Well, by definition, a magazine doesn't have to be printed to be a magazine. Just check any dictionary and you will see. But I understand that isn't your point. Yours is one of physical portability. But just because you don't like the medium, doesn't make it less of a magazine.
Hi there; first off, I will quite willingly concede that since it is still technically a published periodical it is also still a magazine. However, (if you'll permit me to indulge in hyperbole of the highest {lowest?} order) this would also be the case if it were scripted in dog faeces on scrolls of human skin.....which would also lose me as a customer in as equally efficacious a manner as switching to PDFs
And this is too bad, because it really has been great (if you like 4e). Dungeon and Dragon have been chock full of great articles and the adventures are good and getting better. There are some so-so adventures and some that don't float my boat, but that was the case with the print mag as well.
Well, since I don't play using 4E (a little white lie; I do in fact
play in a 4E game {whether I merely tolerate it because of the presence of friends is inconsequential I suppose}, but since I VASTLY prefer to DM rather than play, and the game which I run is a 3.5/Pathfinder blend, I still think of myself as a non-convert) then a subscription holds even less appeal than if I were to merely take the electronic nature of the beast into consideration.
Note that while it was free in the early days of electronic only (prior to the 4E switch over) should it have been pay-only while it was 3.5, I still wouldn't have subscribed due to my abhorence of online "publications", so believe me when I say that the primary objection is not edition but medium.
Have you tried printing it out? I like to print out just the articles I want to read and sit at my sofa and prep for my games (or sit on the car and just read). And when I DM my game, I use a laptop, so I have that option as well.
As someone else has pointed out, that merely adds a time, cost and yes, even a sensory penalty to me. Time because a 90 odd page document (and I don't know if that is in fact the actual page count.....someone with a subscription will have to drop in and let me know the true page count these days) takes a while to print, cost because to print it with a decent enough quality to be a good read would require a fair amount of ink (unless I decide that somehow a laserjet printer is a swell addition to the budget, right up there with diapers and wipes.....I'm sure I can justify that to the better half
) every month, and sensory because flipping through some loose pages (and if I get them bound that's even more time/expense) is nowhere even in the ballpark as "pleasurable" as flipping through a book or magazine that is professionally bound......for some reason it just doesn't have the same
feel....I can't explain why that is the case, it just is.....it feels....I dunno, cheap and inconsequential, something ephemeral that I'm going to toss in the recycling bin within a few minutes of reading it as if it had no real value beyond the immediate....and it sure wouldn't have the same feel leafing through some loose pages while on the john, you know?
Hell, I honestly can't put into words why I prefer a
real book/magazine to something I just printed out myself (although I will clearly grant you that it's still better than a bloody PDF!), but maybe that's just it....an awful lot of this aversion is gut level, instinctual stuff, and it may not make any logical sense (the words are still the same, arent' they?!) but that is still the case.
Anyhoo, the original poster has stated that they would prefer the topic to be forked, so if anyone wants to continue the print versus PDF discussion, then by all means please fork it as a courtesy to E_o_N (although I'm not sure what could be gained, due to the emotional rather than logical nature of the issue.....other than perhaps a new poll of who prefers print versus PDF).
Cheers,
Colin
