The games entered into ParserComp are only required to be freely available during the judging period. I feel that the author continues to “own” the game and can do whatever he or she wants outside of that. As far as archiving, I feel that it is the author’s choice though I do feel that archiving is good for the IF community.
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@fos1
That is a good take on it, and I approve!
@AmandaB
Sorry, I mistook Dan to be part of the organizer, since he openly took hostile position regarding opt-in/out, and that’s part of organizer rule making.
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There might be a theoretical issue but I doubt it will happen. For simplicity lets assume a very successful company decides to use ParserComp to showcase their games. They are professionally made so they are likely to win. And as soon as the competition is over, the free version disappears. So right after the competition has ended, there is no way to play the winning game without paying. I think that would be a shame and not in the spirit of ParserComp.
“Luckily” there is hardly any money in parser games nowadays so I don’t think it will ever be a problem. However, I could see the problem with choice based games as they have shown to do well commercially nowadays so it kind of makes sense for e.g. IFComp.
If this ever become a problem, the rules can be changed for future comps.
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I think the problem has manifested already. It’s just invisible because you don’t see it being bad. You don’t see it being entered at all. I certainly want to see commercial quality offerings in there, something akin to being shareware, so to speak.
Now, if in addition to archiving the games, you set it up so people playing the games in perpetuity can leave money to the author, that’s something else. I don’t know what it takes to do that and for how long. But I think an incentive beyond a few prizes will encourage people to go above and beyond, because the potential reward is there.
At least, I hope it will cause a few more authors to buckle up and finish their games because it will be more rewarding than a simple exposure.
Hmmm. Maybe there should be a thread discussing the commercial aspects for the winners. Feelies packages for sale, maybe? I’ll let somebody else start that thread.
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I feel like for parser games, commercial concerns aren’t that important because no one buys them. Thaumistry and Hadean Lands were both great but they’re not making anyone rich. I can’t imagine a parser game being commercially successful anytime soon.
For archival purposes, I think a nice compromise is archiving a version without the images or other nice stuff a fancy commercial game might have. When I was a Wikipedia editor, I got the author of a very lovely stats textbook to let us use his images for the Sampling (Statistics) page by using monochrome versions, which preserved his commercial color versions.
I love archiving. I’m trying to approach it from a point of “I want future people to appreciate your game” instead of “archive this or you are banned”.
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Yeah, there are definitely examples of commercial IF doing moderately well - but the models don’t seem to have anything to do with the amateur competitions (pretty much all the examples I can think of are very long, done by “name” authors, and usually kickstarted). And ParserComp by its nature seems the one least likely to have any commercial crossover due to excluding choice games, so I’m not sure it’s the right plane to start experimenting even if that seemed like a good idea.
From my knowledge, Itch does allow authors to make a game paid, or pay-what-you-want, so the infrastructure’s there, and I think folks like Robin Johnson have done PWYW for old IFComp games after the comp’s wrapped up. So I think @fos1’s thought above keeps things open, though again I’m not sure how many authors would care much about this.
(Why do we always wrangle over the rules in ParserComp posts? I guess because it’s newer, but all the IFComp and Spring Threads are “yay, new games!” while ParserComp threads are like “I have a question about clause four in subparagraph seven.”)
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Thanks for setting the record straight!
For the avoidance of doubt: indeed, @fos1 and @ChristopherMerriner are the only organisers of ParserComp 2023 and, in response to some interesting discussions and suggestions here (some of which we agree with, and some of which we don’t) we’ve added an explicit, private, opt-out option at the game submission stage which authors can select if they do not want their games archived by IFTF; otherwise it is assumed that permission for archiving is granted. A rule has also been added which explains this.
If it proves problematic this time around then, assuming we’re in the driving seat again next year, we’ll reconsider the options - but that’s how things will work this year.
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I’m fine with the idea of archiving the games and I’m kind of surprised that anyone wouldn’t want it done. Saying that, I still think it should be down to the author. As an author, I’d be pretty annoyed if I decided I didn’t want my game archiving for whatever reason then someone decided to publicly flame me for it because it wasn’t what they wanted. If it’s my game, the only person who gets to make decisions about it should be me.
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I think Ephemeral art Parser games should be banned.
In fact all kind of art and weird things.
