Legal & Privacy

Terms of Service

Free to play

Playing games and creating an account are free. Guest play and viewing are available where supported; an account unlocks rated multiplayer and saved progress. Each game's Rulebook explains its rules and available modes.

In-game money, capital, chips, bets, prizes, points and ratings are part of the game simulation. They have no real monetary value and cannot be bought, withdrawn or redeemed for money through Balanced Games.

Your account and contributions

Keep your password private and choose a username and avatar that respect other players. Use accounts and game features honestly, and report problems through the available feedback controls.

You retain any rights you hold in the content you submit. The proposed terms give Balanced Games a non-exclusive permission to store, process and display that content as needed to provide its intended feature, such as delivering a message or reviewing feedback. Submit only content you have the right to share, and respect other people's privacy and intellectual property.

A developing service

Games, rules and features may change as the project develops. Maintenance, errors or interruptions may affect availability, results or saved progress. Continuous access, error-free operation and permanent preservation of game records are not guaranteed.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, the service is provided as available without additional warranties. Nothing in these proposed terms excludes liability or limits a right that applicable law does not allow to be excluded or limited.

Community Guidelines

Help make Balanced Games a place where people can learn, compete and enjoy themselves.

• Treat others with respect. Harassment, threats, hateful abuse and targeted humiliation are unacceptable.
• Do not impersonate others, spam conversations or share someone else's personal information without permission.
• Follow the game rules. Do not manipulate ratings, exploit faults for an unfair advantage or interfere with other players' games.
• Use built-in bots and assistance as intended. Do not use unauthorized automation to disrupt the service or bypass its protections.
• Report faults responsibly. Do not access other players' accounts or data to demonstrate a problem.

Administrators may restrict access or suspend an account to address abuse and protect the community. Registered players can raise concerns through Send feedback in Settings while they retain access. For reports or appeals, including if you cannot sign in, use the email in Contact & Updates.

Privacy & Data Control

This section describes the information used by the current site and the controls available to players. Hosting and retention details still awaiting confirmation are identified below.

Information used to run the site

Account and preferences

Account ID, username, avatar, password hash and salt, account dates, recent activity, display preferences and favorite games support sign-in and personalization. Registration currently does not require an email address or date of birth. Passwords are stored as salted hashes, rather than readable passwords.

Play and community

Game actions, room participation, results, ratings and rating history support gameplay and records. Follows, blocks and badges support community features. Suspension status and deletion requests support account administration.

Messages and feedback

Chat and direct messages are processed to deliver conversations. Feedback is saved with its author, category, game and page context for administrators to review. Optional device configuration can include browser, operating-system, display, input, language, timezone and accessibility details to help reproduce a problem.

Blog comments

Comments are stored with their article, author, creation time, approval status, and moderation details. Submission identifiers and content hashes prevent duplicate submissions and support rate limits.

Security and technical information

Connection information, including IP addresses, is processed to serve requests and limit abuse. Registration rate limits use a keyed hash of the IP address in stored registration events. Hosting providers may also process request information and operational logs; hashing an identifier does not make all related data anonymous.

What other people can see

Usernames, avatars, profiles, ratings, game history, follow information and some activity are visible through the site's public features, subject to the relevant access and blocking rules. Rooms are public to viewers even when joining is restricted. A joining passcode does not make the room or its chat confidential.

Community, lobby and room chat are public to their viewers. Direct-message access is restricted to the two participants and messages are not shown in the Admin interface. The server processes message contents; messaging is not end-to-end encrypted. HTTPS protects data in transit. Recipients and viewers can still copy what they see.

Approved Blog comments, including the author's username, avatar, and comment date, are visible to everyone. Comments from non-Admin users require Admin approval first. Pending and hidden comments are not public; administrators can review, hide, or delete any comment. Authors can view and edit their own pending comments until approval. Unpublished articles do not expose their comments publicly.

