Civilization V's Social Responsibility (Community feature; manual example; 31 Aug)

[The_J]

It seems, that Greg is busy at the moment, so i post it:
From here:

When creating a game about the rise of mankind from lone settlers to global superpowers, one cannot help but reflect on the responsibility we all have to take care of the world we live in.

Civilization has been around for a long time, and has responsibilities and respect for its audience that many games don’t have the opportunity to garner. So we decided that instead of a few extra print ads or banners, we’d cut out a portion of what we were doing from the marketing budget and apply it to what is important to you and what is important to us. Civilization V strives to be a more socially responsible game. Here’s what we’re doing:

1. 2K Games is donating $250,000 to four education-based charities, and you, the customer, will determine how the money is dispersed! Simply select your choice from the pre-selected charities during the game’s installation. We’ll tally up the total percentages and disperse the funds as our customers have directed.
2. We’ve made the formerly 200+ page printed manual an improved interactive PDF. This PDF manual allows you to click on screenshots to see them clearer than thumbnails, navigate much easier with clickable links, and most importantly, look forward to manual updates as we make changes to the game. But don’t take my word for it; I have a sample of the manual for you to check out: Click here to see the sample. Included in the retail copies is a small quick-start manual to get you up and running as quickly as possible.
3. All of the paper included in the retail box is recycled paper with 30% post-consumer waste. We’ve removed all solvent inks in favor of soy and UV based inks. Even the box itself is a recyclable box called the BioBox (read about it here!)

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

I'm glad they at least included a rather impressive looking manual in the form of a PDF. However, that money ripped from the advertising budget should go towards game development as far as I'm concerned.

Education, who needs it?

Edit: Gunships can fly over ice and coastal waters, and embark just like ground units do.

 

[Terefor]

Awesome!

 

[2K Greg]

Thanks for posting this The J; I got pulled away from my desk right after I got that up and haven't gotten a chance to put it out to the usual suspects yet!

 

[The_J]

Sorry, would not have posted it, if i had known that you would directly come back.
I only saw that it was posted at Civ5.com and that you're neither here nor at the 2K forums online, so i didn't know if you have maybe something else more important to do right at the moment.

 

[12agnar0k]

Well this finally answers the manual question for people wanting to know, I'm well not actually bothered that much about the enviroment, but I am getting a digital copy so my footprint is very low anyways, so lots of work on a PDF manual that digital copies will get too sounds good to me.

 

[D712]

This wonderful to hear. Makes me proud to buy from 2K

 

[The_J]

Aaaaaahhhh.....you will not believe it, but i had not really read, that there is said that there is NO printed manual.

Now i'm seriously pissed.
Putting the environment in front as main argument is one of the most blatant things i've ever seen, but has been predicted by insiders of the gaming bussiness (in common, i mean, not at Civ5 focussed).

 

[12agnar0k]

Meh, its a good step in the right direction for humanity, we need our trees you know .

 

[The_J]

It's nicely packaged hypocrisy.
I'm sure BMW will also announce that they will not put anymore airbags in their cars, because with the oil needed for the plastics you could run a diesel generator in a poor african town for 2 weeks.

Bah .

 

[bjbrains]

The_J, 2K could give away 50% of their profits to charity and you'd still find something to whine about.

 

[Afforess]

Meh, its a good step in the right direction for humanity, we need our trees you know .

Paper doesn't kill trees anymore. Paper comes from specialized tree farms that are dedicated to raising fast growing trees then harvesting then. It's a complete misconception that paper kills trees. If anything - buying paper encourages tree farms to add more trees.

 

[chaotoroboto]

It's nicely packaged hypocrisy.
I'm sure BMW will also announce that they will not put anymore airbags in their cars, because with the oil needed for the plastics you could run a diesel generator in a poor african town for 2 weeks.

Bah .

The difference of course being that airbags save lives and manuals don't?

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Greg I looked at the table of contents and I'm rather concerned that I don't see even a small heading for a description of the MP interface, even the Civ4 manual had that. So I'm hoping that your example is just a mockup and not the real thing.

CS

 

[sdlufkin]

Jeez, The_J, at least they MADE a nice, meaty 230 page manual for us to read through, we just can't read it in the car at traffic lights on the way home from buying Civ, or take it to the bathroom (unless you have a Kindle or some other e-reader, of course, or if you print it out first).

They could have NOT made any sort of manual, after all. And there will be a small "quick play" style guide (which is ALL we get from most games these days) in the box, after all.

And for those folks who order it off Steam and were NEVER getting a physical manaual? This one is really nice, and now everyone gets a win on this. Donating the saved $ to charity? Perfect, now I can actually feel GOOD about buying Civ V rather than just selfishly excited!

 

[marioflag]

The nice thing is that they are going to update manual so that it will not become obsolete after a few patches. Let's hope 2K keep up its word.

 

[Zhahz]

In these days of digital distribution they have to make a PDF manual anyways and I'd rather see one that's well done instead of one that's basically just a scan of a printed manual.

And, since a large portion of sales will be digital, why bother with a paper manual, especially when it can't be updated, is most likely out-of-date the moment the game ships, and takes up space.

Change happens. Resist and be miserable or move forward.

Note, I don't buy the whole charity spin - that's kinda BS. Most corporations make charitable donations for PR they write off instead of paying pure tax dollars. There aren't many corporations that give anything away. Please.

 

[Centurio]

What a considerate move on the part of the developers. It's nice to see public relations people using good moral decisions to try to improve their company's public image, rather than, say, putting their game characters on cans of Mountain Dew.

 

[CleverFool]

Print manuals are so shoddy and basic these days that I can't say I mind that they're going digital. It looks and sounds like the online will be very in depth, so I much prefer that to a 20 page paper one.

Gone are the days when there were massive, nicely illustrated manuals; compare Star Craft II's to the awesome original.

And its a nice move on 2k's part to spread some money around to worthy causes. Few developers do such, and its nice to see at least one making an attempt. Kudos to them.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It seems the PDF manual is out of date already (cities only working hexes 2 away)