Terms of Service

1. Who this agreement is with

These Terms of Service form a binding agreement between you and GARMA TECHNOLOGY LIMITED, a limited company incorporated in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. In these terms the company is called GARMA, or we. You are called you.

The agreement covers this website at thegarma.com and every mobile application GARMA publishes, referred to as the apps, a title, or together the services. Our Privacy Policy Statement is part of this agreement and is incorporated by reference. Where a title publishes its own additional rules, for example event rules or community guidelines, those apply in addition to these terms, and where they genuinely conflict the title specific document governs for that title.

2. Acceptance and changes

You accept these terms by downloading, installing, opening or using any of the services, or by creating an account. If you do not accept them, do not use the services. If you are using a title on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you have authority to bind that organisation, and these terms then bind it as well as you.

We may change these terms, and we will do so when the law changes, when a store requirement changes, or when what a title does changes. The effective date at the top of this page always shows the version in force. Where a change materially affects your rights or obligations, we will give notice inside the affected title, or by a notice on this page, before it takes effect. Continuing to use a title after a change takes effect means you accept the revised terms. If you do not accept them, stop using the services and, if you wish, delete your account using the route in section 20 of the Privacy Policy Statement.

Nothing in this section lets us change a term retrospectively in a way that alters something you have already paid for.

3. Accounts and eligibility

Some titles can be played without an account. Where a title offers an account, these rules apply.

• You must be old enough to enter a binding contract in your jurisdiction. Unless a title's store listing says otherwise, our services are not directed to children under 13. Where a person under the age of majority uses a title, they should do so with the involvement of a parent or guardian, who accepts these terms on their behalf.
• You are responsible for keeping your sign in credentials secure and for activity that happens under your account. Tell us promptly if you believe your account has been accessed without your authority.
• One person, one account, unless a title expressly permits otherwise. Accounts are personal to you. You may not sell, rent, gift or transfer an account, and you may not buy or otherwise acquire an account from anybody else.
• Information you give us at registration must be accurate, and you must keep it up to date. You are not asked for a legal name or an identity document, and you should not send us one.

We may refuse to create, or may close, an account where we reasonably believe this section has been breached. Section 12 sets out how that works and what notice you get.

4. Your licence to use the services

Subject to your compliance with these terms, GARMA grants you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable and revocable licence to install and use one copy of each title on a device you own or control, and to access this website, in each case for your own personal and non-commercial entertainment.

That is a licence, not a sale. GARMA and its licensors keep all right, title and interest in the services. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership of any part of a title to you.

Except to the extent the law expressly permits despite a contractual restriction, you may not:

• copy, modify, translate, adapt or make derivative works of a title or any part of it;
• reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble a title, or attempt to derive its source code or underlying data structures;
• remove, obscure or alter any copyright, trade mark or other proprietary notice;
• rent, lease, lend, sell, sublicense, distribute or host a title for use by others, including through a commercial streaming or emulation service, without our written consent;
• use a title for any commercial purpose, including paid boosting, account farming or resale of in game advantage; or
• use any automated system to access the services other than a public search engine indexing this website in the ordinary way.

Content creation is welcome. Recording, streaming and publishing your own gameplay footage, including monetised video on an established platform, is permitted provided you do not present the material as official GARMA content, do not use it to sell cheats, accounts or in game currency, and do not include material that would breach section 7.

5. Virtual items and purchases

Where a title offers in app purchases, this section governs them.

Who bills you

We do not bill you. Apple or Google does. Every purchase inside a GARMA title distributed through the Apple App Store or Google Play is a transaction with the store operator under its own terms and payment rules, using the payment method on your store account. We receive a receipt and a validation result. We never receive your card number, expiry date, security code or bank details. Prices shown include or exclude tax according to the rules of the store and your billing territory.

What you are buying

A purchase gives you a limited, personal, revocable licence to use a virtual item inside the title it was bought in. Virtual currency, characters, cosmetics, energy, passes, unlocks and every other virtual item are licensed, not sold, have no monetary value outside the title, are not your property, and cannot be redeemed for money or transferred outside the title. Virtual items exist only while the title operates, and section 11 explains what happens if it stops.

