Buying games online as pdf's is today's reality. While no electronic or self-printed version is worth having a good solid book in hands, checking a product beforehand in cheaper electronic format or having a searchable copy of the book is real luxury. I myself value searchability a lot - sometimes when I'm tired and have been working too much on computers I mentally try to click a book's search dialog open when preparing a roleplaying session...

Anyway, as I've been designing ships for e2o and going the whole process through again in order to allow the players to make ships much faster and easier, I started to think of technologies of today. 3D printers are reality, and while they are still a bit clumsy and expensive, they are likely to be at regular user's hand at some point. Quite scifi, isn't it? Just like viewphone or Gyro Gearloose's automated toothbrush, which are reality today, although in a lot more handy way than they were originally imagined.

You can already find very cheap color laser printers (there are a few on that list). While their cost has been brought down generally by putting 1/3 -filled color supplies and making the additional colors expensive, prices of technology are inevitably coming down. And same will happen to 3D printers some day. While amount of miniature players isn't big enough make these devices popular, the possibilities of use are huge; Any amount of hobbies can benefit from such devices - .

What would you think of being able to order a new board game from an online store, download it, placing a material cassette in your printer and printing the board, pieces and rules out? Or downloading a fan-made dice set for your favourite roleplaying game and printing them out, or downloading latest Dungeons & Dragons miniatures set as a printable version?

If it will become possible to automatically make good-quality bindings and covers for self-printed books, buying books will be revolutionized - again.

To see some examples what can be done today with lighter-than-industrial -applications, see 3d printer and 3d color printer. While these items are separate, I don't see it impossible that these two would be combined. Designing for them might require a special 3d -program or a plugin for an exisiting one in order to take the printer's limitations into account.