Look at what I just added to the collection my friends:
RIP Prima.
Wheee!
I almost never use GameFAQs these days, unless it’s an old game. I find most of what I need on Fandom/Wikia. Collaborative user-generated content may be the true reason Prima Games died.
FTFY.
I can’t do a direct comparison, but the Witcher 3 guide was well done. I got a free code for their online version, which was well indexed and had lots of interesting features that you wouldn’t get in a printed format. Plus it (in theory) was kept up to date with the DLCs/etc. I haven’t actually looked at it in a while…
Just checked, and at least for the moment I can still get to it.
My question is: What happens to the eguides that were bought? I bought 3 of them a while back and it would be a shame for me to lose them.
Edit: Prima Games just gave me a 50% off coupon. I won’t be using it if all my online guides disappear.
Well it’s a good thing we still have BradyGames guides.
They merged with Prima in 2015.
Sorry, I forgot to close it with /s
…uh, it’s a good thing GameFAQS.com is still lively and active, right? /s
My Fallout and Skyrim guides act as a stand for my monitor. I always bought the guide with the Bethesda products because they helped considerably.
Completing mine on this side, lookie what arrived today:
Finally mine!
Incidently, I had dug out from the mossy basement Rome on 640K a day yesterday, then launched Civilization… then lost my evening to it
OMG congrats! Truly one of the finest strategy guides ever written. I’m still reading through mine, taking my time and soaking it all in, as it’s much about game design as it is about the game itself.
When I first entered the game industry as a tester, I hadn’t really given a thought to how these books were composed. Naturally, the authors of them weren’t actually supreme experts at the game; the studio provided nearly everything (minus, of course, the color commentary). So when we got to the weird dead state between a game being “done” (and in submission to first parties, then waiting on RTM), we started pounding away at the game to provide info to Prima for the strat guide.
That was a lot of fun. We had some crazy challenges in the game, and having a whole crew of young, rowdy testers competing with one another to come up with the most efficient strategies so we could provide the steps to them was a blast.
It also astounded me how quickly these things got turned around. While some stuff - lists of weapons, levels, etc., were prepared well in advance, these kind of hard core tips waited until the last minute. I mean, I’d always thought of books and how long the lead times were on those; these were these huge glossy tomes, yet here we were, creating content for them, and they’d be out in just a couple of months.
For a bunch of testers, the guide was as valuable to them as the game, because they were often thanked in the book, meaning it was another opportunity to see their name published in some fashion. So my memories of them are fond, not just from the consumer perspective, but from the other side of it, too.
That is an awesome story! Thanks for sharing!
I cowrote this one for Brady. Basically, troubleshooting DOS games, early DirectX games, getting games to work well under WIndows. Brady gave us a super-tight deadline, to the point that TC and I finished it during covering E3.
Then they sat on it for 9 months before printing it because their sales team had no idea how to sell a troubleshooting book into stores. By the time it came out, Win 95 gaming had taken hold and it was completely out of date.
Cool! :)
@Left_Empty, Terry was my coauthor for the book I linked directly over your post. :) TC lived and breathed turn-based strategy at the time, so I have to imagine that book is awesome.
IIRC Terry was the editor who game me most of my wargame writing assignments when I freelanced for CGW way back when.
Yep, he would have been.
God, I miss making a living writing about games. Stupid Internet.
:)