The two leading online retailers of role-playing game PDFs, DriveThruRPG and RPGNow, are merging to form a new company, OneBookShelf.  OneBookShelf will continue to operate both the DriveThruRPG and RPGNow sites while a new fully integrated site (that will eventually replace both sites) is being constructed. 

Publishers whose products were once exclusive to one site or the other will find their wares listed on both sites after a brief period today when both sites will be down for a few hours so that products can be cross-listed.  By the end of the day more than 9,000 items from 500 different publishers will be available for downloading as PDFs on both sites.

DriveThru's latest digital delivery site, DriveThruComics, which was just launched in late September (see 'DriveThruComics Launched This Week' for a complete examination of electronic downloading including its connections to and effects on the RPG market) is also now part of OneBookShelf.

OneBookShelf also announced that it has formed partnerships with the two largest RPG community sites, RPGnet and EN World to operate download stores connected to those community sites. One consequence of the affiliate stores is that the RPGNow site which had been divided into a main site and an RPGEdge site devoted to small press rpgs will now combine all publishers into a single RPGNow site.

The merger is being treated as a merger of equals with all employees and owners of both companies carrying on with the new OneBookShelf company.