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What's your preferred way to learn the ins-and-outs of a video game? Are you the kind of person who will meticulously read the digital instruction manual before playing, trust in the tutorials to see you through anything complicated - whether you want them to or not - or just go in blind and pick it up as you go along? Does your approach vary by genre, and if so, which genres do you feel you need more instruction on? Are there any games you feel could have used more comprehensive tutorials in them?

I skip every single tutorial, have no idea what to do, then consult a guide online when I get sick of not knowing what to do.

Follows in-game tutorials. Turns to the internet, if necessary. (One example of the latter: whistling in Sword/Shield. Why would you make pressing the left stick an option?)

Mostly in-game tutorials, although I occasionally just speed through them and will need to look to the internet for help later on.

The only games I read manuals are the Zachtronics games in which the game is made to not really have a lot of tutorials and is designed around the idea that you have the manuals handy.

most of the time with games I play the controls are similar, so I go in full blind expecting them to be the same, figure out it's not, then spend an hour changing controls till they are.

mechanics and everything i figure out on my own... im way too lazy for guides or manuals

I don't like complicated gameplay and when a game puts me through tons and tons of textboxes of tutorial then I usually don't bother reading. Instead I just try to pick up stuff by playing the game and after a while when I'm so frustrated at how cumbersome it has become, I start to look up guides on how to play the game.

I prefer self experimentation.

Though, growing up on the SNES and Sega Genesis and Growing up further on the N64, we weren't given the tutorials you see today; we had manual's, though I kinda didn't care as a kind and even now as an adult, I still don't care.

I can understand if a game has added element's that make it different from the norm to have a tutorial, which is the only time I would consider a tutorial to be necessary, then I let it go and teach me how to play; A prime example being RTS games like Star Craft or simulation game's such as tabletop simulator or a hack and slash survival game.

Though if you have a 3D plat former, like Super Mario, Megaman Legend's, Sonic Adventure, the need for tutorial's to them are incredibly pointless; as with Mario, it's get to the end of the level or get a star. With Sonic, it's get to the end as fast as possible and look bad@$$ while doing it. Megaman Legend's is a bit more complex, but it's fun to explore and experiment with the environment given to you and learn the more complicated mechanic's later on by yourself or at least from an NPC or Audio Cue.

As you keep playing the games and get older, watching the tutorial's in these game's, it gets frustrating. Especially if you played it's predecessor and have a good grasp on how the previous control's work... It gets more annoying when you can't progress in the game until the tutorial is complete; It won't let you advance or experiment or do ANYTHING until you finish the tutorial. It's infuriating to level's of pure rage...

To finish this, because I go into spiels over game design; if you need to insert tutorials to teach the most basic control's of your game, then it's to ignore a lost art of game design. Granted, more complex one's, I could use a tutorial, but for simpler one's or moderate complexity, it shouldn't be needed.... If you folks want, I don't care for EgoRaptor, but he did a video back in 2011 about Megaman vs. Megaman X and how a game teaches you how to play the game without tutorials, allowing the player to expirement and come to the game on their own terms. If you don't mind the crass language, cursing and what not, then I recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM

I get a little overwhelmed if the tutorial gets too complex in a game. If the game wants me to memorize each button on a keyboard, plus the mouse, it's most likely not going to get completed by me. Otherwise it will take me a long time to get used to the controls just to pass the tutorial section.