Terms of Service
Last updated on 09 March 2023
A quick summary:
These are the (legally binding) terms and conditions for Simulated Minds’s games and services (which we call the Simulated Minds Services – see section 1.2 below for how we define this). In particular please note the following:
* Rules. There are rules (and consequences) regarding what you can and cannot do with the Simulated Minds Services (please see section 4 and 9 below).
* Beta / Early Access. Some products and services we may release on a ‘alpha’, ‘beta’ or ‘Early Access’ basis – these may contain bugs and require server / progress resets – please see section 2.4 for more details.
* Liability. There are rules and limits on liability.
* Contact. You can contact us on simulatedmindsinc@gmail.com if you have questions about this Agreement or general legal matters at Simulated Minds.
This Terms of Service (“Agreement”) explains what you can and cannot do with Simulated Minds games, products and services (which we explain below). We know legal wording is not much fun, so there’s also a quick summary of each section (but the full version is the legally binding one). Please also read our Fan Content and Broadcasting Guidelines (www.simulated-minds.com/legal/fan-content) and Modding Guidelines (www.simulated-minds.com/legal/modding). If you’d like to know more about our data practices, please see our Simulated Minds Privacy Policy (www.simulated-minds.com/legal/privacy-policy).
1. ABOUT THIS AGREEMENT
SUMMARY. We’re Simulated Minds and this is a legally binding document. We can change it as explained below, also check out our Privacy Policy (www.simulated-minds.com/legal/privacy-policy).
1.1. What is this Agreement? This Agreement is a legally binding contract between you and Simulated Minds, LLC.
1.2. What does this Agreement apply to? All of our video games, our websites, any game keys or codes, our software development kits, assets and tools, plus all other Simulated Minds products and services (e.g. wikis, blogs, and social media services) – we will refer to “Simulated Minds Services” to cover all of these things.
1.3. When does this Agreement apply to you? As soon as you download, install or use any of the Simulated Minds Services. If you do not agree to it, please do not use any of the Simulated Minds Services.
1.4. What happens if we change this Agreement and/or the Simulated Minds Services? We may make changes to the Simulated Minds Services and/or this Agreement for various reasons – such as to reflect changes in applicable laws or regulatory requirements and/or to implement technical changes or improvements (e.g., to address a security issue or changes in our business practices). If we make minor changes, these should not impact your use of the Simulated Minds Services. If we make more significant changes to the Simulated Minds Services and/or this Agreement, then we will endeavour to notify you reasonably in advance. Changes will come into effect either as soon as they go live (in the case of minor changes) or following expiry of any applicable notice period (if they are significant). If you do not agree to any significant changes, you may not continue to access the Simulated Minds Services (although we’re happy to discuss any appropriate next steps with you).
2. USING THE SIMULATED MINDS SERVICES
SUMMARY. You have the personal right to use the Simulated Minds Services (but Simulated Minds owns them). You need to be at least 13 to use Simulated Minds Services. There are technical requirements for using them.
2.1. Use of Simulated Minds Services. Your use of the Simulated Minds Services is for you alone, so you cannot give, ‘sell’, lend, gift, assign, sub-license or otherwise transfer it to someone else. Legally speaking, we give you a personal, limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-assignable license to display, view, download, install, play and use the Simulated Minds Services on authorized devices/platforms. If any of them require a user account, then you are responsible for keeping them safe.
2.2. Are there any age restrictions? Legally, you must be at least 13 years old to use the Simulated Minds Services, but this might be older depending on whether or not a particular Simulated Minds Service has a required minimum age rating. If you are between 13 and 18 (or whatever is the age of adulthood in your country), please ask your parent or guardian to review and approve this Agreement and to supervise your use of the Simulated Minds Services.
2.3. Technical requirements. Some Simulated Minds Services will have minimum requirements (e.g. minimum computer specifications or require an internet connection) and it is your responsibility to ensure you meet these requirements before downloading or using them. In order to protect Simulated Minds , Simulated Minds users and to enforce this Agreement, Simulated Minds may deploy software tools that run in the background of your device or related devices/peripherals when you use the Simulated Minds Services. We may patch, update or change the Simulated Minds Services over time (e.g. to add or remove game features). This may result in mandatory and/or automatic updates, meaning older or un-updated versions may become unusable over time as a result. We may also stop supporting older devices/platforms over time, but we will use reasonable efforts to notify this to you in advance.
