Do people buy strategy guides for games ?

I am talking about the guides that comes alone, that people purchase beside the game. The guides from BradyGames and Prima ?

No, there's just zero need for it these days. Every single thing in the guides will be available online for free, that is virtually guaranteed.

Haven't bought one since the GameCube days. Games have just become so easy these days, I hardly find a need for one. And like @jer_1 said, what's the point if you can hop on the Internet and get your answers in a flash?

I feel like they are just a waste of money with the option of being able to find anything on the net.

if what u guys are saying is correct, then how come every game out there has a strategy guide released for it, why haven't these companies stopped releasing guides for the games.

Yes I like to buy the stand-alone guides, mostly for JRPG's. I love to check out all the enemy stats, weapon stats, items, magic, etc. I also enjoy looking at the artwork and just reading it in general. I will sometimes pick up strat guides for fighting games and large open-world games like GTA. To me a quality guide for a game I enjoy is an essential collectible. My favourite is Brady Games.

I can respect that. If your a collector than I can see why you value the guides.

Only rarely will I buy one- usually because it's for a game I love(last one was Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood). There was, however, one game I played this year where I would have been totally lost without free digital guide I got as a preorder bonus- Monster Hunter 3U.

For a handheld game, there was just so much shit in that game that I didn't understand or that needed defining that I would have been lost without it. The hardest part of the whole thing was that I have to read the confounded thing on my telephone. I don't think they ever released it in print.

If they are still being produced, then people still buy them. Is there a need? Not really with all info available online for free. But there are still those that want and need a physical product on hand. Haven't bought one since Wind Waker.

Not really, everything can be found online today in free versions so the only time i get a "guide" is if it comes with a collectors ed.

But i guess people still buy them otherwise there wouldn´t be made any of them if they all just turned out a loss.

Strategy Guides like that are the vestigial organ of the gaming industry. They served some purpose once, but their presence has outlived it's purpose.

pretty much the same deal for me

There are tons of guides on the net...for free.

I did in the past. Most games during the seventh generation were uncomplicated for me as a player, so I did not have much need. Hopefully this generation, the complexity of games increases to at least their former state so I can be more immersed with them again.

They're pretty much useless when basically any information you need is accessible online. I've never really bothered with them, though I did obtain one when I bought Skyrim used off of eBay a long time ago, it was only about $5 more, so I figured why not. It was fairly helpful for a while, but I definitely wouldn't have spent money on purchasing it separately.

i bought once, but that time i had no internet. I bought mortal combat guide. To learn fatalities brutalities etc.

Apperently ppl do, otherwise they wouldent still be makeing them.
But i remember the times where i would buy a game and the cd box would contain a huge guide for free.

Used to buy game guides before Internet times but now you can get illustrated guides and video guides via Internet. I haven't got any in ages but I still read gaming mags so I reckon printed gaming guides may still be fun too.

The only one I've really used was for Final Fantasy XIII-2. Because of the structure of that game with tons of fairly involved quests to get various crystals, it was a lot easier to have a book than to be constantly looking that stuff up online. Others I've bought, for Skyrim and Kingdoms of Amalur, I never ended up using. I didn't need much help and when I did it was much easier to do a Google search than to go sorting through the index of those books, which tend to be pretty incomplete.

Because of parents. Parents see them and say "Oh little johnny could use this for the pokemon game" because they are not smart enough to think "Oh if little johnny needs to know where to find a pokemon he can just google it".

That and strategy guide companies can survive on very little revenue since it only takes 1 or 2 people to write a guide, then they have a company print it for them. You can run a whole company with like less than 20 people, maybe even just a dozen. So they last because they cost so little.

But anyone who buys one anymore is a money wasting fool. With these 2 sites alone every strategy guide written is obsolete www.gamefaqs.com and www.youtube.com

Kind of takes the surprise out of games and just seems like a general waste of paper. I did like them for the Final Fantasy games with the quick references item databases and such.

I always liked Game Guides. Mostly because i always joy holding those big books.