Terms of Service

1. Who we are

Shattered Void (the full game, Steam app 4475480, and its free demo, Steam app 5096480) and the website at shatteredvoid.net are run by Woodland Studios (“we”, “us”). These terms cover the game, its online services and the website (together, “the Service”).

How we handle your personal information is explained in our Privacy Policy, which is part of the deal.

2. Who can play

To play you need a Steam account in good standing, and you must meet Steam's own age requirements. That means you must be at least 13 years old, and at least 16 (or the older age your country sets) where local law requires that age to consent to the processing of your personal information yourself. If you are under the age of majority where you live, a parent or guardian should read these terms with you.

You may not use the Service if you are barred from doing so under the laws that apply to you.

3. Your account is your Steam account

You sign in with Steam; there is no separate password. Your Shattered Void account is tied to your Steam account, so anything that happens to your Steam account (a ban, a lost login, a closed account) can affect your access to the game. Keep your Steam account secure — you are responsible for what happens under it.

One person, one account. Don't sell, share, lend or transfer your account, and don't use anyone else's.

You can delete your account at any time (see your rights in the Privacy Policy). Deleting it permanently removes your progress, credits and cosmetics.

4. Your licence to play

We give you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable licence to download and play the game for your own non-commercial entertainment, as long as you follow these terms and Steam's terms (the Steam Subscriber Agreement). You may stream and make videos of your play (see Creators).

The game, its software, art, music, voices, ships, names and everything else in it belong to us or our licensors. The licence is not a sale: except where the law says otherwise, you may not copy, modify, reverse-engineer, decompile, resell or rent the game, or build anything that interferes with it.

5. The demo and your progress

The demo is free. It plays on the same live servers as the full game, with the same account. It is our intention that the progress you make in the demo — credits, cosmetics, stats — carries into the full game on the same Steam account, but we can't promise that every item or number will carry over unchanged, and the demo's content and availability can change or end.

Demo sessions cannot spend real money.

6. Credits, cosmetics and purchases

Credits are the game's virtual currency. You earn them by playing, and in the full game you can also buy them through Steam. Credits and the cosmetic items you get with them (skins, trails, plumes, stickers, shapes, ship names, kill-cam clips and the like) are a limited licence to use that content in the game. They:

• have no cash value and cannot be exchanged for real money or anything outside the game;
• cannot be transferred, sold or traded between accounts, inside or outside the game;
• are cosmetic — nothing you buy changes how strong your ship is;
• may be changed, rebalanced or retired as the game develops (for example, a price, an earning rate or an item's look), though we won't take away something you bought without good reason.

Payments go through Steam. When you buy credits, Valve processes the payment and Steam's terms govern it. We never see your card details. Refunds follow Steam's refund policy and the law that applies to you; nothing in these terms takes away a refund right the law gives you.

Fleet pools. You can donate credits — earned or bought — to your fleet's pool. Donations are final: pool credits can't be withdrawn, traded or turned back into credits in anyone's wallet. The fleet's admiral and officers spend the pool on fleet items and on cosmetic gifts to members (never credits). If a purchase whose credits you donated is refunded or charged back, we debit the pool by those credits, which can leave it below zero until it is paid back; items already given are not taken away.

If you deliberately misuse the economy — exploiting a bug to create credits, charging back a purchase you received, or trading items for money — we may remove the credits or items involved.

7. Names and other things you create

The game lets you choose things that other players see: your Steam persona name, ship names in the Void Registry, fleet names and tags, stickers and shapes you place on your ship, and share images of your ship or your kills (“your content”).

You keep whatever rights you have in your content. You give us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to host, store, copy, display and show your content in the game, on our website and in share pages you create, for as long as it is in the Service — and in material that promotes the game, for as long as you choose to leave it public. Deleting your account or a share ends this licence for new uses.

Names must follow our naming rules: length and character limits, and a list of words we don't allow (slurs, hate, sexual content, harassment, impersonation). We may reject, rename or remove any name, tag or content that breaks these terms or that we reasonably consider inappropriate, and if a name you paid for is removed for breaking the rules, we don't have to refund it.

