From the front page:
Mike Mearls said:
You know we haven’t announced anything official yet, but I’d be surprised if we released the PDF to be exactly as the book. Because I think that we’ll sit down and look at a PDF format of the book and say well what’s the best format that could take? It really does make good sense to have it sort of stripped down and in a utilitarian layout.
Because you know what? I’m actually just using this because I just want to get some rules at the table. Maybe I just want to be on a plane or just sitting around and want a quick reference that’s a quick read and just the information I want. So what does that do to the [PDF] design? We strip out a lot of the art and make it utilitarian. Or we break it up and actually the ebook version is actually three books, we’ve broken it up into three parts, and each topic is now a separate book. So maybe I’m playing a Wizard, and I’m just using the Basic D&D, but I want more spells… so I’m just wanting the spell chapters, so maybe I spend 5 bucks or 2 bucks just so I have that indexed or bookmarked and can quickly reference my spells. You know, what is the usefulness of that? Just as a bibliophile wants the whole book as a physical artifact, the digital only user, well, what is the best way for them to get access to the game.
I like what Paizo does personally, where you can download the normal book or a "lite" PDF with a simpler less heavy background that is much faster to load. Options are the way to go so the person on the desktop can choose lots of art while the person using the tablet can go simpler.
First, he said that they didn't want PDFs of competing with DungeonScape right off the bat and wanted to give Dd a chance to get off the ground.
Which is crap as they likely serve two different needs.
Don't tell your audience what they want, give them what they want. If they want DungeonScape, they'll buy freakin' DungonScape.
Second, he said they isn't want people to feel cheated if they purchased a PDF and then realized they need to re-purchase the content to use in the DS tools.
Which could be solved by crediting anyone who buys the PDF with the content for the DS tools. As it should be anyway.
The problem being that because WotC doesn't handle any money it means arranging cordination between DnDClassics.com and WotC and Trapdoor Tech. But that's a limited time problem as it only affects people in the few month window before DS releases but after PDFs would have been released, and after that it should become less problematic.
Third, they want to make sure that PDFs are the right decision for this edition and would rather wait then put them out and then wish they hadn't.
With the ascension of tablets, PDFs are more right for 5e than any previous edition. Yeah, in five years PDFs might not be the best choice, but they're making the game for the needs of people right now, not five years down the line.
And, regardless, there will be PDFs, so why not make money from them?
Really, it sounds like DungeonScape is being positioned as a reference app as much as Character Builder. With searchable rules like the Compendium.
Okay, that could be handy. I make great use out of the Pathfinder app I have (although I need a new one since it stopped updating. PM me if you have a recommendation.) But I still make heavy use of PDFs, especially when browsing or writing.
Apps are also problematic. As I mentioned above, I'm stuck with a dead Pathfinder app because the person behind it walked away. If/when my device goes the app will likely go with it. While I could lose access to new copies of the PDFs if the source site went down, all my gaming PDFs are either backed-up on optical media and/or stored on DropBox. And DropBox syncs with my iPad's PDF reader, so transferring files is effortless.