do not think we will be printing our full manauls anytime soon. I am always looking and you never know what may change but that is pretty much where it stands as of now.

David

Thank you David, and everyone else who responded (It's folks like you all, that make these forums a pleasure to use.).
David, please do continue to explore possible options for providing printed manuals. I anticipate WITP will require an
even more extensive manual than UV, and so printing that one out will be even more of an expensive and time consuming task
on the average home printer.

Paul mentioned we should get a local printing shop to print our manual. How do we do this? Go to Kinkos or similar, with the CD and ask them to print out the PDF file? Excuse me fo rasking what is probably an elemental question, but I am fairly computer illiterate.

Sledge and others mentioned an "optional" printed manual for an added charge. As I mentioned before I would happily pay an extra charge for this. Even the 15 more dollars that Paul wrote
of.

David your point about the escalating price of wargames (I guess it's just in line with the growing cost of living) is well taken.
My brother just purchased the "World in Flames" core game.
I was staggered by the cost of some mapboards and cardboard counters.
But of course it is as you mentioned also the cost of the talent behind the game. Which I am glad to pay for if it keeps quality wargames coming along.

In any event, please accept my ravings as those of a loyal customer. I'm having a blast with UV!

[Paul Vebber]

MOst printers can work off CD's or zip disks. ITs <10MB so you can span it across floppies using WINZIP if lack CD-RW Or ZIp capability.

SOme may balk at reassmbling it off floppies, but again, if you find a small time operation they often will.

[Hartmann]

Originally posted by Paul Vebber
MOst printers can work off CD's or zip disks. ITs <10MB so you can span it across floppies using WINZIP if lack CD-RW Or ZIp capability.

SOme may balk at reassmbling it off floppies, but again, if you find a small time operation they often will.

Still, the manual should be accesible directly from the CD Rom without installing the game first. Only because of this I could not print out the manual using my MAC at work, despite bringing the CD with me.

Hartmann

Edit: this is basically the reason why the "go-to-shop-to-print-out" method does not work, either; they would not let you install the game at the shop - or would they?