You may not sell, buy, trade or exchange a virtual item or an account outside the mechanisms a title itself provides. Items obtained outside those mechanisms may be removed without compensation.

Randomised items

Where a title offers an item pack or box with a randomised outcome, the title discloses the probability of each outcome category before purchase, and that disclosure is shown in the title itself, where the purchase happens. A randomised purchase is a purchase of the pack, not of any particular outcome.

Refunds

Because the store operator bills you, the store operator handles refunds. Request an Apple refund through reportaproblem.apple.com and a Google Play refund through the Play refund process, in each case within the window that operator allows. We can look into a purchase that did not deliver the item you paid for, and we will correct it or ask the store to refund it, but we cannot process a refund to your payment method ourselves. Nothing here removes a right you have under the Sale of Goods Ordinance, Cap. 26, the Supply of Services (Implied Terms) Ordinance, Cap. 457, or other Hong Kong consumer legislation that cannot lawfully be excluded.

6. Subscriptions and cancellation

Where a title offers a subscription, it is billed by the app store on a recurring basis and it renews automatically until you cancel it. The price, the billing period and any introductory or trial period are shown before you confirm the purchase.

Cancellation happens in the store, not in the game. Deleting the app, deleting your account, or uninstalling a title does not cancel a subscription and does not stop billing.

• iOS and iPadOS. Open Settings, tap your name, tap Subscriptions, select the subscription, then Cancel Subscription. You can also do this from the App Store app under your account.
• Android. Open the Google Play Store app, tap your profile icon, then Payments and subscriptions, then Subscriptions, select the subscription, then Cancel subscription.

Cancel at least 24 hours before the current period ends, because a renewal charged inside that window is normally taken by the store. Cancelling stops future renewals; you keep the benefit until the end of the period you have already paid for. Any refund of a subscription charge is a matter for the store operator under the process in section 5.

If a subscription price changes, the store notifies you and, where its rules require, asks you to agree before the new price is charged.

7. Acceptable use

These rules exist so that a title stays playable for everybody in it. You must not:

1. break any applicable law, or use a title to facilitate anything unlawful;
2. harass, threaten, bully, stalk, defame or impersonate any person, or incite others to do so;
3. post or transmit material that is obscene, that sexualises a minor, that promotes violence or self harm, or that incites hatred against a person or group;
4. disclose another person's personal data without their consent. Section 64 of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, Cap. 486, makes doing so with intent or recklessness as to causing specified harm a criminal offence, and we will act on reports and cooperate with the authorities;
5. cheat, exploit a bug, use an unauthorised third party program, modify a client, tamper with network traffic, or otherwise gain an advantage the title does not intend;
6. use a bot, script or automation to play, farm, or acquire items or currency;
7. attempt to gain unauthorised access to any account, server or system, probe or scan our infrastructure, or interfere with its normal operation;
8. upload malicious code, or anything designed to disrupt or damage software, hardware or a person's enjoyment of a title;
9. advertise, sell or promote goods or services, including account sales, currency sales and boosting services;
10. use the services to collect information about other players beyond what the title itself displays.

Where a title has a reporting tool, use it. Where it does not, write to us using section 18. We investigate reports and take the action set out in section 12.

8. User content

Some titles let you create or submit material: a display name, a profile, chat messages, guild descriptions, custom images, or similar. This section applies where they do. It is called your content.

You keep ownership of your content. You grant GARMA a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty free, transferable and sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt, publish, display and distribute your content, for the purpose of operating, promoting and improving the title it was submitted in and our other titles. The licence lasts as long as we hold the content under the retention periods in the Privacy Policy Statement, and it survives afterwards only for copies already lawfully distributed.

You confirm that you own or otherwise control the rights in your content, that it does not infringe anybody else's rights, and that it complies with section 7. You are responsible for it.

