Acceptable use policy

become.games is for making people laugh, not cry (unless it’s happy crying at an anniversary game).

These rules apply to everything you upload, create, type, share or publish through become.games, including photos, characters, game titles and addresses, game content, leaderboard nicknames and anything else submitted through the service. They form part of our terms.

Photos and people

• Only upload photos you have the right to use.
• Only turn a real person into a game character if they have agreed to it.
• Do not use celebrities, politicians or other public figures.
• Do not upload photos of children unless you are their parent or guardian, or have permission from their parent or guardian.
• Do not use photos to impersonate, deceive, harass, humiliate or misrepresent someone.
• Do not use our own pictures (the photo of our team on this site, or our demo characters) to make characters. We check for this, refuse it and log the attempt.
• No nudity, sexual imagery, graphic violence, gore or hate symbols.
• No sexualisation or exploitation of children in any form, whether real, edited, generated or fictional.

Words and game content

Keep it fun.

• Very mild language such as “bloody”, “damn”, “crap”, “fart” and “bum” is fine. Strong swear words, slurs and deliberately disguised versions of blocked words are not.
• No hate speech or content attacking people because of protected characteristics.
• No harassment, bullying, threats, intimidation or deliberate humiliation of real people.
• No serious false or defamatory allegations about real people.
• No sexual content. Cheeky mode allows light innuendo and a censor-bar joke, but only for creators aged 18 or over and only where every character involved is an adult.
• No content involving sexual exploitation, grooming, non-consensual intimate imagery or sexual content involving children.
• No content encouraging, instructing or glorifying real-world serious violence, suicide, self-harm, terrorism, illegal drug activity, weapon offences, animal cruelty or other criminal activity.
• Fictional, cartoon or slapstick violence that forms part of our normal game themes is allowed.
• No scams, fraud, phishing, identity theft or attempts to obtain passwords, payment details or other credentials.
• Do not deliberately alter spelling, images or other content to get around our safety filters.

Privacy and personal information

Do not publish somebody else’s private or sensitive information without their permission. This includes things such as:

• home addresses;
• private phone numbers or email addresses;
• passwords or login details;
• financial or payment information;
• identification documents;
• private messages or conversations; or
• other information that could reasonably put someone at risk.

Do not use become.games to stalk, identify, locate or target another person.

Copyright and other rights

Only upload or publish content you own or have permission to use. Do not use become.games to infringe another person’s copyright, trade mark, privacy, publicity or other legal rights. This includes images, photographs, artwork, logos, characters and other protected material.

Game titles and addresses

• Do not impersonate another person, business, brand, charity or government organisation.
• Do not describe a game as “official” or otherwise suggest an endorsement or connection that does not exist.
• Do not use names designed to mislead people into thinking a game belongs to somebody else.
• No phishing-style names or addresses using terms such as login, verify, wallet, payment or refund where they could mislead someone.
• No deceptive look-alike spellings of protected names.
• Some names and addresses are reserved or automatically blocked.
• We may refuse, change or reclaim a game address that breaks these rules or creates a security, legal or impersonation risk.

Leaderboards

• Leaderboard nicknames follow the same content rules as everything else on become.games.
• Do not use bots, scripts, automation, exploits or other methods to manipulate scores.
• We may remove or reset scores that appear fraudulent or manipulated.

Using the service

Do not:

• try to break, overload, disrupt or damage become.games;
• probe or scan the service for vulnerabilities without permission;
• introduce malware, malicious code or harmful links;
• scrape the service or harvest user information;
• reverse-engineer parts of the service except where the law expressly allows it;
• bypass security, moderation, rate limits, access restrictions or payment controls;
• create accounts to evade a suspension or ban;
• use the service to send spam or unsolicited bulk messages; or
• use become.games to collect information about other people without a legitimate reason and appropriate permission.

If you find a security issue, please report it to hello@become.games rather than exploiting it.

What happens if these rules are broken

Depending on what happened and how serious it is, we may:

• block content before it is published;
• ask you to change something;
• edit, restrict, unpublish or remove a game;
• remove content or leaderboard entries;
• reset manipulated scores;
• restrict features;
• issue a warning or strike;
• temporarily suspend an account; or
• permanently ban an account.

We do not have to give a warning first where the issue is serious, illegal, creates a safety or security risk, or requires immediate action. Attempts to repeatedly or deliberately get around our moderation systems may themselves result in action against an account.

Where required by law, we report detected child sexual exploitation and abuse content to the relevant authorities. We may also preserve or disclose information to law enforcement or other authorities where we are legally required to do so.

Reporting a game

Every published game has a “Report this game” link. You can also report something using our contact form or by emailing hello@become.games. Please give us enough information to identify the game or content and explain what you think is wrong. We review reports and may restrict or remove content while we investigate. We review reports about child sexual exploitation or abuse within 24 hours (we aim for the same day) and all other reports within 3 working days.

If we got it wrong

Moderation is not perfect. If we remove your content, restrict your game or take action against your account and you think we made a mistake, contact us through our contact form or email hello@become.games. Where appropriate, the decision will be reviewed by a person who was not responsible for the original decision. We aim to answer appeals and complaints about our decisions within 5 working days.

One simple rule

If something is designed to scam, exploit, threaten, seriously embarrass or harm another person, it probably does not belong on become.games.

Keep it funny. Keep it friendly. Don’t ruin someone else’s day.