Ubisoft has announced that their paper manuals will be replaced by in-game manuals for all future PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 titles, citing environmental reasons.
“Ubisoft internal data shows that producing one ton of paper used in Ubisoft’s game manuals consumes an average of two tons of wood from 13 trees, with a net energy of 28 million BTU’s (equivalent to average heating and energy for one home/year), greenhouse gases equivalent of over 6,000 lbs of CO2, and wastewater of almost 15,000 gallons,” the press release states.
As yet, there is no equivalent data regarding additional energy usage by players reading in-game manuals on their hardware rather than offline.
This may be good news for trees, but it’s a sad day for PC users. They will no longer be able to spend time reading a manual when the company’s DRM incorrectly boots them out of a game.
In a second environmental initiative, Ubisoft’s future PC titles in North America will come in a “100 percent-recycled polypropylene ‘ecoTech’ DVD case.”