How long information stays

• Account information, ratings, feedback, Blog comments and saved game results are stored across visits. They do not currently have a general automatic expiry period.
• Deleting a Blog comment removes its text. Its submission identifier and content hash remain to prevent duplicate submissions until the account or article is deleted. Hiding a comment retains it for administrators to review and restore.
• Public chat is held in server memory. Messages older than one hour are removed when history is read or a message is added. Community and lobby histories hold up to 100 messages; room histories hold up to 20. Histories may clear earlier when a room empties or the server restarts.
• Direct messages are held in server memory while either participant is considered online. The conversation clears when both are offline, or when the server restarts. Online detection includes a two-minute inactivity allowance and other active tabs or devices. Blocking clears that pair's conversation; account suspension or deletion clears conversations involving that account.
• Registration events older than 24 hours are removed during later registration attempts. This cleanup is not a timer that guarantees removal at exactly 24 hours.

Clearing displayed history is not a promise of secure erasure of every copy. Provider log and backup retention periods have not yet been confirmed for this notice.

Your available controls

• Use supported guest modes when you do not want to create a registered account. Guest sessions still use an identifier and connection information.
• Manage your avatar, password and display preferences in Settings, and manage favorites, follows and blocks through their existing controls.
• Before sending feedback, use Show configuration to review the optional diagnostics. Include device configuration starts checked; uncheck it to send feedback without that section.
• Request account deletion in Settings → Account deletion. Your account stays active while an administrator reviews the request, and you can cancel a pending request.

Administrator deletion removes the account, associated feedback, Blog comments and submission records, rating history and account-linked social records. Some saved game results, including Spendii participant snapshots, can retain the account ID and username. Existing public-chat or room snapshots may also remain until their normal cleanup. Account deletion is therefore not an immediate removal of every reference to you.

There is currently no self-service data export. You can send access, correction and other privacy requests to the email in Contact & Updates. The detailed request-handling process remains to be finalized. The final notice must explain applicable rights, how requests are handled and any justified retention after deletion.

Service providers and processing locations

The site's hosting setup uses Vercel for the frontend and Render for the game API, with PostgreSQL storing persistent records. These services process information needed to deliver the site. The database hosting arrangement, processing locations, log and backup retention, and any international-transfer safeguards remain to be confirmed before this notice is finalized.

When Cloudflare Turnstile is enabled for registration, Cloudflare processes browser and technical signals to distinguish people from automated traffic. See the Cloudflare Turnstile Privacy Notice for its processing practices.

Cookies & Browser Storage

A guest-identification cookie can last up to 30 days. Registered sign-in uses browser session storage, with a sign-in token valid for up to 24 hours. Browser storage also remembers interface preferences, room context and scroll positions so navigation and refreshes can preserve your place.

You can remove cookies and site storage through your browser's settings. Doing so may sign you out, change your guest identity or reset local preferences. It does not delete a registered account or records stored on the server. Use the account-deletion request for that purpose, subject to the limits explained above.

The final notice will identify any additional deployed storage or tracking tools and the choices they require. This draft does not claim that every hosting or security service is free of tracking.

Source Code & Licensing

We plan to publish the Balanced Games source code in the near future. The licence accompanying the release will explain how it may be used, modified and shared. A release date and the final licensing details have not yet been announced here.

Publishing the code will not make player accounts, messages or other personal records public. Artwork, names and third-party components may have separate permissions and attribution requirements. Any existing licence notices continue to apply to the materials they cover.

Public access to code alone does not establish open-source reuse rights. For the meaning of open-source licensing, see the Open Source Definition.

Contact & Updates

For questions, feedback or privacy requests, email balancedgames@protonmail.com. You can use this address without signing in.

Registered players with account access can currently use Send feedback in Settings to contact administrators. A public operator identity has not yet been designated for this page.

Balanced Games is intended for a broad audience. A minimum account age and any parental-consent process have not yet been decided. The welcome above does not establish eligibility for every age or replace protections required for children.

Before these proposed terms take effect, this page needs the operator details, applicable jurisdiction, age policy, confirmed data-handling arrangements and an effective date. Those details require jurisdiction-specific review. No governing country or court is selected by this draft.

Future revisions will carry an updated date here, with significant changes summarized in What's new. Any notice or agreement required by applicable law must accompany those changes. Reading this draft or creating an account does not record acceptance of these proposed terms.