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Ideas
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Games w/o manuals
A lot of games, mainly more recent games, do not include instruction manuals, yet the price for the game and box is still lower than the CIB price. This can be very conflicting because I don't want to lie by saying games in my collection include manuals when they don't, but I also don't want the game to be listed for less than its actually worth. For games without manuals, it would be helpful if the option to include a manual was not present, or, alternatively, it may be easier to keep the option but make the price with and without a manual the same.
Customer support service by UserEcho
Good feedback. I'll think about this a bit and how it could be implemented.
I concur with this, if there could be someway on the backend to have listings could not include a manual if the game originally didn't so Price Charting isn't giving those games fake manual prices that would be great. It was rare but happened through previous console generations, like PS3 there's a few but I've heard of a few 90s and even some 80s games that didn't have one, but now it's a lot more common with PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS Vita and even 3DS (which most the time do not have game manuals and instead just generic promotional booklets and safety booklets) and I imagine sadly, this is how physical releases will be 99% of the time, so it's a safe bet PS5, Xbox Series X and any other future systems will be the same.
We are no longer recording "manual only" prices on modern consoles like Switch, PS4, and Xbox One.
We do record prices on 3DS games because some of them do have manuals.
I would love to get a list of games without manuals so we can eliminate those manual only prices and mark them in our "item details" sections as being games without manuals.
Any idea where to get such a list? Or how to tell which games didn't have manuals originally?
I've only had a quick look and sadly I cannot seem to find a list of specific games from older generations that did not include manuals.
One specific game I know that doesn't have a physical manual is Tales of Symphonia Chronicles for PS3 (NTSC/Collector's Edition & PAL) because I was cataloging my collection and my copy missing a manual seemed odd, and all the sales I looked up were also missing one and the best I got were forum posts of people asking and others confirming yes, that game had no manual.
So it might be the case that users will have to manually report which games never came with physical manuals (or possibly find a list), I'm sure the list of pre-8th generation video games that didn't have manuals is small, likely why there's no comprehensive list, but I'm sure others would like to have those listings updated.
EDIT : Just a small heads up, I noticed the PAL versions of PS4, Xbox One & Switch are still recording "manual only" prices, I can confirm the PAL versions also do not include manuals (unless there's some rare edge cases I'm not aware of) so those would also need to be updated to stop recording "manual only" prices.
Tales of Symphonia Chronicles for PS3
USA Standart version: does not come with a manual
USA Collector version: have a manual
PAL Euro Standart: have a manual and a registration card
PAL Euro Collector: have a manual and a registration card
Since there is no list out there, the only way I found is to watch the unboxing videos on youtube
Personally, I consider the promotional booklets and safety booklets as manuals, because even though they are not manuals, I do not consider CIB if those booklets are missing.
The problem with booklets or dlc codes is that when the game is released it can include a promotional booklet for a specific game, but months later in other copies it may no longer include that promotional booklet or change for other newer games. The same applies to gift codes for skins, maps, cars, etc.
I think it would be very complex to keep a solid record of the possible different versions.
Even in Sega Genesis there are manuals in color and others in black & white of the same game.