Quote:
Originally Posted by Freeshadow
1.) they need it bigger
as well as every player wouldn't like their SF or Fantasy books in A4 rulebooks smaller than that are not comfortable.
2.) they keep more books than one open and in use. altough todays reader offer to reopen the last closed items on the last place it isn't enough, because of the mexed usage mode: as a read-continously and a lookup-only medium
conclusion: the reader would need a very fast and efficient bookmark method + an equivalent of tabbed switching between multiple books at once.
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The second issue is probably the bigger one. Gamers can deal with odd size problems, and gaming publishing companies, if there were demand, would make ~A5-sized ebooks, which would look okay on 6" e-ink screens.
The ability to flip back & forth quickly is more important, and is what makes gaming ebooks novelties rather than active resources in most games. Can't keep three different books open to certain pages; can't flip back and forth between "the skills chart" and "the damage-from-falling chart" unless these are permanently bookmarked, and next game, you need different charts.
It'll be a while before ebooks work well for reference books; almost all the tech development has been aimed at linear reading ability. (And this is reasonable; tabbed multi-page accessibility didn't come quickly to the internet, either.) But until ebooks can work for RPG players, mechanics looking up car parts & assembly instructions, cooks, and grad students who need academic references, they'll remain a niche entertainment market instead of a replacement for paper books.
I think they'll get there, but it'll take longer than some proponents think. That they excellently fill the niche for novels doesn't make them any competition for magazines, encyclopedia, hobby books, or professional reference works.