Publishing
Content rules
The rules for games come from two documents you agree to: the Acceptable use policy and the Developer agreement. This page summarises them for game makers and adds the practical detail reviewers use. If anything here differs from those documents, they apply.
Audience
Smaz Games accounts are for people aged 13 and over, and anyone can play as a guest. Players aged 13 to 17 use the site. Games must be suitable for that audience:
- Violence, horror and mild or moderate mature language are allowed when declared.
- Sexual content, nudity, graphic gore and content aimed only at adults are not.
- Games made for young children are welcome, but they must not collect any personal data, and must not include chat or links.
Declarations
Tick every content declaration on the upload form that applies to the version. They are shown to reviewers and, on the game page, to players under Contains. Declared content is not by itself a reason for rejection; undeclared content is.
| Declaration | Tick it when the game has |
|---|---|
| Violence | Combat, weapons, injury or death of people or creatures, even cartoon-style |
| Horror or frightening scenes | Jump scares, gore, disturbing images or themes |
| Mature language | Swearing, crude humour or insults |
| Simulated gambling or loot boxes | Casino-style games, slot machines, wheels, card packs or random rewards, using only in-game currency earned by playing |
| Chat between players | Any player-to-player messages, including preset messages |
| Content players create and share | Player-chosen names shown to others, levels, drawings or other uploads |
| Its own login or player accounts | A sign-in to your service, separate from Smaz Games accounts |
| Collects personal data on its own servers | Anything that identifies a player, stored on your side. A privacy policy is required |
Not allowed
From the Acceptable use policy, a game must not contain or include:
- Pirated games, misleading clones, or stolen art, music or code.
- Malware, hidden cryptocurrency mining or unrelated background work on the player's device.
- Pornography, real-money gambling, sale of illegal goods, shock content, or content that glorifies violence against protected groups.
- Hidden tracking, device fingerprinting, tracking players across games, or collecting player emails.
- Ad code, payment flows or external links that were not declared and approved in review. At launch we approve no ad code and no payment flows; see the Monetization policy.
- Game pages, images or videos that misrepresent the game, its devices, or its awards, ratings or player numbers.
Also not allowed: sexual content involving minors in any form (we report it to the authorities), harassment or hate, encouragement of self-harm or dangerous acts, and political campaigning.
Rights
You keep ownership of your game. When a version is approved, you give Saratoga Games a non-exclusive licence to host it, make the technical copies needed to run it, and show its title and media to promote it, for as long as it is published. The full terms are in the Developer agreement.
You must own, or have permission to use, everything in the game and its media: code, libraries, engines, art, music, sound, fonts, characters and likenesses. Meet the licence terms of anything you use, including credits that a licence requires. Fan games based on someone else's characters or world need the rights holder's permission. We may ask for evidence.
Player safety
- Follow the chat rules for any player-to-player communication.
- Filter names and other text that players can show to each other.
- Do not ask players for personal information, and never for their Smaz Games sign-in code or session.
- If you find a security or privacy problem in your game that affects players, tell us at [email protected] within 24 hours.
- Do not encourage players to leave Smaz Games to contact other players.
Reporting a problem with another game
If you find a game that copies yours or breaks these rules, use Report it on its game page or email [email protected] with the details. For copyright claims, include what you own and where it appears.
Changes after approval
An approved game must not be changed to show different content or call different services without a new version and review. This includes content your game downloads from your own servers.