Journal tips, loading screen tips, verbose HUD notifications, tutorial quests and buffs created solely to convey information... these are the manuals of today. And that's before we get to online resources players create for each other, like wikis, Steam guides, pinned threads, etc.
Now, I loathe when people get into 'back in my day' mode, as if winning the award for Most Curmudgeonly User is some kind of prize (not that that's happened here). But I think it's accurate to say that more work goes into explaining a game to the player than in the RTFM days. Of course, the complexity of games from any era varies widely as well.