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Strategy GuideStrategy guides are instructions that contain hints or complete solutions to specific games. The exact meaning of a "strategy guide" these days is very vague, as most could be easily ranked as "walkthroughs" or "hint collections". The term "strategy guide" is widely used for printed, comprehensive walkthrough/hint collection — either a book or a booklet. Oftentimes, some game magazines publish individual articles that are called "strategy guides", though these are typically better termed walkthroughs or hint collections. The strategy guide books or booklets are typically sold through game retailers. In cases of exceptionally popular game titles, they are sold through more mainstream publication channels, such as book stores or even news stands. The strategy guides are typically reasonably cheaply priced, and often sold at lower price if purchased with the game itself. Sometimes, these bundles of game and strategy guide are very heavily marketed. Some game retailer chains, for example, have gained notoriety for trying as hard as possible to sell such bundles, even to the point where customers find it intrusive. The strategy guides are not limited to strategy games; they are quite common with computer role-playing games and most of the action games as well. Strategy guides are typically published by game distributors themselves, though some game distributors delegate the task of producing the strategy guide to publishing house that specialises on it. Prima Games, a division of Random House, is a well known example, known for their Prima's Strategy Guides. (They quite possibly popularised the term "strategy guide" in this meaning.) This kind of guides are usually marketed as the "official" strategy guides. There are also a number of publishers who make third-party, "unofficial" strategy guides. The labelling is mostly marketing-related; it implies that the "official" strategy guides are superior in quality compared to unofficial guides or fan-made walkthroughs. This is naturally often the case, but there have always been exceptions to the rule. The contents of a strategy guide varies from game genre to another. Typically, the guides contain - detailed gameplay information, for example, maneuvers that are not detailed in the manual
- complete maps of the game, which show the placement of all items (including hidden and hard-to-find ones)
- detailed instructions for specific locations on how to proceed from there
- explanations of puzzles
- details of enemies, including techniques on defeating individual enemies (especially "boss" monsters)
- checklist of collectable items
Strategy guides (or video game hint/solution books of any kind) have a long history, dating back from the earliest complex and "difficult" games. Some of the earliest examples include Infocom's maps and InvisiClues hintbooks. In the recent years, the strategy guides are still thriving, but have practically been also largely shadowed by the fan-written guides published on the Internet. Of special note are walkthrough sites (such as GameFAQs). 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. They also cannot be updated after they are published. Because of this, they often are not as accurate or detailed as free, fan-made FAQs or walkthroughs located online. Strategy guides are sometimes published before the subject game itself is published. This can be risky because there is always the chance that a game will end up not being released. In January 2001, Prima published a guide (ISBN 0761531254) for the Dreamcast version of Half-Life that was cancelled late in development when Sega discontinued the console. The rise of the world wide web and the increasing availability of free online FAQs and walkthroughs has taken away some of the need for commercial strategy guides. However, there is still a large market for them. Strategy guides often feature extensive picture-by-picture walkthroughs, maps, game art, and other visual features that cannot be provided by a bare text online walkthrough.
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