What happened to physical instruction booklets?

I was going through the cases from some of my older games that I haven't played lately, and it reminded me about how we used to get full, physical instruction manuals in games. Now it seems like they're all digital. I can understand it for PC or download games, of course, but I kind of miss getting a physical instruction booklet for retail console games. I mean, it's usually pretty self-explanatory how to play games now anyway, I just liked looking through them at the art and stuff. I don't know why, I just kind of miss that.

You can still get games with art books & that it's just you usually have to pay for the special butt load edition is all. But yea; I agree. I miss the days of physical intro booklets. I've been seeing a ton of them since investing in a Xbox 360 and a bunch of 360 games. But I haven't bought a new Wii U or 3DS game since Pokemon Omega Ruby or Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. xp You can still see the instructions if you click on the game & hit a certain button but it's still not the same. =/

^ That's true, but I don't really want to pay money for it, I just enjoyed looking through them when I first got a game, or after not playing them for awhile. I mean, I guess their main purpose was to inform you about how to play the game, which isn't really needed as much now, but I still miss them.

I have to admit, I hadn't really noticed their absence  . But, now that you mention them, I do miss them a bit.

I know...
First huge manuals, then small manuals, now nothing.
It really annoys me.

I also enjoyed those books back in the day. There's no need for them now though since the media has full guides up for new games fast and most people would rather jump into the game now.

I loved them, especially those translated to another language than English or Japanese. Reading the manual in Danish or German never gets old to me. It was nice to see some artwork for the game too, and you sometimes found things that you didn't know about.