Strategy guide publisher Prima Games shutting down after 28 years

[Infinitron]

In retrospect, amazing they lasted this long.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw...78536-prima-games-to-shutter-next-spring.html

Prima Games to Shutter Next Spring

Prima Games, the U.S.-based DK imprint publishing strategy guides to video games, will stop commissioning new titles immediately, and will be discontinued in spring 2019. As a result, its Roseville, Calif., Indianapolis, and New York offices will all be closed.

Prima, founded in 1990, is the largest publisher in the video game strategy guide sector of the industry. Its demise augurs poorly for other publishers in that space, which has declined significantly since the proliferation of game guide websites over the past decade.

The publisher's Roseville office will close mid-November, while some members of the Prima Games team, based in the Indianapolis office, will stay until March 2019 to publish any remaining books.

"During a year-long extensive review, many new ways were explored to diversify Prima Games publishing; however, the dynamics for us of this fast-paced landscape have continued to prove difficult," Ian Hudson, DK's CEO, wrote in a memo. "This enormously dedicated team has made every effort to turn the business around, but challenging market conditions have unfortunately worked against them."

 

[The Decline]

Amazing run considering printed strategy guides were made obsolete by the Internet in the late 90s.

 

[A horse of course]

Shame. Many of the older guides were made in partnership with the developers and featured a lot of concept art, extra lore titbits etc. There were practically extensions of the game's official merchandise. Also a lot more convenient to read than scrolling through gamefaqs.

 

[Sranchammer]

I'm hurt, dog. Don't ask me if I'm alright. HELL NAW!

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Shame. Many of the older guides were made in partnership with the developers and featured a lot of concept art, extra lore titbits etc. There were practically extensions of the game's official merchandise. Also a lot more convenient to read than scrolling through gamefaqs.

As weird as it sounds given they're dead fucking simple to play, the Bethesda games had surprisingly good strategy guides to the point where I actually splurged on a few of them since they were so well put together. Which now I look that shit up it apparently has gone up in value, strangely.
https://www.amazon.com/Fallout-Game-Year-Collectors-Official/dp/0307466582

Specifically that author though (David Hodgson) is any good. I also grabbed the Dragon Age Origins collector's edition guide around the same time (Fuck if I remember why, maybe there was a sale or I had a coupon or something) and that one's unsurprisingly going for much less now ($18-60) since it isn't nearly as enjoyable to flip through. Which you'd think DAO would have more fluff and lore and shit to talk about, but the difference in author is stark. DAO guide just has a couple fluff ghettos while the FO3 guide has quest flowcharts (For Fallout 3, yeah), fluff and tips in every little area, detailed maps, talks about the routines of the NPCs, etc. Makes FO3 seem more interesting than actually playing the game. Always kinda wanted to get a FNV and Skyrim guide since they were done by the same author but IIRC they never did a complete FNV guide including the DLC and I didn't jump on Skyrim complete in time and that's another $80 one I believe. Wonder if they could've lived longer if they were more along the enthusiast/collector's vein and made like the Hodgson books, rather than primarily just trying to sell themselves as walkthroughs for people who don't have the internet. Instead of spending $30+ more for a collector's edition of some game with a soundtrack CD and cosmetic DLC and 20 page "Artbook", buy the regular game and then buy our $30 hardcover that shows a lot of the fine detail in the game and has the developers talking about the experience of making individual pieces. Then you can sell it to neckbeards who want all the detail and fluff they can about a game they like and you can sell it as something else for shitheads to put on a shelf with their plastic bing bing wahoo figurines.

 

[Morkar Left]

I have to say I found printed strategy guides always great and I'm a bit sad about this. The strategy guide Multi-headed Cow mentioned was actually damn great. I have that one as well. And the one from New Vegas too (but unfortunately lacking an index of all things unlike the FO3 CE). Prima usually had good ones.

I always collected strategy guides and still have a good bunch of them. Not all were that good but at least somehow usefull or providing fluff and behind the scenes stuff. I still have a Privateer guide book (I think from prima too) which was basically an extended game manual written ingame style with a walkthrough added to it. Really liked that one for some reason.

I guess a big problem was not only the internet (which often provides more detailed information nowadays) but the speed the guides had to be published (basically ready before the game is even released) and a lot of guides get just outright obsolete after patches if you have games like PoE or even Wasteland 2.

I wish such guides would have been published after half a year of the games release with focus on more detailed informations and behind the scenes looks or additional lore. Basically with some added stuff like the RPG Book but just focused on one game or a series.