2.4. Beta/Early Access release. We may release some Simulated Minds Services before their full commercial release to test the features, capabilities, and performance of the product. This could be in prototype, alpha, beta or Early Access or other pre-full release mode. Please remember that these versions might contain bugs, as we might add or remove features. We might set other requirements too but these will be notified to you.
2.5. What about third-party access and content? We are not responsible for any third-party content on the Simulated Minds Services (e.g. links to third-party sites on our social media) or third-party services which you access the Simulated Minds Services from (e.g. Steam).
3. SAFE USE OF VR TECHNOLOGY
3.1. When using the Game and any VR equipment, you agree to the following terms regarding your safety and our liability:
i. You agree to always be aware of your surroundings while using the Game. This includes watching out for other people and your immediate environment.
ii. You agree that your use of the Game is at your own risk, and that it is your responsibility to obtain and maintain any insurance policies (including health, liability, personal injury, medical, life, and others), that are reasonably necessary for any injuries that may be sustained while using the Game.
iii. You agree that you will supervise any minor children who are using the Game, or if you are a minor, that you will have parental supervision when using the Game, at all times.
iv. Without limiting the foregoing, you agree that you will not engage in any other activity which may reasonably result in injury, death, damage to property, or any other kind of legal liability.
3.2. Limitation of Liability. IN ADDITION TO ANY OTHER LIMITATION OF LIABILITY INCLUDED IN THIS AGREEMENT, YOU AGREE THAT SIMULATED MINDS, THEIR OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, AGENTS, PARTNERS, PARENTS AND SUBSIDIARIES, AND EMPLOYEES ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INJURY, DEATH, PROPERTY DAMAGE, OR OTHER LEGAL LIABILITY INCURRED BY YOU OR OTHERS WHILE USING THE GAME.
3.3. You agree that, by using the Game, you acknowledge and agree that if you engage in any activity in connection with the Game, you do so at your own risk. You understand and agree that use of the Game carries with it certain risks, known and unknown, including but not limited to the risk of personal injury, and fully assume that risk on your own behalf and on behalf of your heirs, assigns, and agents. This includes, without limitation, your participation in any activity in connection with the Game and any devices or equipment used in connection with the Game. You agree that you are voluntarily participating in these activities and assume all risks of injury including, without limitation, injuries or damages that may result from your use of the Game.
4. RULES FOR USING THE SIMULATED MINDS SERVICES
SUMMARY. This section sets out the rules for you to follow when using the Simulated Minds Services – e.g. no hacking, harmful conduct, etc. Breaking these rules could result in suspension or cancellation (temporary or permanent) of your access to the Simulated Minds Services.
4.1. Please follow these rules carefully since failure will be considered a material breach of this Agreement, which could lead to suspension or cancellation (temporary or permanent) of your access to the Simulated Minds Services. Here are the rules – you must NOT:
i. Personal Enjoyment only: use the Simulated Minds Services for any commercial purposes (unless permitted in the Fan Content Guidelines (www.simulated-minds.com/legal/fan-content) or Modding Guidelines (www.simulated-minds.com/legal/modding)) or political purposes;
ii. Restricted Access: attempt to copy, rent, steal, sell, lend, lease, sublicense, distribute, publish or publicly display the Simulated Minds Services;
Iii. Technical Misuse: modify, merge, distribute, translate, reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to obtain or use source code of the Simulated Minds Services unless you are specifically allowed by applicable law;
iv. Interfering: hack, harm, grief, harass, threaten, interrupt, interfere with or misuse the Simulated Minds Services, accounts and services or Simulated Minds 's other users, community members or staff.
v. No Advertising: post any commercial advertisement, promotion, spam, or unsolicited messages through the Simulated Minds Services.
vi. Names/Trademarks: use Simulated Minds, the names of any Simulated Minds Services or other Simulated Minds names or logos or trademarks for any commercial purpose without our permission.
vii. Infringing Content: do anything in connection with the Simulated Minds Services that infringes any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, privacy, publicity, or other right of Simulated Minds or others.
viii. Conduct: do or say anything unlawful, racist, harassing, threatening, abusive, hateful, xenophobic, sexist, discriminatory, abusive, defamatory, obscene, invasive of the privacy of another person, or otherwise offensive. This includes in any chat or other communications with users. Simulated Minds reserves the right to monitor the content of any of your messages and prevent your use of any such chat or other communication systems for any reason.
5. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
SUMMARY. The Simulated Minds Services are owned/licensed by Simulated Minds.
5.1. Who owns the Simulated Minds Services? Simulated Minds owns or licenses the Simulated Minds Services in their entirety (e.g. their visual components, characters, story, items, music, graphics, computer code, user interface, look and feel, game mechanics, gameplay, audio, video, text, layout, databases, data and all other content and all intellectual property and other legal and exploitation rights regarding them), including any improvements or updates. All rights in the Simulated Minds Services are reserved except as explained in this Agreement.
6. FAN CONTENT AND MODS
SUMMARY. We are pretty open about user generated content and stuff like that but there are some basic rules - you can read our Fan Content Guidelines here (www.simulated-minds.com/legal/fan-content) and our Modding Guidelines here (www.simulated-minds.com/legal/modding). You are responsible for any content you share via the Simulated Minds Services.
6.1. What is our position on mods, community servers and fan content? You can read our Fan Content Guidelines (www.simulated-minds.com/legal/fan-content) for our position on user generated content including fan art and videos/streams/Let’s Plays (“User Generated Content”). By posting any User Generated Content on the Simulated Minds Services, you are giving us permission to use it (legally, you give us a non-exclusive, permanent, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use, modify, reproduce, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, communicate, and publicly display/perform your User Generated Content in connection with the Simulated Minds Services). If you do not agree to this, please do not post any User Generated Content. For Mods and standalone tools/products based on our games, please see our Modding Guidelines at www.simulated-minds.com/legal/modding.
7. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT KITS
SUMMARY. You can use our SDKs to make mods and other content for use in the Simulated Minds Services. Some basic legal rules apply.
7.1 Using our software development kits. You are welcome to use our publicly available software development kits, assets and tools (‘SDKs’) to enrich your experience with our games.
7.2 Who owns the SDKs? The SDKs, including any improvements or updates to them, belong to Simulated Minds Any mods made using the SDKs belong to you, subject to our Modding Guidelines (www.simulated-minds.com/legal/modding).
7.3 Are there any additional requirements you should know about? Yes, some SDKs may be subject to additional terms (such as an open source licence). Any additional legal terms will be detailed in the SDK’s description. If you are not sure, please contact us at simulatedmindsinc@gmail.com before you use our SDKs.
8. FEEDBACK OR SUGGESTIONS
SUMMARY. Feedback and suggestions are great (thank you!) but at our discretion without responsibility/liability.
We always welcome and appreciate feedback and suggestions (you can send these to simulatedmindsinc@gmail.com) but we may choose not to use or accept them at our discretion. In any event the feedback/suggestions will be received by us without any credit, compensation, obligations or liability to you. If you provide Simulated Minds with any feedback or suggestions, you hereby grant Simulated Minds a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works based on, publicly perform, publicly display, make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise exploit any and all feedback and / or suggestions for any purposes, for all current and future methods and forms of exploitation.
9. LIABILITY
SUMMARY. Here we explain a bit further how you and we are legally responsible to each other. We ask for certain legal protections from you.
9.1. Limitation of Liability (UK, EU).
This section applies to you if you are resident in the United Kingdom or European Union. If you are resident in the United States of America or other non-UK/EU territory, please see section 9.3 below.
1. We do not exclude or limit (or seek to exclude or limit) our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes our liability for:
* death or personal injury caused by our negligence (or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors);
* fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
* breach of your statutory rights as a consumer; or
* other liability which may not be excluded by applicable law.
2. We only supply the Simulated Minds Services for domestic and private use. If you use the Simulated Minds Services for any commercial, business or re-sale purposes we will have no liability to you for any loss of profits, loss of business, business interruption or loss of business opportunity.
3. If we fail to comply with this Agreement, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking this Agreement, or our failure to use reasonable care and skill. Loss or damage is foreseeable if either it is obvious that it will happen or if, at the time the Agreement was agreed to, both we and you knew it might happen. We are not responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable.
4. If the Simulated Minds Services damage a device or digital content belonging to you, and this is caused by our failure to use reasonable care and skill, we will either repair the damage or pay you compensation. However, we will not be liable for damage which you could have avoided by following our advice to apply an update offered to you free of charge or for damage which was caused by you failing to correctly follow installation instructions or have in place the advised minimum technical requirements.
