Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Guildbound: Tales of the Deep ("Guildbound", com.mani.guildbound) is a game for Android, published on Google Play. The controller of your personal data is the developer, A Byte of Everything (Mads Kristensen), based in Denmark. In this policy "we" and "us" mean the developer.

For anything about your data or this policy, email appsbyabyteofeverything@gmail.com.

2. Data kept on your phone

• Your game: your guild's party name, your heroes and the names you gave them, gear, gold, Soul Stones, reputation, cleared regions, save slots and your settings. They live in the app's own storage, with a second copy in Android's app preferences so that a crash cannot lose them.
• A short diagnostics log of the twenty most recent errors, with identifiers scrubbed out. It helps when something goes wrong and is not uploaded anywhere.
• Reminders. If you turn on notifications (Hero recovery, Guild contracts), the reminders are scheduled on the phone itself. No push service is involved.

Android's automatic backup is switched off for Guildbound, so this data is not copied into your Google backup. Uninstalling the game, or clearing its storage in Android's settings, removes it from the phone.

3. The online save

From version 0.9.12, online save starts only when you choose it: tick Back up my progress online when you name your guild (the box starts unticked), or choose Enable guest cloud save in More → Account later. In 0.9.11 and earlier it starts by itself when you name your guild.

Once it has started, and whenever the phone is online after that (from version 0.9.11, until you turn online save off: see below), the game signs in to Google Firebase Authentication with an anonymous account: a random user ID with no name, email address or phone number attached. It then keeps a copy of your save in Google Cloud Firestore under that ID, and updates it as you play. The copy is what lets the game restore your guild once you link a Google account, on this phone after a reinstall or on another phone, and it is what the Arena reads. If the save on the phone itself is damaged, the game recovers it from the second copy it keeps on the phone (section 2), not from the online one.

Stored under your user ID:

• your save: the current game from section 2 (not your settings or the automatic save slots), including the party and hero names you typed;
• your party name, when the account was created and when it last synced;
• if you use the Arena, your last eight ranked Arena matches.

Only your own account can read or change this save. The database's security rules enforce that on the server, not just in the app. Without a connection the save simply stays on the phone until there is one.

From version 0.9.12, if an earlier version started online save by itself, the game asks once whether to keep it. Keep backing up carries on as before. Stop and delete deletes the anonymous account and everything stored under it, and keeps the game on the phone. Until you answer, nothing more is uploaded.

In 0.9.10 and earlier there is no setting that turns online save off. If you do not want an online copy, delete the online account and its data (section 10). That removes everything stored online. The game on that phone then starts over, and in 0.9.11 and earlier naming a new guild starts a new online save.

From version 0.9.11, More → Account → Turn off online save stops it on that phone and keeps the game there. The button is shown while online save is on, and the game asks before it acts. It signs the phone out of the online account and stops uploading your save, and online save stays off when the game restarts, until you choose Sign in with Google or Enable guest cloud save. It deletes nothing online: your online save, the account and, if you use the Arena, your Arena profile stay where they are, and the Arena profile stays on the ladder. If you linked a Google account, signing in with Google again reconnects them, and Delete online account and data can then remove them. If you never linked Google, the game can never reach that anonymous account again, so the copy stays online and can then only be removed by email (see the account deletion page); turning guest cloud save back on starts a new online save under a new account. To leave nothing online, use Delete online account and data instead: it removes everything stored online, and the game on that phone starts over.

4. Linking a Google account (optional)

In More → Account you can link a Google account. It upgrades the anonymous account in place, so the same save follows you to another phone, and the Arena requires it. Firebase Authentication then stores that Google account's email address, name, profile picture link and account ID, and the game keeps the email address in your private save record.

We do not use your email address to contact you or for marketing, and other players never see it. Google handles the sign-in itself under Google's Privacy Policy.

Sign out (for a linked Google account) keeps your online save and clears the game from that phone; signing back in restores it.

5. The Arena (optional)

When you use the Arena with a linked Google account, the game posts your active party as your defence and keeps it in step with your party. Anyone signed in to the game, which includes every player's automatic anonymous account, can then read your Arena profile: your party name, your four defending heroes (their names, classes, levels, skill choices and gear), their combined power, your rating, standing, wins and losses. The profile also carries your user ID and when it last changed. It holds no email address and nothing from your Google account. The ladder also lists parties the game itself fields.

When you fight another player in a ranked skirmish, in either direction, their own match history, which only they can see, records the match with your party name and user ID. It stays there until they have played eight newer ranked matches, or delete their own account.

Ranked skirmishes are resolved on the server by Google Cloud Functions, in Google's europe-west1 region (Belgium). The game calls three of them, each doing only the job named:

• Publishing your Arena defence, built from your stored save, so the party others fight is the one you actually have;
• Resolving a ranked skirmish: it decides the match, updates both players' ratings and records, and stores the match with both party names and a replay;
• Deleting your account when you ask for it (section 10).

Stored Arena matches expire seven days after the match and are then deleted automatically. For balancing, the server also keeps a running tally of each defending party's results, and counts matches per day. Those daily counts hold no identifiers; the markers that make sure each player is counted once a day are one-way hashed and expire after eight days.

