Terms of Service Restrictions for Publishing Games in gd.games

GDevelop general Feature requests
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This morning when going trough games in gd.games i found a game that was quite offensive.

The game had a soundtrack with racial slurs, mature language, derogatory terms towards women, the whole package.

My first thought was how my kid uses gd.games some times to play games… i showed him the site because all the games that i tried on there were harmless, just simple and fun indie games that id consider good for all ages.

Im almost certain that this is just one of those cases that slips trough the cracks… since as far as i can tell, gd.games is working mostly on an honor system.

I kinda enjoy this, theres no wait times to publish games, no red tape, no nonsense menus after menus… its quick and simple… but this also means people can abuse this.

So my suggestion, without making things harder for those of us that dont intend on making inappropriate games.

  • Make a “Terms of Service” for publishing games on gd.games.
  • Make the bar low… basicly just common sense like: no porn, no gambling, no linking to malicious websites or websites that dont follow gd.games terns of service, such as, even tho your game dosent have adult content, linking to an adult content website trough your game will count just the same, no explicit language… and so on, you get the point.
  • Before hitting the “Publish” button, you are required to check a box saying that your game dosent break the “Terms of Service”.
  • If your game is then reported for having any content that breaks the “Terms of Service”, the game gets removed and your account banned from publishing onto gd.games.

This would be a quick and easy solution to avoid this kind of situation.
It also covers GDevelops legally in case someone got really offended by one of these offensive games.

4 Likes
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This is already a restriction for anything using the entire platform, Gd.games or any part of gdevelop.io or services:

It is something people agree to when making a gdevelop account, and breaking those rules can have all of your content removed from all of the services, or your entire account banned.

It is also linked at the bottom of every gd.games page.

Games on gd.games can also be reported on the game page, there’s a “report this game” link on the lower right.
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I don’t know whether they’d make it an additional prompt when exporting the game itself, since it’s already a requirement for even using the service. If people don’t read it and/or ignore it when they originally create the account, I’m unsure if they’d read it when exporting, either.

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I finally found the report button, thanks silver… it was extremely hard for me to find it.

Its such a small print font with a color that blends in the background :frowning: …i know my eyes are really bad, but even for people with normal sight thats kinda hidden.

As far as the Terms of Service go, i did find them earlier and had a read through them, so i know that game is in clear violation.

Adding the prompt before publishing, or requiring a check box, would be nice even if just a reminder that theres terms of service.

Companies dont always shotgun their entire Terms of Service into a single account creating, so its good to show that publishing a game is part of the deal by reminding people before the export.

Its also yet another legal safeguard, yes i know GDevelop is already covered in the Terms of Service, iv read them, but… theres always legal arguments.

Having the re agree before publishing would shut any of this stuff down but it would mostly work as a reminder that, “Hey, your signing someting…”

3 Likes
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Hey there Biscuit, cool to see you again so soon after you helped on my thread.

Now, first off, I AM NOT A LAWYER. THIS SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AS LEGAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. I DO NOT ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR THE ACTIONS OF OTHERS AS A RESULT OF MY OWN COMMENTS OR RESEARCH. THIS IS SIMPLY THE CONCLUSION I’VE PERSONALLY COME TO AFTER READING THE TERMS MYSELF.

I actually found this thread from a Google search, because I was trying to find out if I could make certain types of games, which certainly can’t be published on the Android or iOS stores.

As it turns out, the terms and conditions are not exactly clear. There’s a section titled 8. User Comments Feedback And Other Submissions, which is the only mention of the specific content type I’m looking to publish. That section, however, only covers comments and suggestions. It does not include games published with Gdevelop, according to the exact grammar and wording of the terms. They mention “Obscene” content, HOWEVER in legal terms that specifically excludes legal NSFW content according to an article on https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/obscenity-and-pornography That link is the article I’m referring to on the legal definition. That’s their info, not mine :slight_smile:

NOW THEN, as for Gdevelop terms, it’s a bit vague and unclear whether section 8 of the terms includes games published to the store. I believe this section DOES include games published to the store, but they should be more clear and specific about that in the wording. It does not specifically mention games, but rather that is likely included as “other materials” and “content”. To be safe, I’m going with the assumption that games are included in this.

THAT BEING SAID, it doesn’t even specifically ban pornography or offensive or racist content. It only says Gdevelop is allowed to remove or modify content. If it’s considered illegal by harassment or discrimination, that’s different but I don’t know enough legally to discern whether that only covers words in a game or if it would have to apply to something like a hiring process.

It’s basically the type of thing where anything legal is technically allowed by the rules, BUT Gdevelop is allowed to remove ANYTHING that is considered pornographic, obscene, offensive, illegal, harassing, or otherwise not allowed by their terms.

