Privacy Policy

The short version

Retro-Arcade does not create profiles for ordinary visitors. You do not need to provide a name, email address, postal address, phone number, date of birth, or financial details simply to visit. Players who choose to register provide a username and email address and create an account.

We keep daily aggregate counts for important product events such as game selections, successful emulator loads, five-minute plays, registrations, checkout starts, purchases, and returning signed-in players. These analytics contain only the event date, event type, optional game identifier, and total count. They do not contain a visitor identifier, IP address, user agent, or raw event history and are not shared with an external analytics provider.

The only lasting visitor statistic we keep is one opaque, aggregate counter showing how many browsers have visited. It is not attributed to an individual and cannot be used to identify, follow, or trace any visitor. We do not sell personal information.

Anonymous visitor statistics

When a browser first opens the home page, the aggregate visitor total increases by one. The database keeps only that new total—no IP address, browser fingerprint, identity, or individual visit history is attached to it.

A cookie containing only the opaque value “1” tells the site that this browser has already been included in the total. It contains no identity or unique tracking code and cannot distinguish you from any other returning browser.

Cookies & browser storage

Retro-Arcade uses essential first-party cookies for login and browser sessions, anonymous lifetime visitor counting, active-player counting, and temporary permission to load a selected game. These cookies support core site functions and are not used for advertising profiles.

Selected original editorial pages may load Google AdSense. If advertising is active, Google and its advertising partners may use cookies or similar technologies to deliver, limit, measure, and report ads. Where consent is required, visitors are shown Google’s consent-management message before non-essential advertising storage is used. A visitor can refuse or change those choices without losing access to the site’s public content.

The emulator may use local browser storage for settings, control preferences, save states, or game progress. The movable support prompt uses session storage to remember its position within the current tab. You can remove these items through your browser settings, but doing so may reset preferences, saves, visitor recognition, or other features.

An opaque player identifier lets the site record the UTC date and seconds used to enforce the daily play allowance for a browser that is not signed in. When a signed-in member plays, their allowance is associated with their account and a separate random per-tab session identifier records which game was played and accumulates bounded play time.

How we use information

The site processes the technical information needed to return a requested page, load a game, enforce the daily play allowance, maintain the aggregate visitor total, and show a live player count. Routine successful page requests are logged without IP addresses, user-agent strings, or query strings.

For signed-in accounts, important actions such as registration, login, logout, account changes, and game-session start/end are logged with date and time, account identity, IP address, a one-way hash of the server session identifier, and applicable duration or game. Per-game and total play time appear on the account page. Heartbeats credit no more than 30 seconds at once to avoid inflating totals when tabs sleep or networks stall.

When a signed-in player chooses the experimental ranked Pac-Man mode, we store their account identifier and display name, game, best validated score, session and update times, and a one-way hash of the emulator state used for validation. The raw emulator state is transmitted to validate each improved score but is not stored.

Like any online service, our server and security providers must receive an IP address long enough to deliver traffic. Technical details may also be retained when a request produces an error, appears malicious, supports an account action, or is needed to investigate and protect the service.

When a player purchases Supporter access, we record the selected product, payment provider, provider transaction or subscription identifier, payment status, amount, currency, and access start/end dates. These records are used to grant access, prevent duplicate webhook processing, provide account history, handle cancellations, and resolve payment disputes.

Support messages

If you email us, we receive your email address and whatever information you choose to include. We use it to respond to your request, investigate the issue, and keep an appropriate record of the conversation. Please do not send sensitive personal information that is not needed for your enquiry.

Service providers & external links

Retro-Arcade relies on hosting, content-delivery, security, emulator, and infrastructure providers that may process limited technical information on our behalf. Game pages load emulator resources from EmulatorJS. Links to PayPal, museums, reference sources, or other external resources take you to services governed by their own privacy policies.

If you choose to make a donation or purchase Supporter access, payment information is handled by PayPal or Stripe. Retro-Arcade receives payment status and provider reference information but does not receive or store your full card or bank details.

Google may process device and interaction information when AdSense is loaded on an eligible editorial page. Advertising is not loaded on game launch screens, account pages, checkout, or other task-focused areas. More information about how Google uses data from sites that use its services is available in Google’s partner-sites notice.

When information may be shared

Anonymous visitor counting does not create a personal visitor record. Players who register do have an account record, action audit history, and play history. Limited account or technical security information may be handled by service providers where necessary to deliver or protect Retro-Arcade, respond to a lawful request, investigate misuse, or establish and defend legal rights. We do not trade or sell personal information.

Retention & security

The aggregate visitor total has no personal data attached to it. Temporary active-player entries expire automatically after the short live-presence window. Exceptional security, error, or support records are kept only for as long as reasonably needed for operational, security, dispute, or legal purposes.

We use reasonable technical and organisational safeguards, but no website or transmission method can be guaranteed completely secure.

Your data protection rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to ask for access to, correction of, deletion of, restriction of, or objection to the use of your personal information, and in some circumstances data portability. You may also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority. In the United Kingdom, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

We may need enough detail to locate the relevant records and verify that a request relates to you. Registered players can permanently delete their account directly from the account page as described below.

Account deletion

A signed-in player can use Delete account on the account page. Before deletion, renewal must be cancelled for every active recurring PayPal or Stripe membership. A one-time pass does not renew and does not need to be cancelled.

After the player verifies their password and confirms the permanent action, Retro-Arcade immediately deletes the account profile, authentication and confirmation tokens, email preference, local membership and payment references, game-session and play-time history, ranked-score sessions and leaderboard entries, and account-linked audit events. The deletion is permanent and the data cannot be recovered.

Deleting a Retro-Arcade account does not delete payment or transaction records held independently by PayPal or Stripe. Those providers retain and process their records under their own privacy policies and legal obligations, which is why an active recurring membership must be cancelled first.

Children’s privacy

Retro-Arcade is a general-audience website and is not designed to collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, please contact us so that we can review and, where appropriate, remove it.

Changes & contact

We may update this privacy policy when the website, our practices, or applicable requirements change. The updated version will be posted here with a revised date.

For privacy questions or requests, email [email protected].