Terms & Conditions. The house rules.
Every lobby needs rules. Ours are written so an actual human can read them — and every dense section ends with a plain-English one-liner.
The TL;DR is a summary for convenience — the numbered sections below are the actual agreement.
01Who we are & accepting these terms
These Terms & Conditions ("Terms") are an agreement between you and Snowbll ("Snowbll", "we", "us") covering your use of snowbll.com and its subdomains, apps and services (together, the "Service"). By creating an account or using the Service you accept these Terms and our Privacy Policy.
If you don't agree with something here, don't use the Service — or better, tell us why at [email protected]. We'd rather fix a bad rule than lose a good player.
02Accounts & eligibility
- You must be at least 13 years old to use Snowbll, and old enough to form a binding contract (or have a parent or guardian's permission) to make purchases.
- One person, one account. Creating multiple accounts to farm rewards, manipulate votes or impersonate others is not allowed.
- You're responsible for what happens on your account. Keep your credentials safe and tell us immediately if it's compromised.
- Connecting third-party accounts (such as Steam) is optional and governed by those platforms' own terms as well as ours.
Be 13+, don't make sock-puppet accounts, and don't share your password.
03The Service (and its early-access status)
Snowbll is a game marketplace built around an AI persona: search by describing what you want, build a profile of your taste, follow launches in The Forge, and debate in The Councils. Snowbll is in active development. Features ship early, are sometimes labeled prototype or illustrative, and may change, pause or be removed as we learn. We'll be honest about what's real and what's still being built.
Snowbll is early access — expect rough edges, and expect us to say so out loud.
04AI features & ratings
AI on Snowbll recommends fit; it never judges quality. Recommendations and match percentages mean "this looks right for you, based on your persona" — they are not quality verdicts. Star ratings and quality scores only ever come from humans, in two clearly-labeled tracks: community scores (anyone who played) and verified tester scores (neutral third-party testers). We do not publish AI-generated quality scores, and a game with no human rating shows an empty slot — not a synthetic number.
AI outputs can be wrong or weird. Treat recommendations as a shortlist, not gospel.
The AI says "you might like this". Only humans say "this is good".
05Purchases & key delivery
- When you buy a game on Snowbll, checkout happens here and the game is delivered to the library of its home platform — typically as a game key (or equivalent entitlement) that activates on Steam, itch.io or another store, the way Humble-style key resellers work.
- Availability of purchase depends on the developer participating in key delivery. Where a game can't be sold this way, you'll see a view-only link to its home page instead — source badges are informational, not endorsements.
- Activated or revealed keys can't be returned. If a key is invalid, already used, or never arrives, contact us and we'll make it right with a replacement or a refund.
- Prices include applicable taxes unless stated otherwise; payment is processed by third-party providers (such as Stripe or PayPal) — we never see your full card number.
Buy here, play where the game lives. Don't reveal a key you might want to return.
06Ranks & subscriptions
Snowbll offers paid ranks (subscription tiers) that unlock things like AI chat quota, persona page customization, Council voting and forum posting. Subscriptions renew automatically each billing period until you cancel; cancelling stops the next renewal and your perks run until the period ends. We may change rank prices or perks with advance notice — changes apply from your next renewal, never retroactively mid-cycle.
Paid ranks renew monthly until you cancel. Cancel anytime; you keep perks until the cycle ends.
07Virtual currency & items
Some features use a platform currency and virtual items (cosmetics, badges, drops). These are a limited license, not property: they have no real-world monetary value, are tied to your account, and can't be transferred, sold or exchanged for cash except where the law requires. Virtual currency is spent when you use it, and unused balances aren't refundable except where the law requires.
Coins and cosmetics live inside Snowbll. They're not money and can't be cashed out.
08Creators & testers
Creator and tester programs have their own eligibility gates (for example, a minimum rank, or a connected persona with real play data for testers) and may carry additional program terms presented when you join. Two promises that won't change: testers are matched to games by Snowbll — developers can't pick their own reviewers — and tester reputation rewards honesty, not developer satisfaction.
09Your content & conduct
You own what you post (reviews, threads, persona pages). By posting you give us a non-exclusive, worldwide license to host and display that content as part of running the Service. Don't post anything illegal, hateful, or that you don't have rights to.
Things that get accounts suspended:
- Manipulating ratings, reviews, votes or reputation — including paying for praise, review-bombing, or coordinating either.
- Sybil accounts, bots, or fake personas built to game matching.
- Harassing other players, creators, testers or developers.
- Cheating the rewards, referral or currency systems.
- Scraping the Service at scale or reselling our data.
Every rule in this list exists because somebody, somewhere, already tried it. Don't be the reason we add a new one.
10Developers & submissions
If you submit a game, you warrant that you hold the rights to it and to the keys you provide, and that your store page is truthful. Self-reported quality claims stay labeled as claims until verified by neutral testers. Developer-specific terms (revenue share, key supply, telemetry) are presented in the Dev Portal when you onboard.
11Snowbll's IP
The Snowbll name, the owl, our personas, design and code are ours (or our licensors'). We give you a personal, non-transferable license to use the Service. Platform names like Steam, Epic, GOG and itch.io belong to their owners — see Legal for trademark notices.
12Disclaimers & liability
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied. We don't guarantee that recommendations fit, that games are bug-free, or that the Service is uninterrupted. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Snowbll's total liability for any claim is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim or USD 50. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that can't be limited by law.
13Suspension & termination
You can delete your account at any time. We can suspend or terminate accounts that break these Terms, harm other users, or create legal risk — with notice and a reason where reasonably possible. Sections that by nature survive termination (IP, disclaimers, liability, disputes) survive.
14Changes to these terms
We'll update these Terms as the product grows. For material changes we'll give notice on the site (or by email) before they take effect. Continuing to use Snowbll after the effective date means you accept the new version. The "Last updated" date at the top always tells you the current revision.
15Governing law & disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which Snowbll is established, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, and disputes belong to the courts of that jurisdiction unless mandatory consumer law gives you a different venue. Before anything formal: talk to us. Most problems are fixable in one email thread.
16Contact
Questions about these Terms: [email protected]. Legal and IP matters: [email protected].