The world's largest RPG download store is getting into the Print on Demand business, which could mean that many out of print games could see new life again, in more than just PDF format.
The pilot program was launched at the beginning of December, and I am only writing about it a month later because, for some reason, my order hit some awful delays that were either on the printer's end, or the post office's end (I know at one point it sat in a post office warehouse for SIX DAYS without movement), so I'm certainly not holding RPGnow at fault...but the fact is, my copy of King Arthur Pendragon 5.1 didn't show up until Christmas Eve, and then holidays (and a new PS3) took over from there. I DO think it was an anomaly, as Michael Wolf over at Stargazer's World get his from the UK to Germany in just a few days, and he ordered after I did.
Today, they officially opened it to the public, albeit with a small selection of available titles, but there are some good ones there. I particularly recommend Wu Xing.
I do want to say that the shipping prices seem pretty standard (I paid a couple of bucks for Pendragon), and the quality was good. I have a few POD books I've gotten over the year, and this is on the higher end of those. Most importantly, I paid $30 for the Pendragon softcover, so it seems like they have managed to keep the pricing reasonable.
Other than the bizarre delay in shipping (it took three weeks from the time I placed the order to the time I received it, with a three day print prep window), RPGNow's new service has exceeded my experiences with other POD services.
To see the full list of currently available titles, click here. I highly recommend getting Wu Xing if you haven't.
I'll have a review of Pendragon itself later, once I've had time to digest it...but RPGNow could easily have hit a game changer with this.
I saw OVA RPG in PoD on RPGNOW and almost bought it until I noticed that it's in black and white and I also read this from Wise Turtle's blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://ovarpg.blogspot.com/2010/12/ova-print-on-demand-details.html
Apparently the print copy they received was not as stellar as they hoped. So I'll just wait for the Revised ed. in print. Savage Worlds ed. of Freeport tempts me, but I'll wait until I see more reviews on the print quality.
Thanks for sharing that.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I wonder about is black and white versus color. I have a feeling Pendragon (the one book I have) was always in black and white, and OVA in color, and that will - of course - have a big effect.
The ISBN thing is between publishers and RPGnow, and doesn't affect me as a consumer...they didn't seem to think it was a huge deal over at OVA, but Robert Thomson at 4 Winds Gaming is calling it a deal breaker for him.