While the gaming sector has advanced significantly over the past two decades, many game guide layouts that were previously common around everyone’s favorite digital hobby have gone out of style. Video game magazines and related publications providing players with walkthroughs, cheat codes, and other helpful information have vanished from the public eye. However, the online video game guide is undoubtedly one source of gaming information that hasn’t disappeared.
Have you ever questioned the continued existence of gaming guides? Or, perhaps more critically, if they will continue to thrive? Is it necessary to write video game guides?
While many would argue that they started with the home console, professionally made guidelines date back to the early days of arcade games. Even back then, you might sometimes discover a Pac-Man clue, a Space Invaders strategy, or a Donkey Kong guide online.
However, the period of the at-home console is when video game guidelines indeed took off. The explosion of video game publications and articles began with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) release. These were jam-packed with walkthroughs, cheats, and secrets for the month’s hottest games. Since they were no longer viewed as childish amusement, video games might be said to have entered the mainstream for the first time at this point.
Walkthroughs and Contemporary Video Game Content
But this structure wasn’t around forever. The internet eventually eclipsed gaming journals, as it happened with many other things. Video games started getting more complicated around the same time the web began to take off.
Games began to resemble cinematic tales and branching narratives; some even attempted to imitate Hollywood blockbusters. As a result, their guidelines also had to get more complicated. Online guides had to split these bigger games into smaller, more concentrated sections rather than a single post that walked someone through the entire thing.
Even though game manuals adopted new formats, the previous ones didn’t wholly disappear. Even as video games grew in size and scope, a straightforward walkthrough guide remained popular and is still used to cover certain levels, rooms, locations, etc.
Walkthroughs and suggestions for particular locations and stages of the game were the topics of pages that were in high demand. These comprehensive digital manuals could concentrate on more specific problems.
Fewer and fewer people searched for tips on how to gamble online or play a complete game when tutorials for most games started to teach the fundamentals to anyone playing. Instead, it was much more typical for players to become stuck on a particular region, level, boss, or other challenging section of the game. You could guarantee there was a walkthrough available if enough individuals were experiencing problems with the same part.
A few utterly new gaming genres have also emerged in the contemporary period. RPGs, action RPGs, and of course, MMORPGs all started to become more and more popular, and a large percentage of them tended to share a crucial element: a single customizable character to function as the player avatar, or “toon,” who could gain skills and acquire equipment.
Gamers developed a new urge due to this additional degree of intricacy. Many people found their fantasy of having the most perfect and powerful construct for their character alluring. After all, why wouldn’t you want this character to be an unstoppable force of power if you’ve invested hours into creating them and acting out their story?
As a result, character creation guides became popular. The number of websites offering builds for games like World of Warcraft and Diablo as well as blogs detailing how to create the finest builds for Dark Souls, has skyrocketed. People who played games developed along with them. People stopped researching how to play their games. They want to learn the ideal way to play them.
Technical Guides
Over time, both game setup procedures and gameplay both become more complex. Modern video games, especially PC ones, might be a little difficult to start playing, especially if players are interested in things like modding and file customization.
The technical guide, a new type of gaming guide, was born as a result. How to install modifications, set up a game for maximum efficiency, organize your workspace efficiently, etc. Now, each step of customization, configuration, and installation requires its own manual.
