Grumpy Giraffe Games LLC
Effective 8/1/2026 · Last updated 10/20/2026
This policy explains what information Pact or Peril (the "Game") collects, why we collect it, and what you can do about it. The Game is operated by Grumpy Giraffe Games LLC, a Nevada limited liability company ("we," "us").
The short version: we run our own game servers, and the Game contains no third-party analytics or tracking SDKs. The only advertising is optional, mobile-only rewarded video ads served by Google AdMob, and they are non-personalized: on Android you can choose to watch a short video to earn a Declaration of War. Nothing plays unless you tap the button, there are no banners or pop-up ads, there are no ads at all on PC, and Premium members never see them (see section 5). We collect the minimum needed to run your account, match you into games, keep ranked play fair, and process purchases. Some of that necessarily passes through the platform you play on, our hosting provider, and our payment processors — section 5 names them. We do not sell your personal information.
Pact or Peril is intended for players aged 13 and older. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us at the address below and we will delete the account and its associated data.
Account details. If you register directly, we collect your email address and a salted, hashed password. We never store your password in readable form.
Signing in through a platform. If you sign in through Steam, we receive your Steam ID and the display name on your Steam account. Steam also tells us which Steam account owns the copy of the Game you are playing — normally that is you; if you borrowed the Game through Steam Family Sharing, it is the Steam ID of the person who lent it. We use that only for the fair-play checks described below. If you sign in with Google, we receive your Google account identifier and, where you permit it, your name and email address. We never receive your password for those services, the other games in your library, or your payment details. Signing in does not give us your friends list. We only look at your friends list when you use the friend-finding features described in Finding friends from Steam, Google Play Games, and Game Center.
(You can't sign in with Apple or with Google Play Games yet. If we add either, we will update this policy before it goes live. You can link a Google Play Games or Game Center account to your account to find friends. That link is not a way to sign in. It is described below.)
Profile information. Your chosen display name, avatar selection, and any preferences you set.
Settings, saved through Steam. In the Steam version, your settings are mirrored to Steam Cloud so they follow you to another PC. Valve stores that copy; your installation identifier is deliberately excluded from it.
Custom maps. If you publish a map through the Steam Workshop, the map and its title are published publicly, under your own Steam account, and are governed by Steam's terms as well as ours. You can unpublish it from Steam at any time.
A linked Discord account, if you choose to link one. Correspondence matches can take days, so the Game can tell you when it is your turn. One way it does that is a mention in our Discord notifications channel. If you link Discord, we receive your Discord user ID and the account name shown to us at that moment, and we store them so we can address the mention to you.
The mention is public. It is a message in a channel, not a private message, so anyone who can read that channel can see that your Discord account plays this Game. That is inherent to using a channel mention, the Game says so before you link, and you can unlink at any time — which deletes the stored ID and anything still queued to send to it. Linking is entirely optional and nothing else in the Game depends on it.
Support correspondence. Messages you send us, including the email address you send them from.
Reports and block lists. If you report another player, we receive what you typed, who you reported, and the screenshot and match details attached to the report. We also store the list of players you have blocked, so that list still applies the next time you play. Muting is temporary — it lasts only for the match you are in and is not stored.
Gameplay data. Match history, territory and turn state, results, rankings, and progression.
In-game communication. There is no free-text chat anywhere in the Game. Everything you can send is picked from preset options, so nothing personal can be written. There are two kinds:
Both kinds are recorded in the match's replay, so we can look into harassment reports. Our server decides which player each recorded message is attributed to, so a message in a replay is from the player who actually sent it. Messages our server rejected or rate-limited are not recorded at all. Any caster, or member of our team, watching a match live also sees them — see Live casting and moderation.
Outside of replays, these messages are only kept for a short time:
Coalitions have their own preset emotes, which are not part of any match. See Friends and Coalitions.
