Last updated: August 16, 2022
I'm a weirdo, okay. I buy used PS3 games off the local mall next to my workplace. It's cheaper than I expected and fun to build a collection. The problem is they're games for the PS3, a console that has a successor which has a successor, it's pretty old, Sony almost axed the digital store for it, etc.
Now I bought a used copy of Sonic Generations, and it has a manual. Page 1 of the NA manual says:
That's stupid, but I key it on my phone— website not found. Great.
I figure it might be archived on the Wayback Machine. A couple snapshots were from 2015, very promis— ah shoot they all loaded a Not Found page. Fun. Okay, I'll check Internet Archive. Nadda. Replacementdocs. Nope. Google? Nothing. Had to ask on a Discord server and in minutes a kind soul linked me the manual, hosted by Sonic Retro. Finally, the goose hunt was over, I got a PDF that should've been printed in the box instead of the packaged lite manual. It couldn't have hurt, it was just a couple pages extra, damnit.
This is not the only game that has a defunct link to an official online manual. To my knowledge, Tales of Symphonia Chronicles, GTA V and Sleeping Dogs also suffer from this exact issue; they ship with stripped down manuals and the full thing is on a link that doesn't work anymore. Who knows how many more manuals met this fate, PS3 or otherwise?
Not that anyone bothers to print full manuals these days, but if you were going to put in the effort to print in a light manual, one or two extra paper sheets could've been used for the full thing, and it'll be shipped in a physical copy instead of forgotten on some rotting server that will be overhauled in the long run. The fact that different publishers didn't even bother to keep these manuals up or set up redirects to a new download server show their inability to treat their own games' paraphernalia and goodies with respect and care — kind of frightening because it usually extends to the very games, too.
Especially weird for Sonic Generations, a game that celebrates Sonic's then 20-year long history from his 1991 beginnings on the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive up until 2010's Colors. In four years or less, with the PS3 only one generation old (pun unintended), the manual for this system's version of Sonic's 20th Anniversary flagship went down.
Please print the full manual in physical games if you're still doing that and keep the file servers up for downloading PDF files of old games. Failing that, more effort should be put into keeping those manuals from vanishing into the ether by archivists.
And please, stop doing those interactive web manuals. They only look cool for a few years before they go 404.
ADDENDUM: ToS Chronicles was relocated to this URL on a new Bandai Namco server for some reason. Sleeping Dogs was hosted on manualplanet.com. These finds were only possible thanks to the people at RPCS3 and The Eye Discord servers, but in all honesty I shouldn't have to ask people online to get a bunch of manuals.