6. Advertising

Guildbound shows rewarded ads only, served by Google AdMob, and only when you choose to watch one in exchange for something: an extra contract on the contract board, a scout report on an Arena opponent, or having the Guild Cleric revive a downed hero early. There are no banners and no interstitials, and the game is playable without ever watching an ad.

Google's Mobile Ads SDK starts when the app opens on Android, whether or not you watch an ad. Following Google's own disclosure for the SDK, it collects and shares with Google:

• device or other identifiers, such as the advertising ID;
• approximate location, derived from your IP address;
• app interactions, such as app launches and the ads you see or tap;
• diagnostics, such as how the app and the SDK perform.

Google uses this data for advertising, analytics and fraud prevention, under Google's Privacy Policy and how Google uses information from apps that use its services.

Where the law requires consent, such as in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, the app shows Google's consent form when it starts, before any ad is requested. Your answer decides whether Google may personalise the ads you see. Where the form applies, More → Account → Ad privacy choices opens it again so you can change your answer. You can also reset or delete your advertising ID, or turn off ad personalisation, in your phone's settings (on most phones Settings → Google → Ads, or Settings → Privacy → Ads).

7. Purchases

There are none. Guildbound has no in-app purchases and no payment processing of any kind. Gold, gear and Soul Stones are earned in the game and have no cash value.

8. Other connections the app makes

• Google's Firebase software. When the app starts with a connection, it loads Google's Firebase software from Google's servers (www.gstatic.com). Like any online service, Firebase receives your IP address and basic technical details with each request, which Google uses to run the service and protect it against abuse (Firebase and privacy).
• Google Play's in-app review. After an early milestone the game may ask Google Play to show its rating dialog, once. That dialog is Google Play's own.
• The Google Play Store, when you tap Rate Guildbound.

Guildbound does not include an analytics SDK of its own and reports no gameplay events. The only analytics are those Google's advertising software performs, described in section 6.

9. Sharing and selling

We do not sell your personal information. Google provides the advertising (AdMob), the sign-in, database and server functions (Firebase and Google Cloud) and the store (Google Play). Other players see your Arena profile as described in section 5. We share your data with no one else. Firebase and AdMob are Google services, and Google may process the data they hold on servers outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States, under the safeguards its own policies describe.

In the terms of Google Play's Data safety section: Google's Mobile Ads SDK collects and shares device or other IDs, approximate location, app interactions and diagnostics, for advertising, analytics and fraud prevention. For the game itself we collect, and do not share, your user ID, your save and the names you type into it, your in-game actions in the Arena and, if you link a Google account, that account's email address and name, to run the game and your account.

10. Your choices, and deleting your data

• Delete your online account and data in the game: More → Account → Delete online account and data. It removes your online save, your Arena profile and records, every stored match you took part in, and the account itself, at once and for good. It also erases the game on that phone. The account deletion page has the details, including what to do if you cannot reach the button.
• Turn off online save, from version 0.9.11 (More → Account): the game stays on the phone and stops updating the online copy, and nothing online is deleted (section 3).
• Erase all progress (More → Account, or Settings on the title screen) is for starting over on the phone. In 0.9.10 and earlier it is not a way to remove what is stored online, and it can leave the online save as it was: use Delete online account and data for that. From version 0.9.11, while online save is on, Erase all progress also empties the online save (your saved game and party name), and your new game is saved there from then on. The online account and your Arena profile and records stay; only Delete online account and data removes them. Emptying the online save needs a connection. Without one, the game either waits for the connection before it resets anything, or resets only the phone; then the online save keeps your old game until the new game is next saved with a connection, and the new game replaces it.
• Skip Google. Everything but the Arena works on the anonymous account.
• Change your ad consent with More → Account → Ad privacy choices, where the consent form applies.
• Uninstall the game, or clear its storage, to remove what it keeps on the phone. This does not remove the online account. If you never linked Google, the game cannot reach that account again afterwards, so it can then only be deleted by email (see the account deletion page).

11. Security and retention

Everything the app sends to our Firebase project travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS). The online save and the account are kept until you delete them; turning online save off (from version 0.9.11) does not delete them. Stored Arena matches expire after seven days, and the daily participation markers after eight. The server functions write technical logs that include your user ID; Google Cloud keeps those for 30 days under its default setting.

12. Your rights

You have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, to have it rectified or erased, to restrict or object to its processing, and to receive it in a portable form (data portability). To use any of these rights, email appsbyabyteofeverything@gmail.com. You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority; ours is the Danish Data Protection Agency, Datatilsynet.

From version 0.9.12, the online save rests on your consent: the tick when you name your guild, Enable guest cloud save, or signing in with Google. You can withdraw it at any time, in the game or by email, and withdrawing does not undo what was done before.

13. Children

Guildbound is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child under 13 has an online account in the game, email us and we will delete it.

14. Changes to this policy

If the way Guildbound handles data changes, we will update this page and the "Last updated" date at the top.

15. Contact

Questions about this policy or about the game: email appsbyabyteofeverything@gmail.com. If you email us, we receive your email address and what you write, and we use them only to answer you.

An email started from Help & feedback in the game is pre-filled with the app version, your device model, Android version and WebView version. You can edit or remove them before sending, and we use them only to answer you. Help & feedback may also offer Discord, a service run by Discord Inc. under its own privacy policy; the game sends Discord nothing.