Match replays. Online matches are saved as a replay so you and the other players can watch them back. Correspondence matches normally are not (one that is played from start to finish in a single sitting can be). A replay contains the moves made during the match, the pacts that were offered, accepted, and broken, and the emotes, quick chat, reactions, and pact messages that were sent. That includes messages that were private during the match, so anyone watching the replay can see them. (Replays recorded before pact messages were added to replays do not contain them.) Every player who was in that match can watch it. The player who uploaded a replay can also create a short share code for it; for online matches that is usually the match host. A shared replay becomes public: anyone with the code can watch it, it is no longer limited to the players in the match, and it is kept indefinitely. Single-player replays stay on your own computer unless you choose to upload one with the ☁ button.
Virtual currency and purchases. Balances, earnings, and spending of in-game currency, and a record of which items you own.
Declarations of War. Your Declaration balance, when you were last given one, and a record for each match you joined and each Single Player match that used one.
Premium membership. Whether you are a member, where you bought it, your subscription identifier, and when it started and ends. For each payment: the invoice identifier, amount, currency, and the period it covers.
Creator codes. Which creator you support, and when you entered their code. For each purchase that supports them: the purchase identifier, the item, the amount, and whether it was refunded.
The Game can show you which of your friends on another platform also play Pact or Peril. Each platform works differently:
Who can be found this way. A lookup only returns players who use the same platform with the Game. On Steam that means signing in with Steam. For Play Games and Game Center it means linking that account. It never returns players who have blocked you or whom you have blocked, banned or guest accounts, or an active streamer who isn't already your friend. Because you are already friends on that platform, being found this way doesn't depend on your "Friend requests from" setting. Whether that player can then send you a friend request still does.
"Let platform friends find me." This setting is on unless you turn it off. When it is off, your Steam, Google Play Games, and Game Center friends who aren't already your friends in the Game can't find you this way. Your existing in-game friends are not affected. It is in the Friends panel and in Settings → Privacy.
Unlinking. You can unlink Google Play Games or Game Center from the friends section at any time, which deletes the link immediately. On Steam there is nothing extra to unlink: the lookup uses the Steam account you signed in with, and it only runs when you open the Friends panel.
Steam "join" invitations. In the Steam version, if you are in a Coalition, "Allow friend joins" is on, "Appear offline" is off, and Streamer Mode is off, the Game tells Steam that you are in a Coalition and gives Steam a join code for it. Your Steam friends can then use Steam's own Join Game option. The code contains only the Coalition's identifier. If you invite a Steam friend from the Game, we record the invite on our server first, and only then ask Steam to send it.
A private casual lobby doesn't appear in the lobby browser and has no lobby name. Other players join it only with its lobby code. Our server creates your code, and it stays yours until you ask for a new one. Asking for a new code stops the old one working straight away. To find your lobby when someone types a code, our server uses only a one-way keyed digest of the code. It also keeps an encrypted copy of your code so the Game can show it to you again. Nobody else is shown your code by the Game: you decide who to give it to. Your device may also remember your code so it can fill it in next time. That copy stays on your device and is not synced. If someone types wrong codes too many times, we briefly stop them trying, so codes can't be guessed.
Installation and device identifiers. The Game uses two identifiers to recognise the computer or phone you play on:
When you sign in, the Game sends both to our server, which immediately converts each one into a one-way keyed digest and stores only the digests — neither original value is kept on our servers, and neither can be recovered from what we store. Alongside them we record the platform (for example "desktop" or "android") and the operating system name.
We use these for exactly one purpose: to notice when several accounts sign in from the same installation or the same device, which is how we detect a player evading a fair-play restriction by making a new account. They are not advertising identifiers, they are not used to build a profile of you, they are not used for tracking outside the Game, and we never share or sell them. What happens when a link is found is described under Automated fair-play review holds.
Clearing the Game's local data removes the installation identifier; a new random one is created the next time you sign in. It does not change the device identifier, which is set by your operating system and normally changes only if the operating system is reinstalled or the device is reset.
Device and connection data. Device or computer model, operating system version, Game version, language, and IP address. On Steam, the platform also tells the Game a coarse region (for example North America or Europe) — we do not look up your location ourselves and we never store a precise one. We use this to connect you to a nearby game server and to detect abuse. When you host an online lobby, that coarse region is shown to other players in the lobby browser so they can pick a game near them.
