Doublejump books guides

[Auspice]

In the past I've been really impressed with DJ's guides but lately it seems they are going into a tailspin. The Persona guide which is advertised in the fucking game case has been delayed to an unknown time and DJ is considering charging up to $45 for it.

FOURTY FIVE DOLLARS FOR A FUCKING STRAT GUIDE.

Everyone knows about Square Enix tax on handhelds games but DJ charging more for the guide than it costs to buy the game is absolutely insane. That must be why their guides are disappearing from retail and most places aren't stocking them. A quick search on their site shows half a dozen of their guides hitting $40+. Are they trying to go out of business?

tl;dr use gamefaqs/etc I know, I know. I just like having print guides with my games for sake of completion and collecting purposes.

[Moridam]

Haven't seen anything they've done recently, but I remember at least a few years ago DJ guides were always top-notch. Most of the games they covered at that time tended to be pretty obscure, so I assume they were relatively small print runs and vanished from shelves pretty quickly anyway.

It sounds like they're only doing the paper version as print-on-demand though, which would explain the (potentially) higher price.

[Atreides]

For the most part DJ guides are well worth it, at least in comparison to the ABYSMAL bradygames, although it seems like these days a lot of guide publishers (DJ included, see below) are fraught with typos and errors, and often include information that is flat out wrong.

I'm guessing this is because they are rushing the guide to come along with the game, and they don't get their review copies ahead of time enough to produce a high enough quality product. With the amount of effort gamestop spends to 'attach' a guide sale to a game, for companies like Bradygames having their books out on release date is extremely lucrative since it's technically an impulse purchase, and their sales in the case of a delayed guide probably sink to a very small fraction of what's possible on release day. They know they have a monopoly so a few complaints about shitty guides won't mean much if people still want guides in general.

Like I said, DJ isn't immune to this: there are a few sections in the Persona 4 guide, for example, that are just copied blocks of text from elsewhere in the chapter/page. However, the guide is very comprehensive and does well to give you information without overtly leading you through the game. Then again, their Rogue Galaxy guide is unbelievably in-depth, and like most DJ guides is huge with full color pages, and is worth every penny.

DJ delaying their guide can only be a good thing, as for the most part their product is usually top notch. DJ is to guides is what Atlus is to games: small, niche market, high quality stuff. If they're delaying it's probably for a good reason, to ensure the information in the book is as comprehensive as correct as possible.

45 bucks seems a bit steep so I'd guess that's probably them just talking it up so that people might buy it even though it's coming out after release date.

[Auspice]

I thought I remembered reading that DJ used to work hand in hand with Atlus and NIS and that's why the guides were so awesome. I don't know if this is true or not but if DJ got hosed on working with Atlus that would explain the delay on the guide. :/