 

[taxalot]

I hope we'll find a torrent of all the guides.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

The death knell was not Gamefaqs, it was YouTube. Why would you waste your time and be annoyed at finding one of a hundred pages in a faq, to find a description of what you need to do, and then figure out how it applies in the game... when you can SEE what you need to do to get unstuck in a video let's play?

 

[taxalot]

The death knell was not Gamefaqs, it was YouTube. Why would you waste your time and be annoyed at finding one of a hundred pages in a faq, to find a description of what you need to do, and then figure out how it applies in the game... when you can SEE what you need to do to get unstuck in a video let's play?

Actually, I believe they could have survived. There is a market for game books, as long as they are made of quality content and are beautiful objects in themselves.

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

The death knell was not Gamefaqs, it was YouTube. Why would you waste your time and be annoyed at finding one of a hundred pages in a faq, to find a description of what you need to do, and then figure out how it applies in the game... when you can SEE what you need to do to get unstuck in a video let's play?

Do people actually like this? I've done it out of desperation before, but my god skipping through an LP listening to some nasally dingbat who only half knows what they're doing sputters around is torture.

 

[mondblut]

What next, paid game hint hotlines going belly up?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Actually, I believe they could have survived. There is a market for game books, as long as they are made of quality content and are beautiful objects in themselves.

Their death was certain just a few years into the 21st century. Like many others I'm outright amazed that they've lasted this long.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I actual prefer the old high quality FAQs that used to get made back in the 90's. Absolute maniacs would divulge things like the underlying programming that caused specific bugs in the game. And they were put together exceedingly well in terms of organization. You can't Ctrl-F a book to find a specific item and find out what it does without glancing at other shit and spoiling yourself.

Sadly, gamefaqs took a nosedive after a while, even deleting a lot of the old quality guides.

I'd imagine the real death knell for the books was the games themselves being so dumbed down and shallow that nobody felt the need for a guide anyways. Though it always seemed a bit odd to me- if I like a game enough that I'd want a huge fuck-off book about it, I know the game well enough that I don't need said book.

 

[kalganoat]

meh I've read a couple of their guides. not very helpful worse than gamefaqs.

 

[Beastro]

Shame. Many of the older guides were made in partnership with the developers and featured a lot of concept art, extra lore titbits etc. There were practically extensions of the game's official merchandise. Also a lot more convenient to read than scrolling through gamefaqs.

That was part of the problem with those games. The guides were deliberately tied to the games in order to get kids to buy them, especially Nintendo Power.

It's the reason behind various inexplicable puzzles one could never figure out logically in a lot of older games. I've heard the infamous Simon's Quest "stand against a wall for ages holding a specific item" is an example of one.

Prima was one of the better ones for the stated reasons, though. I despised BradyGames given how much information they always missed in places. I found the best ones were from Versus books, though, like they're excellent FFVII guide: https://archive.org/details/Final-Fantasy-VII-Versus-Guide

Came with a damn nice poster too.

The worst guide has to be this one though. It's huge, mostly filler and what little infromation it does have isn't just unhelpful, but outright wrong and misleading:

 

[Simple Simon]

As others noted, I think this was partly driven by the way games have changed. Games get patched a lot more and they get pushed out without being finished sometimes. This makes putting out a print guide very difficult. Anyway, this reminds me of Danny DeVito's speech in "Other People's Money". Nothing worse for a company than getting a bigger share of a shrinking market. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62kxPyNZF3Q

 

[orcinator]

I hope we'll find a torrent of all the guides.

I just want a torrent of this masterpiece

which was by brady but still

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

https://www.primagames.com/games/fallout-76/products/fallout-76-official-collectors-edition-guide

Surprisingly enough Prima put out a guide to Fallout 76 of all things, and the author is David Hodgson just like the other Fallout guides. Curious to see if even he can make Fallout 76 sound interesting.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I found the best ones were from Versus books, though, like they're excellent FFVII guide:

I had the Versus Books guides for Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2/3, and a few other games and I have to agree. When it came to strategy guides they were my favourite since they gave you just enough information but never went into spoiler territory. The MGS/RE guides also had some amusing humour to them. There were actual pages dedicated to analyzing the graffiti and fake in-game advertisements in RE2 as well as other background strangeness such as an inverted American flag in the police station and at one point in the MGS guide the writer has a semi mental breakdown and rambles on and on about random bullshit because of how boring it was waiting for your keycards to defrost.