Summary: there’s technically nothing preventing any legal content from being posted. That being said, Gdevelop may remove such content at their sole discretion. As for the game you specified, I have no idea whether the content breaks the law or Gdevelop terms. It might fall under harassment or discrimination, but I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know.

Also, I apologize for being so long winded. I suppose I’m answering both your question and mine.

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Pretty sure you can do what ever kind of game youd like, even the “immoral” or NSFW kind.

The only legal issue you would have is if you advertise the engine in your game, or even worse if you make it sound like the company backed you up.

Other than that your in the clear, no one would really know what engine you are using unless you make it obvious.

So simply put… just dont make the worlds most offensive game and then go “AND IT WAS POSSIBLE THANKS TO GDEVELOP 5!!!” …and youll be fine :stuck_out_tongue:

…also, the terms of service are mostly about their platform and services, like posting offensive games in GD.Games or being a racist prik in the Forums, that kind of stuff.

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do you know that these days I was about to make a post explaining the easy danger of Gd.games in destroying PCs and things like that? fortunately it hasn’t happened yet, but all it takes is for any idiot to create any Mario and as soon as you, the player, collide with a coin a website opens, and if there isn’t an once trigger or the destruction of the coin your PC it crashes due to too many web pages open, it crashes if appear a rick roll for YouTube, but if you find the attacker who takes you to the virus site and puts a repeat 10 times it can easily destroy your PC. I would like a feature that limits URLs, for example a warning at the beginning that says the game has a function that can lead to site X or something like that

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I highly recommend Gdevelop to add a verified one next to their games, so for example you could let your child play exclusively verified games and you could feel more at ease, also because Gd.games is a platform that goes to contact with kids, like Friv, so it would be really useful. Now we need to understand how to verify the games, I think of something like they did with the community extensions like “Verified by advocates” or verified by the community and for further security “Verified by the Gdevelop Team”, so it would also be good to make a section or an option with only verified and family friendly games or something like that

1 Like
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Id assume that the GDevelop team has been in the game for so long now that they would of already figured some of that stuff out.

Surely theres some sort of safeguard that dosent let your machine try to open a bunch of webpages at the same time.

The verified thing tho… i really like that, but im not really sure how easy it would be to make a automated system that checks if your game has the ability to send you to some website.

As for the NSFW, that would have to be manually checked, as in, youd need someone to check every little corner of your game, which would require more man power, more money and so on… :frowning:

…they need more ways of making money to fund these things…

They should really just pull the trigger on putting adds all over GD.Games, that way everyone would win.

Every other platform has adds all over, no real point not having these, and the people that dont like them, they could subscribe to GDevelop to get rid of them.

Instant clean monetization.

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if you go to a menu of your project’s dashboard there is a check box that invites you to join the advertisements on your project in Gd.games for future earnings, I believe it has been there since 2021, that is, since I approached Gdevelop . strange that they still have to implement it

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OOOH I have an idea - instead of having someone manually play the game and check every possible thing, just have someone check all the assets… Granted, that leaves the possibility of someone drawing an obscene thing from single-pixel assets…

Love the idea of a verified thing though.

As for the monetization bit, I’ll gladly donate money back into Gdevelop once I start making some on my own games, and I feel that everyone should. Especially the free users. I’m not sure I like the idea of Gdevelop automatically placing an ad, but if it’s a game you’re playing on Gd.games I wouldn’t have an issue. I just don’t want ads baked into my game, or I’ll end up finding a different engine.

That’s actually my biggest issue with the mobile games market, and one thing I intend to change.

There are so many fun games out there on the mobile app stores, but SO MANY MORE AWFUL AD FARMS that give you about 30 seconds of gameplay between 45 second ads with 7 close buttons that still take you to the app store. I want to flood the app stores with fun games that don’t force ads on you. Yes, I intend to advertise, but more in the way Plague Inc does it. No pop-ups, no fullscreen videos with the most awful gameplay you’ve ever watched. No forced ads ever.

I have a deep personal hatred with these types of ad-farm games, because I remember when mobile games had hope. I remember when you could just search something up on the app store, download it, and actually have an enjoyable experience. The app stores are so flooded with garbage that it’s hard to find anything good. I want to be known for producing quality, and quite frankly I’d like fair competition to run every last low quality ad farm out of business.

SO that being said, I don’t mind Gdevelop making some money on their own website. I wouldn’t even mind a feature where we share profits on any ads played in our games… BUT SO HELP ME THE MOMENT THEY PULL A UNITY, I’M OUT.