So I direct this towards pay to play rpg's, does anyone else find it both lazy and somewhat reprehensible for games on drivethroughrpg to be PDF only when multiple format (including print) are just as easy to offer on the service as the one? Thoughts?
Time Fly's like an arrow! Fruit Fly's like a banana!
DriveThru's PDF requirements have always scared me. That's one reason I've never used their POD services. It's probably not hard to make a PDF for them, but I could never tell if I had done it properly, so I don't know and that scares me.
Ok that's a little irrational, but their service is too opaque for my comfort.
POD also requires a level of commitment to proofing and editing. When I put my game up on DriveThruRPG, it wasn't in a state yet where I felt like allowing the public to print copies: too likely to change, too sloppy, too unfinished.
Now, with that said, there are also other reasons: having mass print runs can be undercut by POD, so I could see how games that are currently (or recently) in print would not necessarily want to undercut their print runs with POD.
Kyle, Head Honcho of Loreshaper Games
I write frequent on game development, storytelling, or life in general, in case you want to follow what I'm up to.
I've POD'd Icar (via Lulu) but only to give to proofers (and a few random gifts). Getting it to the point where Lulu could accept it was an epic job.
I like POD, I think there's a place for it for those people who collect oddity RPGs and like a shelf full of weird titles to amaze their friends. The margin is terrible for the authors tho as the print costs are still high.
I think that part of POD is dependent on the technology. I've been seeing more and more POD titles on DriveThruRPG, either because print runs for the sort of things I've been looking at have fallen, or, I suspect, because the technology has gotten better recently.
Kyle, Head Honcho of Loreshaper Games
I write frequent on game development, storytelling, or life in general, in case you want to follow what I'm up to.