A topic about videogame manuals digital preservation.

[mrkonasoni]

|Start》|

I have always liked preservation of retro games stuff because I truly believe it's a good reminder of the golden age of gaming.

So that, a few months ago I spent days searching and fetching manuals that were scanned and available in PDF format, I found out quite a lot but of course just like always there also quite a lot missing.

I felt happy because I found what I was looking for and just for preservation and nothing else, so I could like to know, what are your thoughts about this subject.

Do you consider this is piracy?
I think one of the best things about this is preservation and of course since a lot of games are pretty expensive in the state of "CIB" (Complete in Box) I feel is good that I can at least read the manual of a game that I bought just the loose cartridge or disc.

[oldgamerz]

I am not sure about the video game manuals in Computer PDF file format as being considered Piracy/illegal. But I read somewhere online that PDF files for strategy guides. Is illegal, to have, since most are just copied and pasted from what's inside the physical books.

I have some official Prima books for some games. but the text in the book is too tiny to read. So, I want to use the PDF files found on the internet. For easy reading, but I don't want to do anything illegal.

[dakooldood]

I wouldn't think it would count as piracy because the game companies are selling the game, not the manual. Legally, when you buy a game, you aren't buying a disc/cartridge, but a license to play that game and the means to do so come with it. So if you go to the store and buy a game, the manual comes with it free. Whereas when you buy a strategy guide, you are purchasing that for the sole purpose of reading. But, I'm not a lawyer so...

[Warmsignal]

Nintendo once tried to say people didn't have the right to copy their manuals, but I believe they lost that lawsuit. They did successfully have all of their issues of Nintendo Power pulled down from the Internet, so that much evidently is considered "piracy". An old defunct magazine. I love Nintendo, but they are freaking horrible. If any game company cares about their instruction manual PDFs existing online, it'll be Nintendo.

[tripredacus]

It isn't piracy. Maintaining archives for historical reasons are protected both under US and EU copyright law.

[sworddude]

piracy or not it's just a game manual wich most people won't even look through anyway especially in this day and age.

[telekill]

I don't view manual copies as being piracy. As someone mentioned before, Nintendo tried to stop it before, but they try to stop EVERYTHING they don't have control of when it was something they created; even from decades ago. I know that some places like segaretro.org has a significant amount of scanned manuals. I've downloaded quite a few to have that I found I'm missing from my collection.

I think eventually there will be complete collections donated to museums or bought by museums for preservation. While I have no interest in having a complete collection myself (I simply don't have the time, energy, space, or money), I am making a point to do something special with my absolute favorites through time; making a hall of fame of sorts.

I'm currently working on a Ninja Turtles shadow box. Inside the box will be my recently purchased complete copy of the original NES game with a shadowbox design covering the five games from the 8-16 bit days. I'm planning on doing this for the Sega Jurassic Park games, Resident Evil (undecided if the PS1 or GC version), Tomb Raider, and my favorite game of all time, Uncharted. More may follow, but for now, 5 is plenty. Probably comes up to about a year's worth of crafting work for me to do.

[mrkonasoni]

- Answering to @oldgamerz

It make sense that guides are piracy because the content was once sold as an official merchandise product for the game, I guess some manuals are abandonware since the editor or the game is not sold or is available anymore.

- Answering to @dakooldood

I guess that´s other reason because most games nowadays dont include a manual and the price could be just like a game that does, nowadays games require a high budget that I guess cant allow small things like a manual.

- Answering to @Warmsignal

I heard Nintendo is too strict about their copyright because they take too serious the subject about other people making money of their franchises, that´s funny because most companies nowadays are too soft and even support fan products, fortunately Nintendo lost the lawsuit and we can read the manual of Super Mario Bros 2 and remind that Birdo used to be male.

- Answering to @tripredacus

I didnt knew that, so that make me wonder why Nintendo had the right to take down all issues of Nintendo Power in archive.com.

- Answering to @sworddude

Yes, you are right, and most people from the 80s and 90s thrown that stuff into the bucket, but some people like me like to read that stuff.

- Answering to @telekill

I think some stuff will always be lost until someone for some reason want to share it with the world, also good luck with your project.

[oldgamerz]

Speaking of video game manuals, I read and enjoyed both Call Of Duty:Finest Hour and
Call Of Duty 2: Big Red One Manual many times, Some of the Call Of Duty Manuals offer tips and most interesting thing of all. A brief (Real Life) WWII, history lessen.

 especially Call Of Duty Finest Hour's manuals. However in the Call Of Duty 2: Big Red One has most of the (real life) history lessens (in menu) as unlockables. After you complete parts of the single player Campaign. I completed both those call of duty games on easy difficulty so many times that I am current tired of them both. but those were really great back in the early 2000's on both PS2 and GameCube and Xbox.

My vary first call of duty single player experience (COD Finest Hour) was done on a my vary first at home console the Nintendo Gamecube. I bought this console as a teenager sometime in the mid 2000's

[tripredacus]

I didnt knew that, so that make me wonder why Nintendo had the right to take down all issues of Nintendo Power in archive.com.

A website hosting an archive gets a notice from a rights holder demanding the removal of specific content under penalty of lawsuit. The website can comply, not comply, or go to court. A company with a public image has the best chance to comply and then complain about it, which is what IA did. They would not have bothered with going to court because it would cost too much money. Non-compliance isn't in their best interest because of their status, and history having been proven that websites never win that battle. One example of non-compliance was when the MPAA went after websites for hosting DeCSS code: https://cyber.harvard.edu/openlaw/dvd/