Steam and Prima have teamed up to free you from the shame of purchasing strategy guides at retail, with a selection of downloadable guides you can launch directly from Steam’s UI overlay.
Whether you’re having trouble with the final boss battle in Dragon Age: Origins, or you can’t figure out where you’re being sniped at from in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Steam and Prima have you covered. The first batch of six in-game Prima guides go up for sale on Steam today, allowing players to download and read at their leisure, or pop them open directly in the Steam overlay, where they can quickly be hidden from view in case you have company.
Each guide costs $US19.99, but in celebration of the launch, each is currently half off, or $US9.99.
I buy strategy guides myself, mainly because I enjoy having a physical record of the games I’ve played. That, and they look very nice on my bookshelf. In my case, downloadable strategy guides are a waste, but for others they could be a real lifesaver.
Prima Strategy Guides [Steam - Thanks Jon!]
Old_Skool_Gamer
Friday, May 21, 2010 at 9:32 AMWhy pay for it when you can get it for free on gamefaqs.com for example.
CyK
Friday, May 21, 2010 at 10:20 AMCos you have to dig through user created guides without pretty pictures! Yeah Gamefaq rocks, a lot of the users have way too much time to dissect games to the level they do. Pity they don’t put more effort into their visuals (maps)
Mr Waffle
Friday, May 21, 2010 at 12:52 PMlol pay for guides, that’s funny. I just load up gamefaqs on my iPhone. Hey, a portable strategy guide that didn’t cost me a cent, hooray!
Now if only I had an iPad, it’d be even better…
The Cracks
Friday, May 21, 2010 at 3:19 PMThe major problem I have with physical guide books is that they become woefully out of date all too soon, and cost far more than they are worth. Just look at any WoW guidebook. WoW is patched so often that these books are likely out of date within two months.
Mic
Friday, May 21, 2010 at 7:47 PMThere’s a difference between MMOs and normal games.
I’ve got a couple of them for games that I particularly liked (Smash Brothers Melee) and/or were cheap (Perfect Dark (2 bucks!)) and
Tyris
Friday, May 21, 2010 at 6:13 PMThis is a good idea (well, its an old idea that someone has finally done!). But $20USD per guide? Thats 50% of the cost of most of the games… and since you miss out on the physical book: a complete rip off.
Strand0410
Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 2:59 AM$20 USD for a digital (probably PDF) guide? Sounds like a bargain!