Strategy guides are instruction books that contain hints or complete solutions to specific video games . The line between strategy guides and video game walkthroughs is somewhat blurred, with the former often containing or being written around the latter. Strategy guides are often published in print, both in book form and also as articles within video game magazines . In cases of exceptionally popular game titles, guides may be sold through more mainstream publication channels, such as bookstores or even newsstands. Some publishers also sell E-Book versions on their websites.
26-406: Strategy guides marketed as "official" are written by game distributors themselves or licensed to a specialty publishing house; Prima Games and Piggyback Interactive specialise in writing official guides for various companies. There are also a number of publishers who make unlicensed, "unofficial" strategy guides, and many of today's mainstream publishers began by making such guides. The contents of
52-459: A partnership with Nintendo in 2007, creating several official game guides over the years (such as for Super Mario Galaxy , Super Mario Galaxy 2 , and Super Mario Odyssey .). They contained gameplay tips, walkthroughs, and canon lore. Some of these even featured never-before-seen concept art. In 2009, Prima Games decided to take the expert strategy concept an additional step. First, they hired The Syndicate (its own independent studio) in place of
78-624: A special Sonic the Hedgehog book for Sega and two Earthworm Jim strategy guides. DeMaria served as the principal author and creative director of Secrets of the Games between 1990 and 1996. He also was the editor on several books by other authors. In 2005, Prima introduced electronic distribution of gaming guides. In 2006, Prima Games undertook an effort to improve the quality of MMORPG strategy guides. Historically those had largely consisted of charts of data, maps and basic instructions. What they were lacking
104-625: A specific author. The guides would be written from the ground up solely by The Syndicate. They filled the role of writer, author, project management and editor. Second, the scope of the guides they worked on was expanded from just MMOs to include FPS, RTS and RPG games. In 2010, Prima started selling their strategy guides on Steam . In 2013, Prima parent company Random House merged with Penguin Group , owner of competing strategy guide imprint BradyGames , to form Penguin Random House . On June 1, 2015, it
130-570: A strategy guide varies between game genres. Typically, the guides contain: In order to be released at the same time as the game, commercial strategy guides are often based on a pre-release version of the game, rather than the final retail version; BradyGames' guide for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas included misplaced item locations and a slightly different map, which made some directions impossible to follow. BradyGames rectified such mistakes by offering free errata pages for download from their website . Strategy guides are sometimes published before
156-433: Is significant. One perspective argues that walkthroughs are shared stories for gamers and game fans. In creating walkthroughs, gamers actively create meaning for the games. This is similar to activities of traditional media such as books, films and television (e.g., Fan Fiction ). The increasing availability of free online FAQs and walkthroughs has taken away some of the demand for commercial strategy guides, although there
182-445: Is still a large market for them. Print guides often feature extensive picture-by-picture walkthroughs, maps, and game art, none of which is possible in the plain-text works hosted by prominent sites such as GameFAQs . Some newer sites allow strategy guides to be hosted in formats that allow pictures and videos, which further undercuts the advantages of print strategy guides. Some publishers have tried combining their printed books with
208-440: Is user generated and not published by the company. A number of other sites contain strategy guides, and videos in a number of niche areas, such as Role Playing Games or First Person Shooters. These sites may attract a more limited set of viewers, but can include more depth of content. Video-sharing sites such as YouTube have given rise to video walkthroughs using programs such as Fraps , which allows players to more easily mirror
234-542: The Internet . In 2000 , the Final Fantasy IX Official Strategy Guide was published by BradyGames, but much of the information was contained on Square's PlayOnline website. This seemed like a good way to promote PlayOnline, while creating a guide that would have updatable content, but it was widely panned. Players saw no need of buying a book if a significant part of the content was online; and there
260-558: The United States . Formerly, Prima was an imprint of Dorling Kindersley , a division of Penguin Random House , and produced print strategy guides, featuring in-depth walkthroughs for completing games and other information, such as character sheets and move charts. Prima was acquired by Asteri Holdings in March 2019, which will transition the business to provide strategy guides in online form only, alongside other gaming news. The company
286-451: The Dragon , The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask , and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 , along with new intellectual properties such as Deus Ex , Jet Set Radio , Perfect Dark , Skies of Arcadia , The Sims , SSX , Vagrant Story , and Sin and Punishment . The year's best-selling home video games worldwide were Pokémon games for the third year in a row ( since 1998 ), while
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#1733084537115312-436: The documentation that ArenaNet generates internally." Information on the wiki is integrated into the game, allowing players to access information from in game. Although the wiki is hosted by ArenaNet, the site is run and moderated by the community and contributions are released under GNU Free Document License (GDFL) similar to sites such as Misplaced Pages. Aside from the quality of the content, the community aspect of fan walkthroughs