We do not pre-screen everything, and we are not obliged to. We may review, moderate, refuse, edit or remove content that we reasonably consider breaches these terms or the law, and we may do so without prior notice where the content is unlawful or presents a risk of harm. Removal of content is not a judgment about you and does not create a right to compensation.

If you believe content in a title infringes your copyright or other rights, write to us using section 18, identifying yourself, the material you say is infringing, where it appears, and the right you rely on. We will act on properly particularised notices.

9. Intellectual property

The services, and everything in them, are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws of Hong Kong and elsewhere. This includes software, source code, artwork, characters, models, animation, audio, music, text, user interface design, layout, and the structure and arrangement of a title. All of it belongs to GARMA or to our licensors.

The name GARMA TECHNOLOGY, the GARMA name and mark, and the names and marks of individual titles are ours. You may not use them without our prior written consent, except for fair and accurate reference to a title in ordinary description, review or gameplay coverage, and in a way that does not suggest endorsement, sponsorship or affiliation.

If you send us a suggestion, idea, feature request or other feedback, you agree we may use it without restriction, without obligation to you, and without compensation. Do not send us confidential material, because we cannot treat unsolicited feedback as confidential.

10. App stores and third parties

The apps are distributed through the Apple App Store and Google Play. Your use of a title is also subject to the operator's own terms, and where those terms conflict with these terms in relation to distribution, billing or store policy, the operator's terms govern that subject matter.

Apple specific acknowledgements. Where you obtained a title from the App Store: this agreement is between you and GARMA and not with Apple; GARMA, not Apple, is solely responsible for the title and its content; Apple has no obligation to furnish maintenance or support for the title; in the event of a failure to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple may refund the purchase price, and to the maximum extent permitted by law Apple has no other warranty obligation in respect of the title; GARMA, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claim relating to the title, including product liability claims, claims that the title fails to conform to a legal or regulatory requirement, and claims arising under consumer protection or similar legislation; GARMA, not Apple, is responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement and discharge of any third party claim that the title infringes intellectual property rights; you confirm you are not located in a country subject to a United States Government embargo or designated as terrorist supporting, and are not on any United States Government list of prohibited or restricted parties; and Apple and its subsidiaries are third party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

A title may also include or link to third party services such as analytics, advertising, crash reporting or a sign in provider. Those services are operated by their own providers under their own terms, and we are not responsible for them. Where a title links to an external site, the link is not an endorsement.

11. Availability and changes to a title

We work to keep the services available, but we do not promise they will be uninterrupted or error free. Maintenance, updates, network problems, store outages and events outside our control all interrupt service from time to time.

We may add, change, suspend or remove features, content, events and game balance, and we may issue updates that you need to install in order to keep playing. Live games change; that is part of what a live game is.

If we discontinue a title, we will give reasonable notice inside the title and on this site where practicable, we will stop selling virtual items and new subscriptions from the date of the notice, and we will allow a reasonable period for you to use virtual items you have already bought. After the closure date the title and everything in it, including virtual items and progress, cease to be available, and except as the previous sentence provides and as the law requires, no compensation is payable for virtual items. This reflects what a virtual item is under section 5: a licence to use something inside a running service.

12. Suspension and termination

By you. You may stop using the services at any time, and you may delete your account using either route in section 20 of the Privacy Policy Statement. Remember that deleting an account does not cancel a subscription; see section 6.

By us. We may suspend or terminate your access to a title, or to all the services, where we reasonably believe you have breached these terms, where your conduct exposes other players or us to harm or legal risk, or where we are required to do so by law or by a store operator.

The response is proportionate to what happened. A first minor breach usually leads to a warning or a temporary restriction on a specific feature. Serious or repeated breaches, cheating, and conduct that harms other players lead to suspension or permanent termination. Where it is practicable and lawful to do so, and where doing so would not undermine an investigation or the safety of another person, we will tell you what rule we relied on and give you a route to respond. If you believe a decision was wrong, write to us using section 18 and we will review it.

On termination your licence under section 4 ends and any unused virtual items are forfeited, except where the termination was our fault or the law requires otherwise. Sections 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 survive termination.

13. Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by Hong Kong law, the services are provided on an as is and as available basis, and we do not give any warranty, condition or representation that is not expressly stated in these terms. In particular we do not warrant that a title will meet your requirements, that it will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error free, or that defects will be corrected.

Nothing in these terms excludes or restricts anything that cannot lawfully be excluded or restricted. That includes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, and any term implied by the Sale of Goods Ordinance, Cap. 26, or the Supply of Services (Implied Terms) Ordinance, Cap. 457, to the extent it may not lawfully be excluded. Where you deal as a consumer, the exclusions and restrictions in these terms apply only so far as the Control of Exemption Clauses Ordinance, Cap. 71, permits, which means each of them is subject to the requirement of reasonableness under that Ordinance and takes effect only to the extent it satisfies that requirement.

14. Limitation of liability

Subject in every case to section 13, and to the extent permitted by law:

• we are not liable for loss that was not reasonably foreseeable to both parties when you accepted these terms;
• we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, loss of goodwill, loss of anticipated savings, or loss of or corruption of data, in each case where the loss is indirect or consequential;
• we are not liable for loss caused by an event outside our reasonable control, including a failure of a store operator, a network operator, a device manufacturer, or a hosting or connectivity provider; and
• we are not liable for the acts of other players, or for content another player submits.

Cap. Where we are liable to you, our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with these terms and the services, whether in contract, tort including negligence, breach of statutory duty or otherwise, is limited to the greater of (a) the total amount you actually paid in connection with the relevant title in the 12 months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) HKD 500.

These limits are agreed between us as reasonable, taking into account that the services are supplied for personal entertainment, that many titles are supplied at no charge, and that the price of any paid element reflects the allocation of risk set out here. Each limit applies separately, and if one is held unenforceable the others continue to apply.

15. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify GARMA against loss, liability, damage and reasonable costs that we suffer arising from your breach of these terms, your misuse of the services, your content, or your infringement of a third party's rights. This does not apply to the extent the loss was caused by our own breach or negligence. We will notify you of a claim we intend to rely on this section for, will not settle it without consulting you, and will let you participate in the defence with your own advisers at your cost.

16. Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms, and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation, including any non-contractual dispute or claim, are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

You and GARMA submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Jurisdiction is non-exclusive so that, if you are a consumer resident elsewhere and the mandatory law of your place of residence gives you a right to bring proceedings in your local courts, that right is not taken away by this section.

Before starting proceedings, please write to us using section 18. Most disputes about an account, a purchase or a moderation decision are resolved faster that way than in a court.

17. General

• Entire agreement. These terms, the Privacy Policy Statement, and any title specific rules are the whole agreement between you and GARMA about the services, and replace anything said or written before about the same subject. Nothing in this clause limits liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.
• Severability. If a provision is held invalid or unenforceable, it is severed or read down to the minimum extent necessary, and the rest continues in force.
• No waiver. If we do not enforce a right immediately, that is not a waiver of it, and we may enforce it later.
• Assignment. You may not assign or transfer your rights under these terms. We may assign ours to a group company or to a purchaser of the relevant business or title, provided your rights under these terms are not reduced.
• Third party rights. Except for Apple's rights under section 10, and except for our group companies and licensors in respect of sections 9, 13 and 14, a person who is not a party to these terms has no right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Ordinance, Cap. 623, to enforce any of them.
• Language. The English version of these terms is the operative version. Any translation is provided for convenience, and in the event of a conflict the English version governs.
• Headings. Section headings are for navigation only and do not affect interpretation.

18. How to reach us

For questions about these terms, a moderation decision, a purchase that did not deliver, or a rights complaint, write to GARMA TECHNOLOGY LIMITED at the registered office: [TO CONFIRM: registered office address in Hong Kong], or by email to [TO CONFIRM: general or legal contact email address].

Requests about personal data are handled separately. Data access and data correction requests under the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance go to the Privacy Compliance Officer by the route in section 12 of the Privacy Policy Statement, which also sets out the 40 day statutory response period.