@.@
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@ChristopherMerriner @fos1 Don’t forget to create an IFWiki page 
Last year’s is at ParserComp 2022 - IFWiki and the data entry form is Form:Event - IFWiki.
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Probably the newer thing but also Dan’s point (which I agree with fwiw) was basically “let’s take a long standing IFComp and Spring Thing rule, that nobody has ever complained about (afaik) and that would make the volunteer archivists’ jobs much easier, and include it in the ParserComp rules as well”.
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I was surprised to find my ParserComp 2021 game on the IF Archive, but didn’t mind. I think the choice shouldn’t be too easy for the author to make, as I might have been tempted to opt out if it had been an option…
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Well…the reason to archive something is so someone can access it in the future. IFArchive isn’t really a hosting service, but they’ve just made it so games are playable from IFDB based on what is in the Archive.
And IFDB isn’t hosting anything either. Even though they are absolute separate entities, I kind of think of IFDB as the friendly player-facing frontend to document and search historical games…which are very likely going to be in the archive.
With exceptions. Commercial games like Inkle have a link to where you can purchase instead of Play Online or download links.
I believe the original idea is that many of the comps are annual historical events, and during that games were provided for free and promoted (IFComp is our tiny niche version of free publicity.)
I think one good example of an author capitalizing on competition promotion is Scarlet Sails by @Felicity_Banks - There was a greatly-expanded post-comp version that became a Choice of Games hosted title. The comp-version is still free, but the larger version with double the word count is monetized.
Technically, no, but if a competition specifies “here’s what you’re granting us permission to do” (perhaps in lieu of an entry fee?) those are the rules. It’s fine if there’s an opt-out. I know there have been shady “contests” where people enter an artwork not realizing that signing up grants the contest-runner all the rights to their work in perpetuity. That’s not great. But I don’t think our local comps are here to exploit people, and I know people at times have requested that content get taken down and it’s handled on a case-by-case basis.
Our competitions usually involve mostly high-level-amateur work, and a few give actual monetary prizes. IMHO, If you’re aiming to sell your game on Steam and retain all the rights, you probably shouldn’t be considering a free small-time competition as a stepping-stone.
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I entered last year’s ParserComp into the IFWiki. I will take care of it shortly.
Thank you for the reminder.
Jeff
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I see your point but one important thing in a healthy community is diversity. If all competitions require archiving there is no where to go for people who don’t want their game archived. To me it seems like ParserComp 2023 has found a good solution which works well after voting ends.
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It’s newer, as you say, and rules and precedents are still in the process of being established. And it’s more restrictive, therefore more care has to be taken to design the restrictions as we want them to be (that is ParserComp’s raison d’être, after all).
But FWIW, a similar discussion about archiving was also held in the context of other comps like Spring Thing, Seed Comp, etc. recently, cf. Archiving of Competitions, itch.io, and Third Party Sites.
I’m not sure that I want to take a position on the issue itself (I guess an opt-out policy is fine, with encouragement to stay opted-in and be archived as default), but I’d like to mention a few points:
- the thread linked above does contain a complaint or two (although generally the importance of archiving was emphasized there as well, so I wouldn’t say you’re wrong)
- the principle has not been super-strictly enforced in those comps either in the past; besides examples given in that thread, there was also “Accelerate”, and other games where the archived entries consist of an HTML file linking to an external site
- there might be a form of sampling bias going on – the people intent on not being archived just don’t enter the comps (and they don’t feel it’s necessary or useful to kick up a fuss over it after the fact)
- related to the last point, the non-negligible number of people who enter the comps under a pseudonym might indicate an attitude along the lines of “I don’t mind being archived, no harm done as long as it’s pseudonymous” (but that’s speculation, of course; I dunno).
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I’ve gone ahead and added a basic page about the competition to the wiki at ParserComp 2023 - IFWiki. It could do with more detail though.
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Thanks very much! We’ll fill in the details, when we get a chance.
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Sorry. My wife and I had to visit her 95 year old father in Florida on short notice. He is increasingly frail and has to be constantly monitored around the clock. 
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I’ve now added a few more details and will try to remember to update the wiki page as the competition progresses.
Great job on tidying up the wiki by the way - first time in ages I’ve visited it and it’s looking very smart!
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