$ cat terms.md
Terms of Service
last updated August 23, 2026
These terms govern indie.game, a service operated by ESY LLC. By listing a game, paying a bid, or otherwise using the board, you agree to them. The short version lives on the rules page; this is the full version.
What indie.game sells
- indie.game is a single public leaderboard of indie games, operated by ESY LLC. The only thing sold on this site is a ranked listing position on that board.
- A purchase is a one-time payment, in US dollars, that adds to the lifetime total attached to your game. The board is sorted by that total, highest first, with ties broken by verified play clicks. There is no subscription, no recurring charge, and no stored balance.
- Pricing is public and shown before checkout: a minimum of $5 to list, at least $1 above a position to pass it, and at least $5 above the current leader to take the #1 spot. Prices may change for future purchases; the price shown at checkout is the price you pay.
- A listing includes your game's row on the board, its profile page on indie.game, an outbound link to wherever the game is actually played, and server-side click counting. It does not include advertising placement elsewhere, guaranteed traffic, guaranteed sales, or any promise about how long you remain at a given rank.
Payments and delivery
- Payments are processed by Stripe. indie.game does not receive or store your full card number.
- Delivery is digital and immediate: your bid is applied and your position on the board updates as soon as Stripe confirms the payment, normally within seconds. There is nothing to ship and no waiting period.
- If a payment succeeds but your listing does not appear or your total is not credited correctly, contact us and we will correct it or refund that payment.
Refund policy
- Bids are final. Once a bid is applied to the board, it is not refundable. This is the core mechanic of the product, it is stated on the rules page, on the bid form, and at checkout, and you should not pay unless you accept it.
- In particular: a bid is not refunded when another game passes you, when your rank falls, when your game receives fewer plays than you hoped, or when you change your mind about participating.
- We do refund in three cases: a duplicate or clearly erroneous charge; a payment that was taken but never applied to the board; and a listing we remove for a reason that existed at the time of purchase and that we, not you, failed to catch during review.
- We do not refund a listing removed for something you did after purchase, including replacing the linked game with unrelated content, letting the link break, or violating the acceptable-use terms below.
- To request a refund under one of those cases, email zev@esy.com with the payment receipt. We respond within five business days. Approved refunds return to the original payment method.
- Nothing here removes rights you have under the consumer law that applies to you.
What you must link to
- The link you submit must point to a real, working indie game that a person can actually play — in a browser, on iOS, on Android, or on another public platform.
- You must have the right to promote the game you list. Do not list someone else's game as your own.
- Games are never embedded or played on indie.game. Every play is an outbound link to a destination you control, which means you are responsible for what a visitor finds there.
- Listings are human-reviewed. We may remove a listing that is not a real game, that links to malware, deceptive downloads, or unrelated content, that breaks and stays broken, or that contains illegal or abusive material.
Acceptable use
- Do not manipulate click counts, use automation to inflate plays, or attempt to bypass rate limits, payment flows, or access controls.
- Do not use indie.game to distribute malware, phishing pages, or content that is illegal, hateful, harassing, sexually exploitative, or infringing.
- Do not misrepresent how a game was built. Build-story metadata is voluntary; false metadata is grounds for removal.
- Do not scrape or resell the board in a way that harms indie.game, ESY LLC, or the creators listed on it.
Your content
- You keep the rights to the game, artwork, title, and description you submit.
- You grant ESY LLC permission to display that material — your cover art, title, build story, and link — on indie.game and in promotion of the board.
- Cover art may be fetched automatically from the social card published at your game's own URL. If you do not want that image used, submit a different one or contact us.
- The board itself, the site design, the software, and the indie.game name are owned by ESY LLC.
Disclaimers and limits
- indie.game is provided on an as-is and as-available basis. We do not promise uninterrupted access, error-free operation, a particular level of traffic, or any commercial outcome from being listed.
- Games listed on the board are made by third parties. We review listings for playability and safety, but we do not endorse, warrant, or take responsibility for what happens on a linked site.
- To the fullest extent allowed by law, ESY LLC is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages, or for lost profits or lost data. Our total liability for any claim relating to indie.game is limited to the amount you paid to indie.game in the three months before the claim.
Changes and termination
- We may suspend or remove a listing, or an account, that violates these terms or creates risk for the board or its visitors.
- We may update these terms as the product changes. Material changes are reflected here with a new last-updated date, and the rules page changes first whenever a board mechanic changes.
- Questions about these terms go to zev@esy.com.
// questions
Payment, refund, privacy, copyright, and legal enquiries go to zev@esy.com. A human answers.