Privacy

The short version

We store the minimum needed to run a launch board: an account if you make one, the things you post, and the votes you cast. There are no ad networks on this site, no third-party trackers, no session recording and no data broker relationships. We do not know what games you played and we could not tell anyone if we wanted to.

What we collect

If you never sign up, we collect essentially nothing. You can browse every page and play every game without an account, and the only thing stored in your browser is a theme preference so the site does not flash white at you on the next visit.

If you create an account, we store your email address, a username, a display name, and a hash of your password. The password itself is hashed with bcrypt and is not recoverable. If you forget it we can reset it, not tell you what it was. Optionally you can add a bio, an avatar URL, a website and social handles; those are public by design, because they are on your profile.

If you use the site while signed in, we store what you do with it: the games you submit and everything on those listings, your comments, your votes, your bookmarks, the makers you follow and any report you send us. Votes are stored against your account because that is the only way to enforce one vote per person and to let you take a vote back. Reports are kept so moderation decisions can be reviewed, and the maker is never told who filed one.

If you subscribe to the email, we store your address and which page you signed up from. That is the whole record.

Server logs. Our hosting provider keeps standard request logs (IP address, timestamp, path, user agent) for a short period. That is how anyone runs a web server and how we investigate abuse. We do not join those logs to accounts for any other purpose.

Information from other sources. Some listings, and the maker profiles attached to them, are compiled from publicly available information rather than submitted here. The terms explain why. Where an entry like that describes you, every choice below still applies: write to us and we will correct it, hand it over, or take it down.

Cookies

One cookie, plus one word in local storage. Neither is for advertising.

A session cookie, set when you sign in. It holds a signed token that says which account you are, nothing else. It is HTTP-only so scripts on the page cannot read it, and it expires. Our side keeps a matching record of the session and when it lapses. Sign out and both are deleted.
A theme preference, so light or dark survives a reload. It is a single word in local storage and it never leaves your browser.

There is no cookie consent banner because there is nothing to consent to. Both of the above are strictly necessary to provide a function you asked for, and neither tracks you anywhere.

What we never do

Sell or rent your data. Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not to game makers.
Run ad networks or tracking pixels. There is no Google Analytics, no Meta pixel, no session replay, no heatmaps and no third-party JavaScript loaded on page view for the purpose of watching you.
Build advertising profiles. We do not personalise the front page and we do not infer anything about you from what you vote on.
Share your email with makers. A maker whose game you upvoted sees the vote count, not who cast it.
Email you things you did not ask for. An account gets transactional email; the daily digest is separate and opt-in.

Who else touches it

A small number of service providers, each doing one job, each bound by their own terms:

Hosting and CDN: serves the site and holds the request logs described above.
The database: a managed PostgreSQL host that stores accounts, listings, comments and votes.
Email delivery: sends password resets, moderation notices and the daily digest. It sees the addresses it sends to.

We disclose data outside this list only if we are legally required to, and where we are permitted to tell you about it, we will.

The games themselves

This is the part people miss, so it gets its own heading. vibedgame does not host the games. It links to them. When you press play you leave for the maker's own site, and once you are there, their privacy practices apply and ours do not. Some games save progress in your browser, some have their own accounts, and a few may have analytics we know nothing about.

We check submitted links and remove listings that behave badly (see the submission rules), but we cannot audit what happens on somebody else's domain, and we would be lying if we claimed otherwise.

Your choices

Edit anything. Your profile, your listings and your comments are all editable from your dashboard.
Delete a listing. It and its comments go immediately. Search engines take a few days to catch up, which is outside our control.
Delete your account. Email us and it goes, along with your listings, comments and votes. We will confirm when it is done.
Get a copy of your data. Ask and we will send you everything we hold that is tied to your account.
Unsubscribe from the email. One click in any issue, effective immediately.

If you are in the UK, the EU, or somewhere with comparable law, the rights you have there (access, correction, erasure, portability, objection) are the ones described above. Ask and we will do it; we do not require you to cite a statute first.

How long we keep it

Account data stays until you delete the account. Published listings and comments stay while they are published, because a discussion thread with holes in it is not a discussion thread. Newsletter addresses stay until you unsubscribe. Server logs are kept for a short operational window and then rotate out. Deleted things are removed from backups on the normal backup cycle rather than instantly, which is a technical limit and not a loophole.

Children

Accounts are for people aged 13 and over, or 16 where local law requires it. We do not knowingly hold data belonging to anyone younger, and if we learn that we have, we delete it. Games listed here vary in content and are not age-rated by us.

Changes and contact

When this page changes materially, the date at the top changes with it and the change is written up in the changelog like anything else. We do not quietly rewrite it.

Questions, requests, or a correction to something on this page: hey@vibedgame.com. A person reads that inbox and privacy requests are not routed to a form.

The short version

What we collect

If you subscribe to the email, we store your address and which page you signed up from. That is the whole record.

Cookies

One cookie, plus one word in local storage. Neither is for advertising.

A session cookie, set when you sign in. It holds a signed token that says which account you are, nothing else. It is HTTP-only so scripts on the page cannot read it, and it expires. Our side keeps a matching record of the session and when it lapses. Sign out and both are deleted.
A theme preference, so light or dark survives a reload. It is a single word in local storage and it never leaves your browser.

There is no cookie consent banner because there is nothing to consent to. Both of the above are strictly necessary to provide a function you asked for, and neither tracks you anywhere.

What we never do

Sell or rent your data. Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not to game makers.
Run ad networks or tracking pixels. There is no Google Analytics, no Meta pixel, no session replay, no heatmaps and no third-party JavaScript loaded on page view for the purpose of watching you.
Build advertising profiles. We do not personalise the front page and we do not infer anything about you from what you vote on.
Share your email with makers. A maker whose game you upvoted sees the vote count, not who cast it.
Email you things you did not ask for. An account gets transactional email; the daily digest is separate and opt-in.

Who else touches it

A small number of service providers, each doing one job, each bound by their own terms:

Hosting and CDN: serves the site and holds the request logs described above.
The database: a managed PostgreSQL host that stores accounts, listings, comments and votes.
Email delivery: sends password resets, moderation notices and the daily digest. It sees the addresses it sends to.

We disclose data outside this list only if we are legally required to, and where we are permitted to tell you about it, we will.

The games themselves

We check submitted links and remove listings that behave badly (see the submission rules), but we cannot audit what happens on somebody else's domain, and we would be lying if we claimed otherwise.

Your choices

Edit anything. Your profile, your listings and your comments are all editable from your dashboard.
Delete a listing. It and its comments go immediately. Search engines take a few days to catch up, which is outside our control.
Delete your account. Email us and it goes, along with your listings, comments and votes. We will confirm when it is done.
Get a copy of your data. Ask and we will send you everything we hold that is tied to your account.
Unsubscribe from the email. One click in any issue, effective immediately.

How long we keep it

Children

Changes and contact

When this page changes materially, the date at the top changes with it and the change is written up in the changelog like anything else. We do not quietly rewrite it.

Questions, requests, or a correction to something on this page: hey@vibedgame.com. A person reads that inbox and privacy requests are not routed to a form.