8. Rules of conduct

Space battles are meant to be tense, not toxic. When you use the Service you must not:

• cheat: use aimbots, wallhacks, modified clients, memory editors, packet tampering or any software that gives you an unfair advantage;
• use automation: run bots, scripts, macros or other third-party tools that play the game or earn rewards for you;
• exploit bugs on purpose instead of reporting them to us;
• harass, threaten or abuse other players, or post hateful, sexual or otherwise offensive content in names, chat or anything else others see;
• use fleet chat to spam, advertise, share other people's personal information, or get around the filter or someone's mute. We filter some words automatically, members can report messages, and a fleet's admiral and officers can delete them; we may read reported messages and act on them;
• impersonate anyone, including us, our staff, a streamer or another player;
• trade for real money: buy, sell or trade accounts, credits or items for money or anything else of value outside the game;
• deliberately throw matches, collude with the other side, or leave repeatedly to ruin other players' games;
• attack, overload, scrape or try to get unauthorised access to our servers, other players' accounts or our data;
• break the law, or help or encourage anyone else to do any of the above.

9. What we do when rules are broken

If we reasonably believe you have broken these terms, we may, depending on how serious it is: warn you; remove or rename content; remove credits or items obtained unfairly; kick you from a match; or suspend or permanently close your account. We use automated signals (for example, anti-cheat checks on how the game is played) to help us spot problems.

If you think we got it wrong, write to us at privacy@shatteredvoid.net and we'll take another look. We won't close an account arbitrarily, and where the law gives you further rights to contest a decision, you keep them.

10. Creators

You're welcome to stream Shattered Void and to publish videos of it, including monetised ones, as long as you follow these terms and the platform's rules. Please don't present your content as official or endorsed by us unless we've agreed to that.

Our creator program offers perks (such as credits on your account and early looks at new content) at our discretion. Being accepted doesn't make you our employee, agent or partner, and we may change or end the program. If we ever agree separate written terms with you for the program, those terms apply alongside these.

11. A live game: availability and changes

Shattered Void is an online game that needs our servers. We're a small studio and the game is still being built, so:

• we update the game often — ships, balance, maps, modes, prices and features change, and some things may be removed;
• the Service may be unavailable at times (maintenance, outages, things outside our control), and matches in progress may be lost;
• which regions and servers we run can change, which can affect your connection;
• one day the game may shut down. If we decide to end the online service, we'll give reasonable advance notice in the game or on our website.

12. Feedback

We love hearing ideas. If you send us suggestions or feedback, we may use them to improve the game without owing you anything for it.

13. Disclaimers

To the extent the law allows, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available”. We don't promise that it will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, that it will meet your expectations, or that any content or data will be kept.

Some countries and states don't allow these exclusions. Where that's the case, they apply only as far as the law permits, and nothing in these terms limits your statutory rights as a consumer — including the rights consumers have under EU and UK consumer protection law (for example, to digital content that is as described and fit for purpose).

14. Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows, Woodland Studios is not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses, or for loss of profits, data or goodwill, arising from your use of the Service. Our total liability to you for any claim about the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim or US$50.

We don't exclude or limit liability that can't be excluded or limited by law — for example, for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or (if you live in the EU or UK) for losses that were a reasonably foreseeable result of our breaking these terms.

15. Indemnity

If you break these terms or the law while using the Service and someone brings a claim against us because of it, you agree to cover our reasonable losses and costs from that claim, to the extent the law allows. This doesn't apply to consumers in countries where such a promise isn't enforceable.

16. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware and applicable United States federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

If you live outside the United States, you also keep the protection of the mandatory consumer laws of the country where you live, and you may bring a claim in the courts of that country.

Before going to court, please write to us — most problems can be sorted out quickly by email.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the game changes or the law requires. We'll change the “last updated” date above, and for significant changes we'll tell you in the game or on our website before they take effect. If you keep playing after a change takes effect, the new terms apply; if you don't agree with them, you can stop playing and delete your account.

If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we don't enforce a term straight away, we haven't given up the right to. You may not transfer these terms to anyone; we may transfer them to a company that takes over the game, and we'll tell you if that happens.

18. Contact

Questions about these terms, a legal notice, or a request about your account: privacy@shatteredvoid.net.