Prima Games, the publishing company that has printed video game strategy guides since it was founded in 1990, is shutting down, parent company DK said yesterday. The label will no longer publish new guides starting now, and it will officially shutter in the spring.
Thanks to the rise of sites like GameFAQs—and major gaming publications like IGN commissioning their own online guides, which bring in monstrous amounts of traffic—print strategy guides have struggled for years now. In 2015, Prima purchased and swallowed its biggest competitor, BradyGames, and has been consistently churning out guides for both print and the web, but it wasn’t enough to survive what the company called “a significant decline” in the world of print video game guides.
Anyone who grew up devouring old strategy guides will no doubt feel bummed out about this. But in a world where video games are changing constantly, through patches and updates, print guides can be out-of-date before they even hit the shelves. At least we’ll always have Final Fantasy IX.