Announced last week, gaming giant Ubisoft will no longer be shipping manuals in their future releases. Starting with Shaun White Skateboarding you can count on in-game digital versions only.

According to the official release, producing the roughly one ton of paper needed to create a manual means consuming 13 trees and emitting roughly 6000 pounds of carbon dioxide. In addition, the 28 million BTUs of net energy could be used to heat and power the average home for approximately one year.

A few big names in the industry have voiced an opinion on the green initiative. Larry Herb (Major Nelson) gave us his take..”Game manuals stopped being useful about 10-years ago. It’s mostly legal/warranty text in 4 languages now..” Cliff Bleszinski hopped on the tree-hugger bus with his twitter supporting the decision stating he “fully supports losing paper manuals.”

While the always quotable David Jaffe had this to say… “HATE the idea of losing paper manuals. Great manuals add to the experience and – when you are a kid – make the car ride home from the store where you got the game bearable. I LOVED pouring over great game manuals as a kid.”

Sounds like an Earth Day win for environmentalists, but yet another experience stripped from the hands of current and future gamers.

What’s your take? Should everyone sacrifice for the common good? If so, when will  all manuals be going digital only? What about Box Art, how many trees go down for that? With Digital Distribution rearing its head once again I have to ask, is this just another nail in the coffin?