Terms
Terms of service
1. The deal
Iron & Ember (“the game”) is made and operated by Christopher Quenneville (“we”, “us”). By installing or playing it, or by using ironember.net, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not play. The privacy policy explains what we keep about you and is part of these terms.
2. Early access
The game is in early access. Cards, rules, prices in Ember Stones, features and platforms will change, sometimes a lot, and a match, a feature or the whole service may be unavailable at times. We try to keep every account’s collection intact through changes, but we cannot promise that any particular card, deck or balance will stay as it is.
3. Your account
- You may hold one account. You sign in through a provider such as Google, Apple, Microsoft or Steam, or with a key your device generates; keep those credentials to yourself, because whoever holds them holds the account.
- You choose a player name. It must not impersonate anyone, must not be offensive, and must not be somebody else’s trademark. The game filters names, and we may rename or suspend an account whose name gets past the filter and should not have.
- You must be at least 13 years old, or the age at which your country lets you agree to terms like these if it is higher.
- You can delete your account at any time, from the Profile page in the game or by email. See deleting your account.
4. Fair play
Matches are decided on our server, and the fun depends on everyone playing the same game. So you agree not to:
- use a modified client, or any tool that automates play or reads information a player is not meant to see;
- exploit a bug to win, to gain Ember Stones or cards, or to disrupt other players. If you find one, tell us at support@ironember.net and we will be grateful;
- attack, overload or probe the service, or interfere with anyone else’s play;
- harass other players, in a name or otherwise.
We may warn, suspend or close an account that breaks these rules, and remove anything gained by breaking them.
Reporting, blocking and appeals. You can report a player from the end of a match or from that match in your history, for an offensive name, for cheating or for something else, and you can block a player, after which the game never matches the two of you again; the Profile page lists who you have blocked and lets you undo it. A person reads every report. If a name breaks section 3, we change it: the account keeps everything else, nobody can take the old name again, and the next time its player signs in the game says why and asks for a new one. You can appeal anything we do to your account by writing to support@ironember.net with the account’s name and why; we answer every appeal and undo what we got wrong.
How we moderate. The only decision software makes on its own is the name filter: when you choose a name, the game compares it, letter by letter and with look-alike letters and separators folded, against lists of words that are not allowed, and refuses it if it matches; it takes no action against an account. Everything else is decided by a person: we read every report and every notice, and we may change a name, warn a player, suspend an account or close it, choosing the least that answers the problem. When we change a name, the game tells its player why, which part of these terms it broke, and how to appeal. If we suspend or close an account, we tell its player why in the same way. An appeal is read again from the start, by a person who did not make the first decision whenever there is one.
Telling us about something illegal. Anyone can tell us about a name or anything else in the game they believe is illegal, with or without an account, by writing to support@ironember.net. Say what it is (the player name, or where in the game and when), why you believe it is illegal, and your name and email address, and confirm that you believe in good faith that the notice is accurate and complete. We confirm that we received it, decide without undue delay, and tell you what we decided and why.
5. Ember Stones, cards and card packs
Ember Stones, cards, card packs, cosmetics and every other in-game item are a licence to use them inside Iron & Ember, not property you own. They have no cash value, cannot be sold, traded or transferred outside the game, and may change or be withdrawn as the game changes. If your account ends, or the game ends, they end with it and nothing is paid out for them. There are no real-money purchases in the game today; if that ever changes, these terms will say so first. Where the law gives you a refund or a right to withdraw from a purchase, that right stands whatever this section says.
6. What is ours, and what you may do with it
The game, its rules, its cards, names, text, art, sounds, music and this website are ours or licensed to us. We grant you a personal, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and play the game for your own enjoyment. You may stream, record and publish videos and screenshots of the game, including for money on a platform that pays you, as long as you do not sell the game’s assets themselves or claim them as your own.
7. No warranty, and limits on liability
The game and the website are provided as they are and as they are available, without any warranty, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose and uninterrupted or error-free operation. To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential loss, or for any loss of data, items or matches, arising from the game or its unavailability. Nothing in these terms limits a liability that the law does not let us limit.
8. Ending things
You may stop playing and delete your account at any time, from the Profile page in the game. We may suspend or close an account for breach of these terms, and we may stop offering the game or part of it, with reasonable notice where we can give it.
9. Changes to these terms
We may revise these terms. The current version is always at ironember.net/terms with its effective date; a change that matters will be announced in the game before it applies. Playing after a change means you accept it.
10. App stores
These terms are between you and us. Apple and Google are not parties to them, and they are not responsible for the game, its content or its support, or for any claim about it, including a claim that it breaks the law or somebody else’s rights; we are. If you got the game from Apple’s App Store, Apple’s standard licence agreement for apps also applies, and where it and these terms disagree about your licence to use the app, it governs. Apple and its subsidiaries may enforce these terms against you as third-party beneficiaries.
11. General
These terms are governed by the laws applicable where we are established, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, and nothing in them takes away protections you have as a consumer under the law of the country you live in. If a part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest still applies.
Contact
support@ironember.net reaches a person. It is our single point of contact for players, and for the authorities of the European Union’s member states, the European Commission and the European Board for Digital Services under the Digital Services Act. Write in English, French or Spanish.