I heard their FFVII one was the best of the bunch, but it's not exactly a tall task. The BradyGames guide was fucking laughable and gave frame by frame FMV spoilers of major events in the game. The boss strategies could be summed up as: CAST BARRIER, CAST HASTE, CAST HIGH LEVEL MAGIC, REGEN OR CURE3 WHEN NEEDED and their tables for items and monsters was misleading and flat out wrong. They didn't even provide a listing for Enemy Skill acquisition or telling you "hey before you fight the final boss, there's a monster here who will only cast this one Enemy Skill once for the entirety of your game and you may want to get that if you are a completionist." But at least they tell you every major event in picture form and even follow up with it in a quick sentence summary.

Then BradyGames tried this weird thing in the early 2000s with some guides being actually useless. You'd open a page and it'd tell you to go to a website for more information. God, fuck BradyGames.

 

[Beastro]

Then BradyGames tried this weird thing in the early 2000s with some guides being actually useless. You'd open a page and it'd tell you to go to a website for more information. God, fuck BradyGames.

Square started that with them for FFIX. They didn't even bother to publish a book for that game I think.

Was a bloody pain having to go on the comp from the TV and back to check a site for shit.

IIRC, I think that's how I first came across Gamefaqs. Thinking back to all of that in '99, it's kinda nice that sites like that ruined them in the end given that push by them to use the internet for their stuff.

 

[Don Peste]

Then BradyGames tried this weird thing in the early 2000s with some guides being actually useless. You'd open a page and it'd tell you to go to a website for more information. God, fuck BradyGames.

Square started that with them for FFIX. They didn't even bother to publish a book for that game I think.

Was a bloody pain having to go on the comp from the TV and back to check a site for shit.

IIRC, I think that's how I first came across Gamefaqs. Thinking back to all of that in '99, it's kinda nice that sites like that ruined them in the end given that push by them to use the internet for their stuff.

 

[Beastro]

Then BradyGames tried this weird thing in the early 2000s with some guides being actually useless. You'd open a page and it'd tell you to go to a website for more information. God, fuck BradyGames.

Square started that with them for FFIX. They didn't even bother to publish a book for that game I think.

Was a bloody pain having to go on the comp from the TV and back to check a site for shit.

IIRC, I think that's how I first came across Gamefaqs. Thinking back to all of that in '99, it's kinda nice that sites like that ruined them in the end given that push by them to use the internet for their stuff.

You just went and mad me feel bad for Brady Games.

 

[Kaethar]

The death knell was not Gamefaqs, it was YouTube. Why would you waste your time and be annoyed at finding one of a hundred pages in a faq, to find a description of what you need to do, and then figure out how it applies in the game... when you can SEE what you need to do to get unstuck in a video let's play?

Video guides were amazing for me when I couldn't speak English, but written guides are a million times more efficient. Information that you can extract in 15 seconds using Ctrl+F on a webpage would take the average video narrator 5 minutes to spill out.

 

[DalekFlay]

Shame. Many of the older guides were made in partnership with the developers and featured a lot of concept art, extra lore titbits etc. There were practically extensions of the game's official merchandise. Also a lot more convenient to read than scrolling through gamefaqs.

My wife got me New Vegas' guide for Christmas or something because she knew how much I loved the game, and the lore stuff was neat. It wasn't really long or detailed enough to justify the price though. I thought these companies kind of switched to doing more art-book type stuff recently, but I guess even those didn't sell enough? I think some other companies are doing stuff like that though, like Dark Horse, so I doubt the concept goes away.

 

[laclongquan]

The death knell was not Gamefaqs, it was YouTube. Why would you waste your time and be annoyed at finding one of a hundred pages in a faq, to find a description of what you need to do, and then figure out how it applies in the game... when you can SEE what you need to do to get unstuck in a video let's play?

This. Youtube strike at the heart of the problem: gamer's demands. If you have a problem that need checking in a guide, the visual answer from Youtube kill the competitor that is the text (even with pictures) in a paper Prima guides.

Gamefags is not the competitor. In fact, it's the supporter to paper guides. Which is why Prima guides can survive all those decades: their professional text and pictures is better competitive to the pure text of gamefaqs. And the more people use GF, the more they buy prima guide.

The buggy state of game is not the detriment to Prima guides. Face it, the normal gamer and buyer of it is not devoting that much of their time into playing a game AND reading that guide to care about the inconsistency between the two.