[...guide authors approach games with the mindset of a medical examiner. They do not play games so much as dissect them, which erodes enjoyment of the hobby they like best. Rarely can authors “just enjoy the game;” instead they must “stop every 20 seconds to write something.” ...]<p>Is this really the case?<p>I would rather believe that the writers are gamers too. It's quite common for gamers to play a [fun] game through more than once. So there's plenty of chance to enjoy the game without "dissection", then document the success on the next take.<p>The way the article put it makes it look like it's a kind of OCD behavior. Which sounds unfair.
I used to LOVE reading GameFAQs walkthroughs for RPGs as a kid. The fact it was just a big text document made it super easy to hide in my "computer typing" classes too.<p>I'm kind of sad that the whole scene has largely slowed down, at least for modern games... Now you can just find video guides on any subsection of a game you're playing; or follow an IGN guide. I have huge respect for authors of the oldschool guides though.
Nothing beats a high quality FAQ with ctrl+f searching shortcuts. Loads instantly, can be downloaded offline, etc. Now every game has its own wikia instead and you have to wade through garbage to find the info you are looking for.
The ASCII art that these folks did to set up their chapter headings was beautiful. I remember seeing them making huge block lettering, scenery, and even characters drawn in ASCII art just to give an intro to like a GameBoy game walkthrough. The love and effort poured into these showed
This is a weird piece. Writing generally pays poorly for most people and JK Rowling's first check was like $2000. Children's authors didn't get rich when she was writing the initial drafts of Harry Potter. It was her series that changed that fact and made it easier for other children's authors.<p>Anyway, a lot of people do a thing to do the thing. Money isn't everything.<p>It's weird this piece seems to be agog at the idea that motives other than money even exist.
Jacob Geller had interesting commentary along these same lines last week [0]. In some ways, a walkthrough is an extremely detailed first-person critique: Exploring the game with the walkthrough as a guide, the author highlights each element of the game which they want you to experience.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr6pA15xuFc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr6pA15xuFc</a>
Why does anyone write anything on the internet? Why am I writing this? People write for lots of reasons, and the motivation for writing walkthoughs and FAQs aren't any different to anything else: because people like expressing themselves, they like getting recognition (even if it's meaningless internet points), they're writing something to use themself, or they like the idea of helping out a project they support.
It would be an honor to write a gamefaq. I'm not a creative individual. I'm never going to write a novel or a foundational technical work. If there was a game I knew very well that didn't already have a comprehensive guide, though? I could create something that would be referenced for decades.
How is this any different then old-school CRPG's and needing to make your own map using graph paper of dungeons?<p>I remember NEEDING to do this in Pools of Radiance (IIRC), just to get around the dungeon, and make sure I found everything on the level. For those that don't remember the game, you moved one square at a time in a N,E,S,W direction. one move = one square on the graph paper.<p>No helpful pointer arrows like on Skyrim. You had to take notes, and map out the levels. It was far too easy to spend hours in a dungeon never finding the the door to get to the treasure/clue/quest item.<p>So some of these guides would be no different then sharing those maps with friends. Of course I had no friends at the time. ;-)
I wrote an FAQ about 20 years ago. I did it because it was fun, of course. I loved the game and wanted the secrets that I knew that nobody else knew to be published somewhere.<p>I remember one of the other players created a game guide for the game that was published and made a couple million off it. So there's that too.
So this is not relevant at all but I thought I would share anyways. In high school I wrote a 30 page business plan on selling World of Warcraft guides. Keep in mind that WoW at its peak had more than 11 million players, all of which were paying around 14 dollars per month. Youtube, wow wiki and other sources of information weren't popular yet, so knowledge spread mostly from person through person. One of the many reasons people were already willing to pay substantial amounts for guides
We’re told that we need capitalism because people are naturally lazy and won’t work unless compelled. But we see counter-evidence: people want glory (even lame nerd glory, like HN karma or writing a FAQ), and they’ll work for that, not just money.
See if you can spot why this walkthrough is noteworthy: <a href="https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/588741-super-metroid/faqs/10114" rel="nofollow">https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/588741-super-metroid/faqs...</a>