338-543: The following titles were the top ten best-selling console games of 2000. In Japan, the following titles were the top ten highest-grossing arcade games of 2000. Series with new installments include Age of Empires , Banjo-Kazooie , Command & Conquer , Diablo , Excite , Final Fantasy , Grandia , The Legend of Zelda , Madden NFL , Marvel vs. Capcom , Mega Man Legends , Monkey Island , Mortal Kombat , Need for Speed , Persona , Pokémon , Resident Evil , Ridge Racer , Sonic
364-556: The game itself is published. This can be risky because there is always the chance that a game will end up not being released. For example, in January 2001 , Prima published a guide ( ISBN 0-7615-3125-4 ) for the Dreamcast version of Half-Life , which was canceled late in development when Sega discontinued the console . Online strategy guides and FAQs are hosted at sites such as GameFAQs and IGN FAQs , though much of this content
390-562: The highest-grossing arcade game in Japan was Virtua Striker 2 . The list of game-related hardware released in 2000. The following titles won Game of the Year awards for 2000. The following video game releases in 2000 entered Famitsu magazine's "Platinum Hall of Fame" for receiving Famitsu scores of at least 35 out of 40. Metacritic (MC) and GameRankings (GR) are aggregators of video game journalism reviews. The following titles were
416-403: The market; "[previously] strategy guides were published after a game was released so that they could be accurate, even to the point of including information changes from late game 'patch' releases. The Master of Orion official strategy guide that Tom Hughes and I wrote is just that kind of book." Prima Games Prima Games is a publishing company of video game strategy guides in
442-432: The overall site such as IGN Wikis . While most wikis are considered unofficial and not supported by the developer, some developers may choose to do so for various reasons. These reasons may include resolving copyright issues and real world trading that may be found on unofficial wikis. For example, ArenaNet hosts an official wiki for Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 , citing that "it's often more complete and useful than
468-721: The print operations and instead have Prima provide game strategy guides in online form as well as expanding into gaming news. The company was acquired by GAMURS Group in January 2022. 2000 in video gaming The year 2000 saw the release of numerous video games as well as the launch of the PlayStation 2 . Critically acclaimed games originally released in 2000 include sequels such as Madden NFL 2001 , NBA Live 2001 , NBA 2K1 , WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role , Baldur's Gate II , Diablo II , Dragon Quest VII , Final Fantasy IX , Metal Gear: Ghost Babel , NFL 2K1 , Resident Evil – Code: Veronica , Spyro: Year of
494-596: The staff of GamePro . The initial contract called for five books – the first ones being Nintendo Games Secrets , Sega Genesis Games Secrets , Turbografx Games Secrets , Game Boy Games Secrets and The Official Lucasfilm Games Air Combat Strategies Book . Notable titles included Myst: The Official Strategy Guide , which sold in excess of 1.25 million copies in all versions, The 7th Guest: The Official Strategy Guide , X-Wing: The Official Strategy Guide , TIE Fighter: The Official Strategy Guide , Secret of Mana Game Secrets , Prince of Persia: The Official Strategy Guide ,
520-424: The strategies being described. These videos are re-posted to a number of sites. Video game wikis are used as both strategy guides and documentation. Content is generated and edited completely by users. Wikis allow for information to updated if a developer introduced a new patch to the game. Wiki farms such as Fandom and Gamepedia host a large number of unofficial video game wikis while wikis can be integrated into
546-496: The top ten best-selling home video games of 2000 in Japan, the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. The following titles were the top ten highest-grossing home video games of 2000 in the United States and Europe. In Japan, the following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games of 2000. In the United States, the following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games of 2000. The following titles were
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#1733084537115572-489: The year's top six highest-grossing home video game franchises in the United States, in terms of video game software sales revenue. In Europe, the following titles were the top ten highest-grossing home video games of 2000. In the United Kingdom and France, the following titles were the best-selling home video games of 2000. In Germany, the following titles were the best-selling home video games of 2000. In Australia,
598-453: Was acquired by GAMURS Group in January 2022. Prima Publishing was a small publisher working out of a residential-style home office in Roseville, California when in 1990 its owner, Ben Dominitz, contracted with author Rusel DeMaria to create a video game strategy guide imprint, initially called "The Secrets of the Games". At the time, DeMaria was senior editor for PC Games magazine and on
624-563: Was announced that the two imprints would merge, and continue to operate solely under the Prima Games brand. Prima has also worked with developers directly to create guides like Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar . Penguin Random House announced in November 2018 that it has decided to close Prima Games by Q2 2019. However, by March 14, 2019, the division was acquired by Asteri Holdings, which will shutter
650-588: Was expert strategy content. Prima worked with the online gaming community known as The Syndicate (www.LLTS.org) who was very large, well known and well connected with developers. That partnership resulted in a shift in how strategy guides were written. They began to be less of a data dump and more of a deep strategy. Examples of this can be seen in the LOTRO, Pirates of the Burning Seas, Vanguard, Warhammer Online and other similar guides from 2006 through 2009. Prima entered
676-444: Was no point paying for online content from one site, if it was available for free on another site. As a result, Square abandoned the online strategy guide concept and released traditional printed guides for future games. Games journalist and guide writer Alan Emrich has severely criticized recent strategy guides for: The faults, he says, are mainly caused by the game publishers' and guide publishers' haste to get their products on to
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