Accounts online together from the same internet address. While you are signed in, the Game tells our server every few minutes that you are online. Our server takes the internet (IP) address that message came from, immediately scrambles it with a one-way keyed hash (the key is replaced every day), and keeps only the scrambled value, for no more than about 20 minutes. If another account is online from the same address within about 10 minutes of you, we record that the two accounts were online together — and, if you were both in the same lobby or match, which one. That record contains the two accounts, how many times it happened, when, and that match; it contains no IP address. Having used the same address at clearly different times is never recorded, because no history of your addresses is kept. (For newer IPv6 addresses we compare the part a household's devices normally share, not the full address.)
This is only ever used as supporting evidence by a human moderator looking into a fair-play problem. Many unrelated players share an address — households, dorms, cafés, and mobile networks — so it never opens a review hold or restricts anyone on its own.
A push notification token, on Android only. If you allow notifications, Google issues the Game a registration token for that installation and we store it so our server can ask Google to deliver a turn notification to that device. It identifies the app installation on that device, not you and not your hardware, and Google can reissue it at any time.
We use it for exactly one purpose: delivering the notifications you asked for. It is not an advertising identifier, we do not use it to build a profile of you, and we never share or sell it. It is stored against whichever account is signed in on that device — sign out and it is deleted immediately; sign in as someone else and it moves to that account rather than being duplicated.
You can switch mobile notifications off in Settings → Notifications, which deletes the token, and Android's own notification permission overrides everything: deny or revoke it and nothing is delivered regardless. If you uninstall, Google tells us the installation is gone the next time we try to reach it and we delete the token then. This applies to the Android version only — there is no push on Steam or the standalone desktop builds.
Rewarded ads (Android only, and only if you choose to watch one). When you tap Watch an ad, the Google Mobile Ads SDK in the Game requests an ad from Google AdMob. The ads are non-personalized. Google receives information from your device to serve and measure that ad and to prevent ad fraud, which can include your device's advertising ID (where your settings allow it), IP address, device and app information, and how you interacted with the ad. The advertising ID is only used when you choose to watch an ad. When you finish an ad, Google tells our server which account to credit: it sends us your Pact or Peril account ID (which the Game gives to Google for this purpose only), a transaction number and the time, signed by Google. We keep that transaction record to make sure each ad is credited once and to apply the daily limit. We do not receive your advertising ID or anything else Google collects.
Diagnostic and crash reports. If the Game closes unexpectedly, the next time you launch it we offer to send a crash report — you decide whether to send it. We also collect a report when you submit a bug report or report another player. Depending on the kind of report it can include: a screenshot of the Game window taken at the moment you opened the report, the last part of the Game's own log file, your display name and account identifier, your Steam ID if you signed in through Steam, and details of the match you were in. The Game also submits a short automatic diagnostic when a connection fails or a lobby nobody can join is detected — these never include a screenshot, and you can switch them off in Settings. Where these reports go is described in Who we share it with.
If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, our legal bases are performance of a contract (running your account and matches), legitimate interests (security, abuse prevention, and improving the Game), legal obligation (financial records), and consent where we ask for it.
One part of the Game makes an automated decision about you. If an account starts using an installation or device, or starts playing from a Steam library through Family Sharing, that was already linked to an account which later received a fair-play restriction, our system automatically opens a review hold on that account. While a hold is open, ranked play is unavailable. Casual and single-player are unaffected, and nothing else about your account changes.
If you were already sharing that computer with the restricted account before the restriction was given, the automation does not flag you. Being online from the same internet address as another account is never a reason for a hold — see Accounts online together from the same internet address.
A moderator who restricts an account can also see which other accounts are linked to it in these ways, and can open a review hold on them — for example, accounts that were already sharing the computer. A hold a moderator opens follows exactly the same rules as an automatic one.
We have deliberately limited what the automation is allowed to do:
The message shown in-game is deliberately vague, because spelling out exactly what was matched would tell a determined ban evader how to work around it. This section is where we describe the logic instead.
