At various times before, we’ve covered publishers’ efforts to support local game stores. Now, several have banded together to offer free PDFs with in-store purchases of print RPGs. They’re calling the program Bits and Mortar, and participating retailers will even be able to deliver the e-books at the point of sale. Better, I think, than the individual efforts that we mentioned before, Bits and Mortar will provide a coordinated program so that retailers don’t have to go through the trouble of signing up with separate publishers.

The game companies involved so far are Arc Dream Publishing, Cellar Games, Cubicle-7, Evil Hat Productions, Galileo Games, Pelgrane Press, and Rogue Games.