My vote goes for Bethesda. They will know the game better and will probably make less mistakes, and they will for sure make more profit themselves. They made 70% profit on the Morrowind Guide where most of the time it's 20%-30% royalties. Here's the wiki article

"In a break from standard industry practice, Bethesda decided to publish their strategy guide in-house, rather than contracting it out to a third party publisher like BradyGames or Prima Games. The decision resulted from a belief among Bethesda staff that they believed in and understood Morrowind more than any external agency, and deserved more royalties than were commonly rewarded. Bethesda hired Peter Olafson, a noted game journalist and friend of the company, and they began work on the guide in January 2002, four months prior to release. The resulting product, Morrowind Prophecies Strategy Guide, sold over 200,000 copies as of September 24, 2003. Although the royalties from most third-party game publishers approach 25% to 30% only infrequently, Bethesda managed a 70% profit margin on their own. In spite of this success, Bethesda decided to allow Prima Games to publish the "official" game guide for the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion."

Bethesda and they should write it AFTER the game is 100% done.

People buy these?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page

No idea why people still buy strategy guides. To me it's like a thing from the past.

All the info is available for free online at anytime, so why on earth would you pay for a paper version that might have errors (and cannot be updated).

THIS!

This a thousand times.

But if I had to choose, it would be Prima. Their guides are beyond awesome.

I don’t know because Ive never looked at one.

This forum and the wiki are my strategy guide. :goodjob:

I don't really care for guides, especially in Beth games when I want to experience it for myself, but if it makes more money for Bethesda and keeps people off the forums asking stupid questions, they should go ahead.

I also agree with a62172. Why pay for something you can get for free?

exactly what goes on through my mind
wait a day and they'll be a better guide on internet, or you could *gasp* actually play the game

Some people would like to have a physical object for a reference. This allows them not to be dependant on the internet (some people have limited/no access to it).

UESP, meaning everyone

I however like guides to certain games such as Elder Scrolls for a quick referance without getting online, I also see alot of people buy guides when I go to Gamestop.

For me it just a good reference. I like having strategy guides for games I really like (such as New Vegas). Besides, I'm one of those people that have to hold a book in their hand instead of reading online :shrug: It also has all the screenshots and tips that you can read right there instead of looking all over the wiki. It may not be the most practical thing, but it's just how I do it.

It is a good referance and its all there not to mention fast, I just really like them only for certain games like: Fallout3 And Fallout NV, as well as Morrowind and Oblivion. I like them for referance in big game worlds only.

The main guy (Forget his name.) who wrote Morrowind Prophecies was a guest speaker in a class I went to while attending the Art Institute of California, San Francisco. Much of that guide was written without actually playing the game. He dug through the construction set. A LOT. In order to find the locations of all the items and map out the way to solve quests and such. This was... 2003? I think? Maybe late 2002. I had so many questions for him, and he was happy to answer.

I typically don't use strategy guides, but I own the TES strategy guides. Why? I'm not really sure. The look good on the shelf?

I agree with this. It's just nice to have everything right there in front of you when you are playing a large game like The Elder Scrolls or Fallout.



Truthfully, this is another reason why I have the guides. :sadvaultboy:

[quote name='Lucky38' timestamp='1294893552' post='16975939']
I agree with this. It's just nice to have everything right there in front of you when you are playing a large game like The Elder Scrolls or Fallout.



Yeah and for games like these is only when I use them I like some others to read for fun or the artwork as I love art, but if I need a guide its only for big titles. For other games I just use the web if need be.

For the three people out there that still buy strategy guides, I think that all game developers/publishers should write their own strategy guides. From my experience, both Prima and BradyGames use beta versions of the game to get their info so they can get their guide out on the same day as the game. This often leads to blatantly untrue info in the guides. In my honest opinion, if you're using either a Prima guide or Brady guide for anything other than toilet paper, you're using it incorrectly.

Personally I wasn't all that fond of the Morrowind guide. Prima did an amazing job with the Fallout guides though, so I think Bethesda should just stick with them

Prima.

UESPWiki would be my first choice, but otherwise, Prima makes some of the best guides I've come across, so them.

*snickers*

This. The only one I have is for Redguard from back in the day because it was a dollar, and had nice art.

Strat guides are good reading material. Plus all the info wont be online until a month or so after the game releases, unless they just copy it from the guide. Plus I don't want to keep running to the computer, when I can have this handy guide in front of me. Usually though, I only use the guide for character creation.

4 months prior to release the game IS done.

Strategy guide? Yeah let me pay you to ruin any chance I have of enjoying a second play through by discovering something new I didn't find out in the first play through. Strategy guides are for gamers cheaters that like "doing it all" in one play through and bust out cheats before ever beating the game.