Best New Publishing Model... Your Ideas?

[Scribble]

Ok so this is just for fun. I want to see what the minds here at enworld would do in a situation such as the following:

You control a Game Company... a large one... and by that I mean anything like Paizo, or WW or Wizards... (Basically anything that is relatively well established, as EEs, and isn't just- "Look ma I'm a game company!")

It's sometime in the future, and you know the ability to release your things in book format is just getting to expensive. The size of the returns just aren't going to be enough to cover the expense, plus all the other operating expenses your company faces, and make a profit.

It's not through lack of the fanbase liking your products... But the cost of the medium has gone up.

So now what do you do?

Do you simply raise the price of your books? Pass the expense along to the customers?

Do you switch to an all digital format, and "abandon" the Brick and Mortar retail stores?

Do you have some other method? If so what?

Just want to see what people would do? (Especially in a market that, at least I feel, seems notoriously resistant to change.)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think that for a sufficient value of future then all books will be available as electronic files of some kind.

I also think that there are lot of advantages to books being available on a good reader that is portable enough to have around all the time.

I think i would go electronic, though I wonder what effect 3d printing will have on the FLGS. It would seem to me there may be an opportunity for the FLGS to become a 3d printing boutique (at least for a while) and allow the gamers to arrive with their maps and character sketchs and turn them into custom 'painted' minis, 3d terrain and dungeon fixtures at a relatively low cost.

Of course this may be affected by how fast the cost of oil and therefore plastic rises in the future.