Our legal basis for these checks is our legitimate interest in keeping ranked play fair for everyone. You have the right to ask a human to look at a hold, to have it explained, and to contest it — see Your choices and rights.
Pact or Peril offers optional in-app purchases of virtual currency and items, and an optional Premium subscription. We never receive or store your full card number, CVV, or bank details. Payments are handled by the platform or payment processor you buy through:
We receive an order identifier, the item purchased, the amount and currency, and the status of the payment, which we keep as a business record.
For Premium, we also receive the subscription identifier, the invoice identifier for each payment, and the billing period it covers. If you support a creator, the purchase is counted toward that creator's monthly totals. Creators only ever see totals (how many purchases of each type, and the revenue), never who made them or any payment details.
Virtual currency and items have no monetary value outside the Game, cannot be exchanged for cash, and are licensed rather than sold to you. Details are in our Terms of Service.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We disclose information only to:
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Account and profile data | While your account is active, plus 30 days after deletion |
| Match results and rankings | While your account is active — they make up your career stats and your place on the leaderboards |
| Replays stored on our server (online matches, and any single-player replay you upload) | 90 days, unless a moderator has preserved it for an open investigation. A replay given a share code is public and kept indefinitely |
| Recordings of matches every player left partway through | 30 days, kept privately and not shown to players |
| Emotes, quick chat, reactions, and pact messages sent in a match | Stored inside that match's replay, and kept for as long as that replay is. Our server also holds each player's last 10 for reconnecting: gone when a live match ends, and for Correspondence matches deleted 7 days after the match finishes |
| Emotes and quick chat sent in a match lobby | Stored on our server with your account ID and seat so the other players in that lobby can see them, and deleted automatically within 20 minutes |
| Friends list, "Friend requests from", "Allow friend joins", "Let platform friends find me", and "Appear offline" | Until you remove the friend or change the setting, or your account is deleted |
| Friend requests | Until accepted, cancelled, or declined. A declined request is kept so it can't be re-sent straight away (for 7 days), then deleted by a daily cleanup about 30 days after it was declined |
| Online status and last-seen time | One record, replaced each time it updates. Deleted with your account |
| Coalition membership | Until you leave, are removed, or stop checking in for about 5 minutes outside a match |
| Coalition invites | Until answered, or about 10 minutes |
| Coalition emotes | Deleted automatically within 15 minutes |
| Coalition kicks | 10 minutes |
| Google Play Games or Game Center link | Until you unlink it, or your account is deleted. Apple's one-time proof fingerprint: 2 days |
| Your Steam, Google Play Games, or Game Center friends list | Not stored. Used only for the lookup you asked for |
| Your lobby code | Until you ask for a new code, or your account is deleted |
| Social and rate-limit logs (friend requests sent, platform friend lookups and link attempts, Coalition invites and searches) | Deleted after at most 30 days by a daily cleanup, and many sooner |
| Links between your account and an installation, a device, or the Steam account that owns your copy of the Game | Each deleted after 90 days without a sign-in that uses it |
| Scrambled internet address used to spot accounts online together | No more than about 20 minutes |
| Record that two accounts were online together from the same internet address | Deleted after 90 days without it happening again, or when either account is deleted |
| Android push notification token | Until you sign out, switch mobile notifications off, or uninstall — and in any case deleted after 270 days with no launch from that installation |
| Linked Discord account ID | Until you unlink it, or your account is deleted |
| Fair-play review cases that were cleared, monitored, or released automatically | Deleted 90 days after the case closes |
| Confirmed fair-play cases and the restrictions that follow from them | Kept as part of our enforcement record |
| Bug reports, crash reports, automatic network diagnostics, and player reports | Kept in our private moderation channel — and, for player reports, in our moderation queue — for as long as we need them to investigate |
| Purchase and tax records | As required by law, typically seven years |
| Declaration of War balance and grant times | While your account is active. Deleted with your account |
| Declaration records for each match you joined, and for Single Player matches that used one | Until your account is deleted |
| Rewarded ad credits (Google's transaction number, your account ID, whether a Declaration was granted, and when) | Kept so each ad is only credited once. Deleted with your account |
| Premium membership status | While your account is active. Deleted with your account |
| Payment records (gold, Premium) and creator purchase records | Kept for financial and tax records, including after your account is deleted. When an account is deleted, these records are kept without being linked to it |
| The creator you support | Until you change or clear it, or your account is deleted. It stops counting 14 days after you last entered it or made a purchase that supported it |
Two narrow exceptions to that 90-day rule: if a review concluded that a computer or a Steam library is genuinely shared, we keep those links so the same computer does not flag you again; and a link tied to a confirmed evasion case is kept for up to a further 180 days after that case is decided.
