From the announcement:
"The past several years have seen growth in consumer acceptance of PDFs and eBooks. With an eye on using this to drive customers to their friendly local game stores, a coalition of publishers have formed Bits and Mortar, a pro-retailer, pro-brick-and-mortar, pro-PDF, pro-eBook initiative."I'm pleased to see an alliance forming around this policy. The idea is simple and the effects are great for the game-buying public. Up until this point it was only in the hands of individual publishers, but at the time I write this I see six publishers listed. The named object (policy, alliance, website, thing) becomes a rallying point, a point which is outside any of the individual participants and around which others can gather.
Best of all, this is a strategy to keep cash flowing through the friendly local game stores rather than letting it migrate online. Although I have no problem with online shopping, game books are different from novels in that they require other people in order to get the most from that product. The game store is a great place to meet those other people, so it's useful for the hobby overall that publishers support the development of networking within that community.
So yes, yes and yes. Congratulations to them all for this move. And you, dear reader, should tell your local game shop owner about it. Send them this link (http://www.bits-and-mortar.com) with a couple of very excited sentences about it, and then show your support in action by going to them to buy your next game.
