Swords & Wizardry Light - Forum

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Why is There A Lack of Alternative Digital RPG Storefronts to DTRPG?



Many of us have bemoaned the lack of viable alternatives to OneBookShelf/DTRPG for years.

Before OneBookShelf (actually, Roll20 now, if you look at your emails) merged with RPGNow, there WAS competition. Heck, DTRPG used to offer a "Free Game of the Week" (not a bad idea actually) in an attempt to lure customers to their site (some of these PDFs were protected by some weird Adobe security features that were a huge PITA). OBS kept RPGNow as a mirrored storefront of DTRPG for years.

There was also YourGamesNow. Never a huge site and barely used, I'm not sure many noticed its demise.

IndiePressRevolution has been around for years. Not sure how much use it gets from Old School Gamers, but I remember snagging Spirit of the Century from there a number of years back.

Lulu is an alternative, but it is a slog to navigate.

Frog God Games tried to launch a storefront for more than just their own products back at the end of 2015. It didn't go well.

Big Geek Emporium is a newer storefront that launched with minimal fanfare, or if there was fanfare, it missed my attention.

Venger has a post about supporting some alternative digital storefronts. Even if you have problems with the messenger, his message is the correct one - we need alternatives. We need competition. One company should not be the gatekeeper of the world of digital TTRPGs and PODs.



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1 comment:

  1. itch.io is another source for indie .pdf game books. Pretty easy to navigate too.

    ReplyDelete