You can review and update your profile in the Game's settings at any time. Turn notifications in particular are yours to switch off without asking anyone: Settings → Notifications controls both what you are told about and where it is sent, Discord and mobile independently, and turning either off takes effect immediately. Turning both off is a supported choice — the Game will simply stop telling you, and your Correspondence matches carry on running to their deadlines.
You also control the social features. "Friend requests from", "Allow friend joins", "Let platform friends find me", and "Appear offline" are in the Friends panel and in Settings → Privacy. You can remove a friend, decline or cancel a request, or leave a Coalition at any time. Blocking a player ends any friendship with them. A Google Play Games or Game Center link can be removed from the Friends panel, and Google's and Apple's own settings let you withdraw the friends-list permission you gave the Game.
Ads are always your choice. Rewarded ads only play when you tap Watch an ad, and they are non-personalized. If you are in the European Economic Area, the UK or Switzerland, the Game shows Google's consent form before your first ad, and you can revisit your choices at any time from Ad privacy choices in Settings → Privacy. On any Android device you can also reset or delete your advertising ID in your device's settings. Premium members never see ads.
You may also ask us to:
Send requests to the email address below. We will verify that the request comes from the account holder and respond within the time required by applicable law, generally 30 to 45 days. We will not treat you differently for exercising these rights. If you are in the EEA or UK, you may also lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.
Full instructions are on the Account Deletion page, which you can reach without having the Game installed. In short: email us at the address below from your account's email address, with Account deletion in the subject and your display name in the message. You can also start the request in the Game — Settings → Account → Delete Account — which opens the same page.
Deletion removes your profile, career statistics, rank, match history, inventory, friends list, friend requests, Coalition membership, linked Google Play Games and Game Center accounts, and any unspent virtual currency, which is forfeited and not refundable. It also removes your Declarations of War and ends Premium access. We complete it within 30 days and email you when it is done.
Payment records are kept for financial and tax purposes, no longer linked to your account. Cancel a paid subscription through Stripe's billing portal first, because deleting your account does not cancel the billing on its own.
A narrow set of records survives deletion because the law requires it, or because removing it would let a banned player start over: purchase and tax records, confirmed fair-play cases and the restrictions that followed, the fair-play installation and device identifiers and Steam library links used to detect ban evasion, and player reports that are part of a moderation record. The retention table in section 6 gives the periods.
We use encryption in transit (TLS) for sign-in, your account and profile data, purchases, and everything else the Game exchanges with our web services, along with hashed password storage, access controls, and restricted administrative access. One exception: the live gameplay connection to our match servers is not encrypted. That link carries the moves in your match, the display names of the players in it, the preset phrases they send, and, when a match is being cast, the caster's view of it — it does not carry your email address, your password, or any payment detail. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you and any required regulator as the law requires.
We operate from the United States, and our servers and service providers may be located in the United States and other countries. If you play from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, which may have different data protection laws than your country. Where required, we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses or another lawful transfer mechanism.
We may update this policy as the Game changes. When we make a material change, we will update the "Last updated" date above and notify you in the Game or by email before the change takes effect. Continuing to play after a change means you accept the updated policy.
Grumpy Giraffe Games LLC
732 S 6th ST, STE N
Las Vegas, Nevada 89101
Email: support@grumpygiraffe.net
© Grumpy Giraffe Games LLC. Pact or Peril is a trademark of Grumpy Giraffe Games LLC.