Shadowmire — Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of These Terms

Shadowmire is an online Xianxia MMORPG operated by Shadowmire Studio ("Shadowmire Studio", "we", "us", or "our"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Shadowmire game client, the marketing and studio websites (play.shadowmire.studio and shadowmire.studio), the closed beta, and any related services, updates, and content (together, the "Service").

By creating an account, signing in, downloading, installing, or playing Shadowmire, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated here by reference. If you do not agree, do not access or use the Service.

If you are accepting these Terms on behalf of a minor for whom you are a parent or legal guardian, you agree to be bound by them on that minor's behalf and you are responsible for their use of the Service.

2. Who Can Play — Eligibility and Age

Shadowmire is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly allow anyone under 13 to create an account or play (in line with COPPA and equivalent rules). Where the digital age of consent is higher than 13 in your region, we enforce that higher age (for example, 13–16 under the GDPR depending on country).

To keep younger players safe, the Service applies age-based feature bands based on the birthdate you provide (which we use for age-gating only):

• Under the applicable digital age of consent: certain social, communication, and purchasing features are restricted, and verifiable parental consent is required.
• 16 to 17: some features require parental consent or supervision.
• 18 and over: full access to all age-appropriate features of the Service.
• If we learn that we have collected data from a child below the applicable age without proper consent, we will delete that account and its data.

3. Closed Beta — What "Beta" Means

Shadowmire is in a closed, pre-release beta made available for testing and feedback. Beta access is a revocable privilege, not a right — we may grant, limit, suspend, or withdraw access to any tester at any time, for any reason, without notice.

The beta is provided "as is" and "as available" and may be incomplete, unstable, or interrupted. Features may be added, changed, or removed at any time. Your account, characters, progress, currency, and purchases may be reset or wiped between beta phases or before public launch.

Where we choose to recognize early testers, founder status and cosmetic honors may be preserved across wipes, but we do not guarantee that any specific item, balance, or progress will carry over. Because this is a testing build, you may encounter confidential or unreleased information; you agree not to publicly disclose non-public beta details except as we permit.

4. Your Account

You currently create your account through Google Sign-In (we receive your name, email, and profile information from Google). Additional sign-in and registration options — email or username and password, and Apple or Facebook social linking — are planned and, when available, will be governed by these same Terms. Where we offer password login, passwords are stored using strong hashing (argon2id) and you may enable optional two-factor authentication (TOTP) with backup codes.

You are responsible for keeping your account credentials and any linked sign-in provider secure, and for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us promptly at support (via Discord or the Beta FAQ) or the contact below if you believe your account has been accessed without your permission.

Account rules:

• One person, one account — accounts are personal to you.
• Do not share, lend, rent, or transfer your account or credentials to anyone else.
• Do not buy, sell, trade, or advertise accounts, characters, items, or currency for real-world value, whether inside or outside the game.
• Do not create accounts by automated means, or maintain multiple accounts to evade a suspension or gain an unfair advantage.
• Provide accurate information (including an accurate birthdate) and keep it up to date.

5. Fair Play and Acceptable Use

Shadowmire is a shared world, and fair play protects everyone. You agree to use the Service only for lawful purposes and in line with these Terms. In connection with the Service, you must not:

• Cheat, use hacks, aimbots, macros, bots, scripts, or any unauthorized automation, or otherwise play the game other than as intended.
• Exploit bugs, glitches, or errors for advantage instead of reporting them to us.
• Modify, reverse-engineer, decompile, tamper with, or interfere with the game client, servers, network traffic, memory, or content protection, except where such restriction is prohibited by law.
• Engage in real-money trading (RMT) — buying, selling, or brokering accounts, in-game items, currency, or services for real-world value.
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service, other accounts, or our systems; probe or disrupt them; or overload, flood, or attack the infrastructure.
• Harass, threaten, defraud, impersonate, or harm other players or our staff, or post unlawful, hateful, or infringing content.
• Use the Service in violation of applicable laws, export controls, or sanctions, or to scrape or extract data by automated means.

6. Purchases and No Pay-to-Win

Shadowmire is designed around a firm principle: no pay-to-win. Real money never buys combat power. Real-money purchases grant only cosmetic items (which carry zero combat stats), convenience features, and bound soft-currency — nothing that gives a competitive gameplay advantage over other players.

When purchases are enabled, they are processed through the applicable app store or payment provider (for example, Google Play Billing), and that provider's terms and pricing apply. We do not receive or store your full payment card details.

Because this is a beta, any purchases, balances, or entitlements may be reset when a beta phase is wiped. Refunds and cancellations are handled under the policy of the store or payment provider you bought through, and under any rights you have by law; contact us at the address below if you have a question about a purchase.

7. Virtual Items and Currency

Virtual items, cosmetics, and in-game currency ("Virtual Items") are licensed to you, not sold or owned. Your rights are a limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable license to use them within Shadowmire, for as long as we operate the Service and subject to these Terms.

Virtual Items have no real-world cash value, cannot be redeemed for money, and cannot be transferred, sold, or exchanged outside the game. You do not have any ownership, property, or intellectual-property right in any Virtual Item.

