Rather than pretend to save trees and ditching manuals (by the way there are massive sustainable forestry initiatives going on all over the world so you are not really redusing the amount of green in the world by using paper, if you get the paper from sustainable sources), how about making the manuals an actual value added part of the whole game purchase? Some back story, pretty pictures, concept art all sorts of nifty stuff.
I mostly agree that today's manuals are next to pointless, but in reality one way to fight piracy is to make the game manuals "must have" items which incentives people to buy the real deal instead of a pirated copy, which pirates will never to to the bother and expense of re-producing the manual. People are proposing this sort of thing as a way to combat music piracy too. Find a way to make buying the real thing lead to an overall experience that is impossible to obtain by going to illegal sources.
“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."
Jimi Hendrix
