Debate - Are Video Game Strategy Guides Redundant due to DLC?

[vivigamer]

Ladies, Gents,

I was looking at some guides for games on eBay and a thought that often occurs resurfaced - Are Video Game Strategy Guides Redundant these days?

There is a lot to talk about on this debate, me personally as much as I wish to continue getting them I question their value. Of course, all the information you need is online, that's a given these days but I still like the idea of buying a Hardback companion guide with the latest BIG game - For me that is usually the next big JRPG.

However, the biggest hurdle I find now is that with the modern era of DLC, a lot of these guides can't cover the post release content - As they're release on the date of the original title. This is where I feel troubled, as I did with Final Fantasy XV. I've always bought the latest FF game with the premium Hardback Piggyback guide, I did with FFXV also and it served well for certain moments - Like the location of the Tombs for the Royal Arms. But with the Season Pass content, Extra events & even a 2nd Season Pass on the way, I just feel like the book is redundant - Paying £15-25 Which gets outdated within 6 months to a year is not a compelling proposition. If Kingdom Hearts III offers a guide I might skip on it this time round, which is a shame as I do like to have them upon my initial playthrough but if their lasting value is limited I can't quite commit to it.

But I find hunting older game guides satisfies my collector/gamer need - I really want to get Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep's guide to have all the item/command melding varities on a chart at hand. As with this game I had to have 3 or 4 seperate links saved to get this information which was pretty important. It's just more fulfilling to know that these guides content all the content and information I need for the experience.

But I was curious to see others perspective on this matter - Do you buy guides - if so are they for modern games?

[Cartagia]

Redundant means unnecessary due to the information being covered elsewhere - so in that case DLC would have nothing to do with redundancy.

However, if you are asking if DLC makes guides outdated / relative: that would depend on the game.  It is entirely dependent on what the DLC and updates do to the base game.  If the DLC changes the original release in any meaningful way (Destiny, FFXIV), then yes, the guide becomes useless.  But if the DLC is merely a bolt-on to the base game Dark Souls, Horizon: Zero Dawn) then the guides would still completely serve their original purchase, and be quite useful.

That's not to say the guides that become useless don't have some artistic value - I still like looking through the old WoW guides, despite the fact that they have not been relative to the game in a long time because they are well made, have good art and good lore bits.

[kashell]

Is redundant the right word for what you're asking? Do you mean useless, unnecessary, etc.?

I still buy guides whenever I can. I love 'em. For older games, they can be useful for when you want to go back and replay something while ensuring 100% completion. Afterwards, they're perfect for just page flipping. There are people that enjoy reading US Weekly, Sports Illustrated, etc. I enjoy strategy guides.

For newer games, it depends on the series. For something like Final Fantasy XV, I knew that it would be better to hold off since it wouldn't be all inclusive. On the other hand, some of these modern guides are filled with awesome info, artwork, interviews, etc. I recently found the original Dark Souls guide for dirt cheap and picked it up just so I could look at all of the monster artwork. It's awesome.

...weird that the Switch version of Dark Souls is set to come out soon. Maybe I'll more use for it than I thought when I decide to go through the game for a fourth time.

[tripredacus]

They can and there have been instances where a strategy guide becomes mostly useless due to updates and patches. This is not a new phenomena, perhaps only relatively new for console games. Patches or updates for PC games have been around for much longer.

[mark1982]

I think physical game guides are still very useful for the base game, not only do they just show game guide info but lore and back story which I always find special in hard cover guides. I only tend to pick up Dark Souls series guides and the lore and artwork alone is very much worth the purchase for me.

Of course I only use the guide after the first play through to see what I missed out on. But I usually find the back story or lore in the guides extremely insightful to further expand my knowledge of the series. There is so much more info to be read up on in guides and item descriptions in the souls series that I just missed out on while actually playing the game.

As for additional DLC, yeah that's when I rely on online content for in depth info on specific titles.

[badATchaos]

I think the word you were looking for was obsolete.   Guidebooks became obsolete as soon as walkthrough sites started popping up.

[burningdoom]

Redundant? Yes.

Because of DLC? No.

It's redundant because all the information contained in a strategy guide is found for free online.

When a game is popular enough, it'll get 2 strategy guides, anyways. They always have a regular edition guide and then a Game of the Year guide for Elder Scrolls games.

[emporerdragon]

Guidebooks became obsolete as soon as walkthrough sites started popping up.

Sums up my thoughts. Outside of the free ones, I never got another strategy guide after discovering GameFAQs and Gamesages.

[oldgamerz]

All I know is that The Sims Strategy guides any of them for any series or at least for 1-3 on PC are worth it, even though The Sims 3  and the sims 2 has some tips and hint located right in the game itself through lessons that you can read through at your leisure, but the in game guide in the sims 3 don't tell all the game secrets. However for the 1st and 2nd series I definitely think they would be worth the cost since their is so much things to do in the sims series. and and plus I don't trust some of the sites involving the sims series

[bikingjahuty]

in some cases, mostly in the case of some JRPG and Adventure games, I prefer the guide because it's just easier to find what I'm after, and they often give decent advise compared to some sources online. However, in most other scenarios, online is the way to go, rendering the guide useless. I guess the utility of guides is mostly when they game first comes out and there is little to no info on getting through the game online. But waiting just a month in some cases is all it takes to get a good guide or longplay put up that can act as a guide.

[kamikazekeeg]

Guides haven't been all that relevant for many years now.  I still like them generally, but I remember going to like Gamefaqs and CheatCC and some other stuff like...15 years ago.

[burningdoom]

Guides haven't been all that relevant for many years now.  I still like them generally, but I remember going to like Gamefaqs and CheatCC and some other stuff like...15 years ago.

Even longer. We were using SegaSages (which covered all platforms, despite the name) in the 90s on the old Netscape browser.

[hoshichiri]

I think the word you were looking for was obsolete.   Guidebooks became obsolete as soon as walkthrough sites started popping up.

This right here. If you're only looking to get past a few sticking points, an online walkthrough is all you'll need.

On the rare occasion a game piques my interest enough to want to do more- go for 100% collectibles or platinum trophy or such- then I'll buy a guide, becuase it's a lot easier than jumping between two screens constantly. That's only happened once to my recollection, with Little Big Planet on the ps3. I'm pretty sure the only other guide I've bought was a ff12 LE becuase it was a Basch cover and 'my husbando' and all that. Every other guide I own was either a gift, or plucked from the donation piles at Goodwill by my sister's ex when he was a sorter. (for the concerned, this particular location considered the guides as magazines & therefore unsellable. They would have been recycled if he didn't take them.)

[oldgamerz]

Guides haven't been all that relevant for many years now.  I still like them generally, but I remember going to like Gamefaqs and CheatCC and some other stuff like...15 years ago.

That's all fine and dandy unless the guide website is dangerous and full of advertisements popping all over the place. Right now there is no the sims 3 guide site that is safe. I tried most of them, they are all either not a secure connection or full of ads.

Both can be dangerous for me and the work that I currently do.