Board 8 > The internet finally killed Prima Games guides.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://nintendoeverything.com/prima-games-is-shutting-down/
https://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2018/11/people-etc-dk-to-close-prima-games/

Was bound to happen eventually (and I haven't personally bought a physical guide since... Pokemon Diamond/Pearl maybe?), but it's still kinda sad to see.

I guess it would've been cool if instead of shutting down entirely they could just start printing limited edition guides as like a collectible or something. Then again maybe that was more or less what they've been doing lately, I have no idea.
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I always liked them for after I completed games, especially if they had nice art.

But I can't say I've bought one in like 5 years at best.
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Surprised it took this long
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Who was doing the really nice Zelda ones?
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It's kind of sad, because there are certain things I really like having a physical guide to look up, like maps or long lists.
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Prima was always my least favorite guide maker but it is sad to see guides in general die
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I bought a physical guide for Breath of the Wild, but it was the first one I had bought in well over a decade.
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I've never bought a physical guide but, uh, I used to like looking at them at stores
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That's pretty sad. I had the RBY one when I was a kid
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Inevitable but sad. A long time ago I used to want to work for them, since I knew somebody who did.

While I wouldn't say they were ever the best guide maker either, they tended to release guides for games that I wanted guides for, and while some of them were lacking, others were very well-done. Generally not as comprehensive as say, Versus guides, but still pretty damn good when they had the right person writing the guide.

How the times have changed...now if you'll excuse me, I need to go kick these annoying little whippersnappers off my lawn.
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My last guide purchase:

As a kid, I got stuck in the escher painting room in ff7, so decided to buy the strategy guide for that

Open the guide to that page, it simply says "exit through the other side of the room".

After that I went on the internet and found gamefaqs
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we did it gamefaqs!
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Wanna know more? Go to Playonline.com for all the tips!
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My last Prima guide was Ocarina of Time.

It was very useful for young FD.
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Millennials killing another industry.
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I think my most favorite guide ever was the Majora's Mask. It had the Fairy locations as the guide helps you through each dungeon. Not separated in the back, making you have to flip back and forth

and it came with a sweet poster

though I think Brady made it
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I'm not sure why Prima is the one that lasted longest. They were the worst.

I guess it's because they kept costs down, which is why they were the worst. But hey better to squeak out a small loss with poor guides than to actually put effort in and lose more when they don't sell I guess.
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Prima was better than BradyGames, I think. But they were no Versus.
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I had quite a few Nintendo Power ones.
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Gamefaqs has a huge part in the death of Prima.
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Keltiq posted...

Prima was better than BradyGames, I think. But they were no Versus.

I was curious what happened to BradyGames and it turns out they merged with Prima like 4 years ago.
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Wait a minute. There were still strategy guides sold? Really?
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I remember their guide for Kirby 64. Whoever wrote it clearly didn't get all the shards in a single playthrough or open the final area because that part was completely omitted. Also in the bestiary part, they had no idea who 02 (the final boss) was, but I guess since it looks like a snowy cloud, they just said something about how its a harmless background enemy on Shiver Star.
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Hojo has Midgar HP

Wreath posted...

Gamefaqs has a huge part in the death of Prima.

The death of Prima should technically mean an increase in site traffic to GameFAQs as more people turn to the internet to look for game help with physical strategy guides facing a huge blow with this closure. Of course, none of this traffic increase will lead to higher vote totals in the polls since most of this extra traffic will come from people landing directly on individual FAQs from Google or another search engine (bypassing the homepage completely).
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Thanks for that, Luster
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YouTube/Wikis are killing GameFAQs today, just as GameFAQs killed video game guide books in 1998
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So maybe we'll be dead 20 years from now like Prima.
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I used to buy strategy guides all the time, even for games I didn't own. I just liked looking at the art and stuff.
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LeonhartFour posted...

I used to buy strategy guides all the time, even for games I didn't own. I just liked looking at the art and stuff.

Oh, I did that one time. I bought the guide for Digimon World 1 expecting I'd be buying the game soon, but then that never happened.
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The main thing I remember Prima guides for was having inaccurate information.
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It's a shame that people don't value a nice magazine anymore.
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man, i saw this big book from Prima Games when I was at Blizzcon last weekend and I legit thought to myself "oh wow, that still exists???? good for them."

RIP
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Doublejump made some great guides. While the game was bad, the doublejump guide for Rogue Galaxy was the most well detailed guide I've ever read. It was so good that Prima actually bought digital rights for the guide when doublejump left the market.

Prima physical guides had a lot of errors and inconsistency. But that was before the internet era where I haven't bought a guide since so I don't know if they cleaned up their act.
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GranzonEx posted...

we did it gamefaqs!

How many wikis will say something similar when GameFAQs ages out?
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I used to buy guides all the time. I think the last one I bought was for either Skyrim or GTA V.

Still baffles me that people bought guides.
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Safer_777 posted...

Still baffles me that people bought guides.

Strategies and puzzle solutions. GameFAQs wasn't quite as robust as it is now, and YouTube wasn't even a thing.

SantaRPidgey posted...

Prima was always my least favorite guide maker but it is sad to see guides in general die

Same. It was almost comical reading their Pokmon guides because they were so bad.
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Safer_777 posted...

Still baffles me that people bought guides.

to me, guides were less solutions on how to win and more like extra content to read about this game that i really like
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I had like four or five Super Mario 64 strategy guides.

I rarely bought Prima Guides unless there was no alternative though. They usually sucked.
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Guides were always more for hype than anything. You can't get excited for a game reading an FAQ or watching a YouTube (in the same way)
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The internet didn't kill anything. Prima Games is just a name. Who cares if they stop publishing guides. Other people will still publish printed guides for popular (and even unpopular) games.
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I used to own Prima Guides for the first Breath of Fire and Secret of Mana.
They were pretty good at the time.
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