Game Smithing Privacy Policy

We strongly support your right to privacy when using our products. To the extent that our products and websites can provide their functionality without doing so, we prefer to avoid collecting data from you. We use modern security measures to protect collected data, and limit access to only those employees who require access to perform their jobs. We may be legally required to disclose collected data to law enforcement or government agencies in some situations.

This privacy policy will explain how our organization uses the personal data we collect from you when you use our website, video games, forums, blogs, social media and other services such as our newsletter and other ways in which we interact with you or have access to your personal data.

Legally, we cannot and will not knowingly collect personal data about children below 13.

What data do we collect?

Technical Details

When you use, play or access Game Smithing services we or third parties on our behalf may collect technical details about the device you are using, including:

• internet and/or network connection (including IP address); MAC address;
• any console device identifier;
• your operating system;
• browser type or other software;
• your hardware or other technical details;

If you sign up to a newsletter, you will be asked to provide us with certain information. When you sign up for a newsletter we may collect information such as email address, country of residence and IP address.

Your Activities

When you use, play or access Game Smithing services we or third parties on our behalf may collect details of how you use our services, including:

• metrics information about when and how you use the services;
• traffic data;
• language preferences;
• achievements;
• gameplay statistics;
• time spent playing;
• choices you make about any characters you use, progress you make in our games;
• your geographical location data;
• We may attach a unique reference ID to you as a player. This unique reference ID will be different to your console or platform ID.

Your Communications

If you contact us (e.g. via email or direct message) or post in chat sessions, forums or other areas of the Game Smithing services, we may collect and maintain a record of your contact details and the content of your communications. We will not ask you to provide us with any special category (sensitive) personal data. Any such personal data we receive about you will be data you have shared with us or data someone else has provided to us about you.

User Accounts

To access certain Game Smithing services (e.g. games or chat server) you may need to create a user account. When you log in to play our games we collect basic log in information such as your account username and, where relevant, your username for your accounts with the consoles or platforms you are playing our games on (for example, your Steam ID and username or information related to your account with Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo Switch such as your username or console ID). If you make purchases, we might receive some payment confirmation information about you from payment service providers, but we will not receive payment details.

Advertising

We may receive personal data about you as part of our marketing and advertising efforts.

How do we collect your data?

You directly provide Game Smithing with most of the data we collect. We may collect and process data when you:

• play any of our games;
• sign up for our newsletter;
• send us direct communication (email or direct message);
• post in chat sessions, forums or other areas of the Game Smithing services;

How do we store your data?

Your privacy is important to us and we place great importance on the steps we take, including technical and organisational measures to protect your information from unauthorised access and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction and damage. However, no method of transmission over the internet, and no means of electronic or physical storage, is absolutely secure. We cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to, through, or on our Products and that any such transmission is at your own risk.

How long do we store your data?

We will retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collect it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any contractual requirements or other legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. As detailed below, you may have certain legal rights to object to our collection and use of your data, but this may mean some or all Game Smithing Services become unavailable to you. We also reserve the right to retain your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, maintain appropriate business records and enforce our agreements.

If you join one of our email lists, we retain your email address until you ask to be removed. Instructions on how to unsubscribe are contained in all messages sent to the email list. Once unsubscribed, you'll no longer receive newsletter emails from us. If you wish for us to completely delete your email from our databases, please contact support@gamesmithing.com.

How do we share your data

We do not sell or otherwise disclose any portion of our email list to third-parties, with the exception of the vendor that provides our mailing list services as necessary to distribute the emails.

We will never share your information with third parties for their own marketing purposes without first obtaining your consent. We may share your personal data with other parties. We describe the circumstances in which we share your personal data with other parties below:

• third party service providers in the course of providing the Game Smithing services to you and operating our business, for example, organisations that provide us with technology related services such as data storage, server hosting, customer and technical support as well as game analytics, advertising, etc. which may require them to access your information on our behalf. Those third parties may also collect some information directly from you (e.g. IP address, unique identifiers, etc.) and activities carried out for their own purposes will be covered by their own privacy policies;
• third party service providers providing us with marketing campaign related services (e.g. ad network and measurement services) to display advertising on the Game Smithing services and to manage our ads on third party sites and social media platforms. You can choose to prevent your device's ad identifier being used for interest-based advertising by updating the settings on your device and you may be able to opt-out from the collection of information by some of our advertising partners;
• platforms or consoles you play our games on such as Steam, Xbox, Oculus, Vive, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch;
• we may share your personal data within the Game Smithing company group for the purpose of providing the Game Smithing Services;
• organisations we have a professional relationship with, where you have provided your consent for us to share your data with them for marketing purposes;
• social media and other online platforms such as Twitter, Discord and YouTube which we use to communicate with you or to share photos and text that you share via your profiles on these sites, for example, when we reshare a post that you are mentioned in via our profile on a social media site;
• external professional advisors who need to access such information for the purpose of advising us;
• law enforcement bodies which may have any reasonable requirement to access your personal data, for example, in order to assist with any investigations, when we bring a claim or defend ourselves against a claim that requires the disclosure of personal data;
• potential purchasers of our business or investors in it (including in the event of insolvency).

International transfers: Some of the parties we share your personal data with might be based abroad. When your data is transferred internationally, we are required to ensure you are afforded equivalent protection in respect of your personal data to that provided in the UK and the EU. Generally, we will put in place appropriate safeguards when making international transfers, for example, by using specific contractual clauses which have been approved by the European Commission and/or the UK government together with supplementary measures if we deem it necessary in the circumstances, for example, further contractual commitments, enhanced security and assessments of transfer risk.

How will we use your data?

Game Smithing collects your data so that we can:

• carry out our obligations arising from any contracts between you and us;
• provide you with news about our studio and games;
• receive and reply to correspondance;
• monitor the quality of our services (by gathering and analysing usage statistics of our services and games);
• engage with players and potential players through surveys;
• engage with players and potential players through advertisement campaings;

Marketing

Game Smithing would like to send you information about products and services of ours that we think you might like. If you have agreed to receive marketing, you may always opt out at a later date. You have the right at any time to stop Game Smithing from contacting you for marketing purposes. If you no longer wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, please send us an email at support@gamesmithing.com or click the unsubscribe link sent along with every email we send you.

What are your data protection rights?

Game Smithing would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:

• The right to access - You have the right to request Game Smithing for copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service.
• The right to rectification - You have the right to request that Game Smithing correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request Game Smithing to complete information you believe is incomplete.
• The right to erasure - You have the right to request that Game Smithing erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
• The right to restrict processing - You have the right to request that Game Smithing restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
• The right to object to processing - You have the right to object to Game Smithing's processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
• The right to data portability - You have the right to request that Game Smithing transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@gamesmithing.com.

Third party

Game Smithing services may, from time to time, contain or connect you with third party content or services. Our Privacy Policy does not extend to external sites or companies, so please refer directly to their privacy policies.

Changes to our privacy policy

Game Smithing keeps its privacy policy under regular review and places any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on 25 June 2024.

How to contact us

If you have any questions about Game Smithing's privacy policy, the data we hold on you, or you would like to exercise one of your data protection rights, please do not hesitate to contact us. Email us at: support@gamesmithing.com

How to contact the appropriate authority

Should you wish to report a complaint or if you feel that Game Smithing has not addressed your concern in a satisfactory manner, you may contact the Information Commissioner's Office.