I have owned just two player's guides in my day, one was the official Mario Kart 64 guide which I bought used for next to nothing and had excellent maps with details on how to do secrets like jumping the wall in that Wario level, which I became quite good at. The other guide I had was the Star Fox 64 guide, which I bought because it had some neat pull out diagrams of the various ships found in the games and detailed background information on each of the characters. This was back when I had dial up internet, and again I only spent a couple of bucks on it. Both guides were purchased well after beating the game numerous times. I concede that for RPGs where the guides have useful details on the various items a guide might be a nice companion. For my part though, I still think they are a horrible waste of money and have nothing that a nice IGN guide doesn't offer for free. They had their time back before the days of internet, but I am surprised there is still a market for them today. One other thing I realize though, is that I have a laptop with wireless internet, which means I can have my coputer sitting on the couch next to me when I play my games. Someone who is bound to a desktop in another room of their home I can see being more partial to a nice full color printed and bound guide.