We may create, adjust, remove, re-balance, expire, or discontinue Virtual Items, currency, and features at any time — including for balancing, legal, or operational reasons. During beta, Virtual Items may be reset or wiped, and we are not required to compensate you for any change to, loss of, or expiration of Virtual Items, except where the law requires otherwise.

8. Your Content and Feedback

You may submit content through the Service or our community channels — for example, a character name, chat messages, forum or Discord posts, bug reports, and suggestions ("User Content"). You are responsible for your User Content, and you represent that you have the rights to it and that it does not violate these Terms or the rights of others.

You keep ownership of your User Content. You grant Shadowmire Studio a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, modify, display, and use your User Content to operate, moderate, promote, and improve the Service.

Feedback is special: if you send us ideas, suggestions, or feedback about the game, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free right to use it for any purpose without any obligation or compensation to you. We may remove or moderate User Content that violates these Terms or that we consider harmful, at our discretion.

9. Privacy and Your Data

Your privacy matters. Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect and why. In short, we collect account information (email, username, display name and tag, birthdate for age-gating, region or country, and your sign-in provider ID), gameplay data (character, progress, settings, activity, currency, and purchases), and device and technical data (device model, operating system, approximate region, IP address, and crash and performance logs). We use transactional email (for verification, security alerts, and service notices) via our email provider. We do not sell your personal data.

Depending on where you live, you have rights over your data — including to access, correct, delete (erasure), export or port, and restrict or object to certain processing, and to withdraw consent. We rely on service providers and subprocessors (such as hosting, authentication, email, and crash/analytics providers) that are contract-bound and used only as needed.

You can request account deletion now by emailing privacy@shadowmire.studio, or through in-game and support channels; self-serve deletion will arrive with the full account system. When you delete your account, we remove your account and gameplay data, and honor the request within 30 days. We retain limited financial and transaction records where the law requires (for example, tax and fraud purposes) and then anonymize them. This process meets the Google Play data-deletion requirement. For all privacy questions and requests, contact privacy@shadowmire.studio.

10. Intellectual Property

Shadowmire — including the game, its software, art, audio, characters, story, user interface, the "Shadowmire" name, logos, and marks — is owned by Shadowmire Studio or its licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws. These Terms do not transfer any ownership to you.

Subject to your compliance with these Terms, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use the game client and play Shadowmire for your own non-commercial entertainment.

You may not copy, distribute, publicly perform or display, modify, create derivative works from, sell, or otherwise exploit any part of the Service or its content, except as expressly permitted by these Terms or by law. Content-sharing for personal, non-commercial community use (such as screenshots and videos) is permitted so long as it does not misrepresent the game or Shadowmire Studio.

11. Third-Party Services

The Service works with third parties, and your use of those is governed by their own terms and privacy policies, not ours. These include your sign-in provider (Google, and later Apple or Facebook), the app stores and payment providers you buy through (such as Google Play, and later the Apple App Store and Steam), and community platforms such as Discord.

We are not responsible for third-party services, their availability, or their acts and omissions. If a third-party service changes, restricts, or discontinues its offering, that may affect your ability to sign in, purchase, or play, and we are not liable for that.

12. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend, restrict, or terminate your access to the Service or any account, and remove content, at any time — with or without notice — if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms, engaged in cheating, fraud, or harm to others, or if we need to for legal, security, or operational reasons (including ending the beta).

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time (see the Privacy and Your Data section). Because Virtual Items are a revocable license with no cash value, we are not obligated to refund or compensate you for any Virtual Items, currency, progress, or founder status on suspension, termination, a beta wipe, or discontinuation of the Service, except where the law requires.

Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and governing law — will continue to apply.

13. Disclaimers — "As Is"

The Service, including the closed beta, is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, error-free, or free of harmful components, or that any data, progress, or Virtual Items will be preserved.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

14. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Shadowmire Studio and its officers, directors, employees, and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, progress, Virtual Items, profits, or goodwill, arising out of or relating to your use of or inability to use the Service — even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

To the extent liability cannot be excluded, our total aggregate liability to you for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us for the Service in the three months before the claim, or USD 50. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

15. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Shadowmire Studio, its affiliates, and their respective officers, directors, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of the Service, your User Content, or your violation of these Terms or of any law or the rights of a third party.

16. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time — for example, as the game moves from closed beta toward launch, or when features, laws, or providers change. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date and post the revised Terms.

For material changes, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you (for example, in-game or by email). Your continued use of the Service after the changes take effect means you accept the revised Terms. If you do not agree, stop using the Service and, if you wish, delete your account.

17. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with applicable law, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. We would rather solve problems than fight about them, so you agree to first try to resolve any dispute with us informally by contacting us.

If a dispute cannot be resolved through good-faith negotiation, it will be resolved through binding arbitration or in the courts of competent jurisdiction, to the extent permitted by law. Nothing here removes any mandatory consumer-protection rights you have in your country of residence.

18. Contact Us

Questions about these Terms? Reach us at legal@shadowmire.studio. For privacy questions, data requests, and account deletion, contact privacy@shadowmire.studio. For gameplay help and beta support, use our Discord or the Beta FAQ.

Shadowmire Studio — legal@shadowmire.studio · privacy@shadowmire.studio

Shadowmire is developed and operated by Shadowmire Studio, the party responsible (controller) for your personal information. Our registered developer and contact details are available on request. You can reach us at privacy@shadowmire.studio.