TERMS OF SERVICE

1. Acceptance

By creating an account or playing Crimelink, you agree to these Terms and to the Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not play.

Crimelink is in active development. Features described here or on this site may change, break, or be removed. TODO(owner): if the alpha runs under a separate test agreement or NDA, say how it interacts with these Terms.

2. Accounts & eligibility

You need an account to play. You are responsible for what happens under it, so keep your password to yourself and use one you do not use anywhere else. Tell us if you think someone else is in your account.

One person, one account. TODO(owner): confirm — is multi-accounting actually prohibited and enforced? A competitive location game usually needs this rule, but do not publish a rule you will not enforce.

Do not register a username that impersonates someone else, or one built to harass or slur. We can reclaim usernames that break this.

TODO(owner): minimum age. Must match the Privacy Policy and the store age rating. Also state whether accounts can be transferred or sold — the answer is almost certainly no.

3. Acceptable use

The crime is fictional. The rules are not. Do not:

• Fake your location — GPS spoofing, emulators, or any tool that tells the game you are somewhere you are not.
• Use bots, scripts, automation, or modified clients.
• Exploit a bug for gain instead of reporting it. Finding one is fine. Farming one is not.
• Harass, threaten, stalk, or dox anyone. In-game rivalry stops at the game.
• Buy, sell, or trade accounts, items, or in-game currency for real money outside the game.
• Attack the service — reverse-engineer it, scrape it, or interfere with its infrastructure.

Breaking these can cost you your progress or your account. See section 8.

4. Real-world safety

This is the section that matters most, so it is in plain words:

• Crimelink never requires you to commit a real crime. Not one. The game is fiction end to end.
• Never trespass. Play only from lawful, publicly accessible areas. If a place is closed, private, restricted, or you would have to ignore a sign to reach it, it is not worth a venue search.
• Never play while driving or operating anything that can hurt someone.
• No purchase or interaction with any business is required to play, ever.
• Watch where you are going. Your surroundings are real and the game is not.

You play at your own risk and you are responsible for obeying the law where you are. If you do not want to leave the house, don’t — Crimelink has a networked mode that requires no GPS at all.

5. Virtual currency & items

Cash, Clink, weapons, parts, crafted specials, cosmetics, crew banks — all of it is virtual. Specifically:

• No cash value. Virtual currency and items have no monetary value, cannot be redeemed for money, and are not your property.
• You get a licence, not ownership. A limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable licence to use them inside Crimelink. That is all.
• Balance changes. This is a game in development. We can add, remove, rebalance, or reset virtual items and currency — including for economy or anti-cheat reasons.
• They do not survive the account. If your account closes, they go with it.
• No real-money trading. Selling items, currency, or accounts for real money is prohibited and unsupported.

There is currently nothing to buy in Crimelink — no purchases exist in the build. TODO(owner): before any payment goes live, this section needs real purchase terms: pricing, a refund policy that satisfies the app stores and consumer law in every market you sell in, and what happens to purchased items if the service shuts down. Do not launch payments on this paragraph.

6. Digital turf & real venues

Crimelink maps real, publicly accessible places into a fictional underworld. To be unambiguous about it:

• Virtual control of a venue is not real ownership, tenancy, access, or any right to anything.
• A venue on our map is not a sponsor, partner, or affiliate unless we say so explicitly.
• Nothing in the game reflects a real opinion about a real business or the people in it.
• Fictional crime happening at a mapped location is fiction. It is not a claim that anything happened there.

TODO(owner): publish a venue removal channel — an address a business owner or resident can write to in order to have a location removed from competitive play, plus a commitment to act on it. Also state the policy on excluding residences, schools, and other sensitive locations. This is the single most likely source of a real complaint against a location-based game, and there is no channel today.

7. Your content & moderation

You are responsible for what you write — usernames, crew names, and anything you send in chat. Do not post anything unlawful, hateful, threatening, sexual, someone else’s private information, or someone else’s work.

We can remove content and rename anything that breaks these Terms, and we may review reported content. We do not pre-screen everything and we are not responsible for what other players say.

You can block other players in-game — blocking is mutual and suppresses PvP between you.

TODO(owner): grant the licence you actually need to operate the service (display, transmit, store user content within the game), and add a reporting channel for content that breaks these rules. Have counsel word the licence — do not overreach.

8. Termination

You can stop playing and delete your account at any time — see your rights.

We can suspend or terminate an account that breaks these Terms, especially for spoofing, cheating, or harassment. Where it is fair to do so we will tell you why. TODO(owner): decide whether there is an appeals route and name it. In a competitive game with an anti-cheat that flags for human review, false positives happen — an appeals path is worth having.

We may also suspend or discontinue the service itself. TODO(owner): notice period for a shutdown, and what happens to accounts and any purchases if the game closes.

9. Disclaimers & limitation of liability

Crimelink is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, to the extent the law allows. We do not promise it will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or that your progress will never be lost. It is a game in development and it will break sometimes.

You are responsible for your own safety and conduct in the real world while playing. See section 4.

TODO(owner): the limitation-of-liability and indemnity clauses must be written by counsel for your jurisdiction and cannot be templated safely — caps, carve-outs, and consumer-law exclusions vary by market, and an over-broad cap is unenforceable in several of them. Do not publish a placeholder here.

10. Changes

We will update these Terms as the game grows. When we make a material change we will update the date at the top. Continuing to play after a change means you accept it. TODO(owner): how do you notify existing players of a material change — in-app notice, email — and is there a notice period before it takes effect?

11. Governing law

TODO(owner): governing law, venue for disputes, and whether you require arbitration or a class-action waiver. This is a genuine legal decision with real consequences — it needs counsel, not a template. It must also be consistent with the entity named at the top of this page.

12. Contact

TODO(owner): contact email address and postal address for legal notices.

See also: Privacy Policy · FAQ