Your privacy, in plain words

1. Who is responsible

Dead Week and dead-week.com are published by Dreamship Interactive (Christophe Finas EIRL). We decide what is collected and why: under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we are the controller. You can reach us at contact@dead-week.com. Our postal address and other details are on the legal notice.

2. What stays on your computer

The game keeps its saves, settings, unlocked achievements and your language choice on your own computer: in a folder of your Windows user profile (AppData) for the downloaded game, or in your browser’s storage for a version played in a browser. They are not sent anywhere. Deleting the game’s folder in AppData, or clearing the site’s data in your browser, removes them.

If you fill in a feedback form in the game, it also remembers the nickname and email you typed, on your computer only, so you don’t have to type them again. Empty the fields to make it forget them.

If you type a code, the game creates a random installation number (24 characters such as 3f9a07c2…). It contains nothing about you or your computer. It only lets us count how many different players used a code.

3. What the game sends, and when

The game plays fully offline. It contacts our feedback server (digitalself.io, which we run ourselves) only in the cases below. Nothing else is sent: no telemetry, no crash reports, no hardware details, no list of what you do in the game.

You type a code

Some editions of the free demo let you type a code (for example one given by a streamer). The game sends the code, the random installation number, the game’s version, edition and language, the store it was started from, and the day you reached in the story. We use this to check the code and count its uses. The person a code was made for sees totals only (uses, players, uses per day), never who used it, and the same totals are public on the code’s page.

You vote or send feedback

With the F2 key, some editions let you vote on open questions about the game or send a note about a line of text, and the end of the demo offers a feedback form. We receive what you wrote or chose, the nickname and email address you gave if any (both optional), the game’s version and language, where you were in the game (the scene and the line on screen) and, for the end-of-demo form, how far you got and how long you played. We read it to improve the game. Your email is used only to answer you, if you ticked that box, and to tell you once when the full game comes out, if you ticked that one.

You play in a machine-translated language

The game downloads the latest corrections made by our volunteer translators. It sends only the code of the language (for example ko for Korean).

You play the streamer edition

At launch, the game asks whether a newer version exists. It sends only its version number.

Like any connection on the internet, each of these requests shows our server your IP address and the type of browser or system you use. We never store your IP address as such: the server keeps a scrambled, irreversible form of it (a salted hash) to block abuse, such as too many wrong codes in a quarter of an hour, and to keep repeated votes from counting twice.

4. Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, itch.io

If you get Dead Week from a store, that store handles your account, payment and downloads under its own privacy policy. From stores we only receive sales and wishlist figures, not who you are.

Epic Games Store. The Epic version of the game can use Epic Account Services, so that your achievements are unlocked on your Epic account. When you start the game from the Epic Games launcher, Epic signs you in and gives the game your Epic account ID and display name (Epic’s “basic profile”). The game uses them only to unlock your achievements on Epic’s servers. We don’t copy them to our servers and we don’t receive your email, friends list or payment details. You can see and remove the applications linked to your Epic account in your Epic account settings. Epic’s own rules: Epic Games privacy policy.

Steam, GOG and itch.io each publish their own policy: Steam, GOG, itch.io.

5. This website

Server logs

Like every web server, ours records each request: IP address, date and time, the page or file asked for, the browser type and the page you came from. We use these logs to keep the site running and secure and to count downloads of the demo. They are deleted automatically after 14 days.

One cookie

If you choose a language with the EN / FR button, the site sets a cookie named dw_lang that remembers your choice for a year. It does nothing else. There is no other cookie, no analytics, no advertising, no tracking pixel, so there is no cookie banner to click.

Nothing from outside by default

Fonts and images come from this server. The page loads nothing from Google, social networks or any other outside service when you open it.

Outside content, only where shown

If the page shows a trailer, its preview image comes from YouTube’s image server and the video loads from YouTube only when you press play. If it shows Steam’s store widget, that box comes from Steam. Links to stores and social networks take you to those sites, which follow their own policies.

A code’s page

The page of a code (dead-week.com/code/…) reads that code’s public totals from our feedback server, straight from your browser.

On a phone

“Send it to my computer” and “Email me the link” use your phone’s own share menu and email app. Nothing passes through us.

6. Why we are allowed to use it

For visitors and players in the European Union and the United Kingdom, the GDPR asks us to name a legal basis for each use:

• Server logs, abuse protection, counting a code’s uses, the version check: our legitimate interest in running a safe website and game, and in knowing how codes are used (article 6.1.f).
• Feedback, votes, your email and the “tell me when it comes out” box: your consent, given by sending them (article 6.1.a). You can withdraw it at any time by writing to us.
• Epic account ID and display name: needed to provide the achievements of the Epic version you chose to play (article 6.1.b).
• The language cookie: strictly needed to show you the language you asked for.

7. How long we keep it

• Server logs: 14 days.
• Abuse counters: the scrambled form of the IP address with the times of the latest tries; tries older than an hour are dropped. The scrambled form is also kept with a note or a vote, as long as that note or vote.
• Feedback, votes and nicknames: while the game is in development, and at most two years after the full game’s release.
• Email addresses: until we have answered you, or until the full game’s release for the “tell me when it comes out” box, and deleted sooner whenever you ask.
• Uses of a code: as long as the code exists, then deleted with it.

8. Who else sees it

Nobody outside the studio, except: Infomaniak, which hosts our servers in Switzerland (a country the European Commission recognises as protecting personal data adequately) and only stores the data for us; the person a code was made for, who sees its totals; and the authorities, when the law requires it. We never sell, rent or trade data.

9. Children

Dead Week is not made for young children. The game never asks for a name, age or address, and we don’t knowingly collect data about children under 13 (under 15 in France, or the age set by the law of your country). If you think a child sent us their email in a feedback form, write to us and we will delete it.

10. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it or delete it, or ask us to stop using it. In the EU and the UK these are rights under the GDPR: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, portability, and withdrawing your consent at any time. Write to contact@dead-week.com; we answer within one month.

Feedback and code uses are not tied to a name. To find yours, tell us the nickname or email you used, or the code you typed and roughly when.

If you think we got something wrong, you can also complain to a data protection authority: in France, the CNIL, or the authority of the country where you live.

11. Security

The website and our servers only accept encrypted connections (HTTPS). Feedback and code files are stored out of reach of the web, and only the studio can read them. If a breach ever put your data at risk, we would tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

12. Changes to this policy

When the game or the site starts doing something new with information about you (for example cloud saves, or achievements on another store), we update this page before the change ships and change the date at the top.