9.2 Subject always to 9.1. above: (i) the total liability of Simulated Minds (and its group companies) arising out of or in connection with this Agreement will not exceed the total amount you have paid to us under this Agreement during the twelve (12) months immediately prior to the event which caused the liability; and (ii) the Simulated Minds Services are provided on an “as is” basis and we make no specific warranty or representation in relation to the quality, completeness or accuracy of the Simulated Minds Services.
9.3. Limitation of liability (USA).
The following section does not apply to you if you are resident in the United Kingdom or European Union or countries whose laws specifically prohibit the following liability limitations, but it does apply to you if you are resident in the USA.
(I) OUR DISCLAIMERS. THE SIMULATED MINDS SERVICES (INCLUDING ANY UPDATES) ARE PROVIDED TO YOU ON AN "AS IS", “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SIMULATED MINDS SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT THE GAME WILL BE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS. SIMULATED MINDS, ITS AFFILIATES, PARTNERS AND LICENSORS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS, DAMAGE OR HARM OF ANY KIND ARISING FROM THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE OR ‘LOSS’ RELATING TO THE SIMULATED MINDS SERVICES.
(II) OUR LIABILITY CAP. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU IN CONNECTION WITH THE SIMULATED MINDS SERVICES OR THIS AGREEMENT EXCEED AN AMOUNT EQUAL TO THE AMOUNT YOU HAVE ACTUALLY PAID US (IF ANY) IN CONNECTION WITH THE MATTERS UNDERLYING ANY CLAIM(S).
(III) YOUR INDEMNITY TO US. YOU AGREE TO INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS ON DEMAND SIMULATED MINDS, ITS AFFILIATES, LICENSORS AND PARTNERS FROM ALL LIABILITIES, CLAIMS AND EXPENSES, INCLUDING LEGAL FEES, IN CONNECTION WITH ANY ALLEGED OR ACTUAL BREACH BY YOU OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF CLAIMS ARE BROUGHT AGAINST US, THEN YOU WILL COOPERATE FULLY WITH US AND WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO TAKE OVER THEIR DEFENCE. YOU WILL NOT SETTLE ANY SUCH CLAIMS WITHOUT OUR PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT.
(IV) INJUNCTIVE RELIEF. YOU AGREE THAT ANY LOSS, DAMAGE OR HARM YOU SUFFER ARE NOT IRREPARABLE OR SUFFICIENT, AND OTHER REMEDIES WILL BE ADEQUATE, SUCH THAT YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO INJUNCTIVE OR OTHER EQUITABLE RELIEF AGAINST US.
(V) Residents of California. If you reside in the state of California you are entitled to the following specific consumer rights information: you may contact the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the Department of Consumer Affairs by mail at 400 R St., Suite 1080, Sacramento, California, 95814, or by telephone at 916.445.1254. California residents expressly agree to waive California Civil Code Sec. 1542, which states: “A general release does not extend the claims which the creditor does not know or suspect to exist in his favor at the time of executing the release, which if known by him must have materially affected his settlement with the debtor.”
10. TERMINATION
SUMMARY. You can terminate this Agreement by stopping use of all Simulated Minds Services. We may cancel or suspend (temporarily or permanently) your access to any and/or all of the Simulated Minds Services if you seriously breach this Agreement.
10.1. When and how can you terminate this Agreement? You can terminate this Agreement at any time by permanently stopping use of all Simulated Minds Services. Termination will not affect already existing rights or obligations of us or you.
10.2. When can we suspend or terminate your access to the Simulated Minds Services?
- We may cancel or suspend (temporarily or permanently) your access to any and/or all of the Simulated Minds Services if you materially breach this Agreement (e.g. the rules in section 4 above or any other breach which is serious and/or which could cause real harm to Simulated Minds, the Simulated Minds Services or other Simulated Minds Services users. If we cancel or suspend your account in this way we will not have any obligations or liabilities to you at all. Regarding bans:
- If you have questions about any game ban or suspension we have issued, then you can contact us (simulatedmindsinc@gmail.com) and we will use reasonable efforts to explain why we have done this (though we will not be obliged to do so) and what (if anything) you can do as a result.
10.3. If Simulated Minds decides itself to stop providing any Simulated Minds Services permanently, we will try to give you at least sixty (60) days’ notice.