I just read the opinion piece about PDF (Wednesday Aug, 6) and I wanted to contribute with a small piece of my mind.
I'm not in the gaming industry but I'm a long time player and therefore consumer. You should also consider that a PDF's cost is not only that for downloading, it can be quite expensive to print one, specially if you try (naively because it will always be unsuccesful) to achieve a good looking color material to read.
The alternative is to play near your desktop or own a laptop, which is once again not for everyone, it is still a expensive option, not to mention that even a laptop takes a lot of gaming space from your already limited size table.
Also about comfort, why do everyone publishes its PDF's in a two column portrait (vertical) format? It is uncomfortable to read in the screen, I'd advise you all (again as a consumer) that you try doing things that can fit one readable page per screen. Do it as a landscape or something, please.
Finally I know there are a lot of people that think that living in this century is about freedom, but still you would be extremely innocent if you think that a PDF is not easier to move for piracy purposes. You mention why don't more people buy PDFs, and I'm afraid (because I'm a paying customer) that it is because many of the younger players, and some mmmm, veterans too, prefer to just download them than to pay for it. Many people just don't understand that this really is a drawback for a professional writer (which I'm not).
Well, this is only my opinion, but I hope it will help the professionals to have a different point of view
I'm not in the gaming industry but I'm a long time player and therefore consumer. You should also consider that a PDF's cost is not only that for downloading, it can be quite expensive to print one, specially if you try (naively because it will always be unsuccesful) to achieve a good looking color material to read.
The alternative is to play near your desktop or own a laptop, which is once again not for everyone, it is still a expensive option, not to mention that even a laptop takes a lot of gaming space from your already limited size table.
Also about comfort, why do everyone publishes its PDF's in a two column portrait (vertical) format? It is uncomfortable to read in the screen, I'd advise you all (again as a consumer) that you try doing things that can fit one readable page per screen. Do it as a landscape or something, please.
Finally I know there are a lot of people that think that living in this century is about freedom, but still you would be extremely innocent if you think that a PDF is not easier to move for piracy purposes. You mention why don't more people buy PDFs, and I'm afraid (because I'm a paying customer) that it is because many of the younger players, and some mmmm, veterans too, prefer to just download them than to pay for it. Many people just don't understand that this really is a drawback for a professional writer (which I'm not).
Well, this is only my opinion, but I hope it will help the professionals to have a different point of view
