Privacy Policy - Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Effective: June 28th, 2021
Summary
Let’s get right to the important part: Shattered Pixel Dungeon does not collect any personally identifiable information.
I use data collected from Shattered Pixel Dungeon’s players to do things such as fix bugs, improve game mechanics, and measure audience size. None of these purposes require any of your personal data, or for me to track you in any way.
You can opt-out of all data collection the game performs via the game’s settings screen. Note that data collection is only present in the Google Play and App Store versions of Shattered Pixel Dungeon.
Feel free to read on if you want more specific details about what data I collect, and how it is used.
Key Terms and Entities
Shattered Pixel Dungeon, ShatteredPD, or the game refers to the game ‘Shattered Pixel Dungeon’, which is developed by Shattered Pixel. This policy applies to the Google Play and App Store versions of ShatteredPD; other versions do not collect any data.
Shattered Pixel, or I refers to the sole proprietor of Shattered Pixel: Evan Debenham. I can be contacted via email if you have any questions about this policy: [email protected].
Firebase refers to the Firebase family of services offered by Google LLC. Google is the data processor for all data collected via Firebase, and I am the data controller. For more information on Google’s role as data processor, including data security and storage duration, consult Google’s Firebase Privacy and Security Information. ShatteredPD uses the ‘Google Analytics for Firebase’ and ‘Crashlytics’ services, has disabled all features which collect personal information, and has set user-level data retention at 180 days.
This policy does not apply to any data collected by Google LLC via Google Play or Google Play Games, or to any data collected by Apple Inc. via the App Store. These are governed by Google’s privacy policies and the App Store privacy policy, respectively. Some of this data is shared with Shattered Pixel, but only in an aggregated form.
Data Collection and Use
Shattered Pixel Dungeon does not collect any personally identifiable information. ShatteredPD uses Firebase to collect a variety of data relating to gameplay activity, but no data which could be used to identify individual players. Firebase does include functionality to collect tracking IDs and similar personally identifiable data, but this functionality is unused or disabled in ShatteredPD.
You may opt-out of data collection via Firebase at any time by disabling “share gameplay data” in ShatteredPD’s settings menu. Opting out disables all the data collection described below.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon includes the Firebase SDK in its code, which collects and reports information whenever an ‘event’ occurs. Events are points within user interaction or gameplay that are of interest to Shattered Pixel. Shattered Pixel receives data from the following events:
- A game session starts, continues, or ends.
- The player dies within the game, or completes the game.
- The player defeats a boss within the game.
- The game crashes, or encounters an internal error.
- The game is uninstalled, updates, or its data is cleared.
- An in-app-purchase is made or refunded.
- The device the game is installed on is updated.
When an event is triggered, the following data may be recorded and transmitted via Firebase:
| What Data is Collected | How it is Used |
|---|---|
| Event-Specific Data e.g. crash details, cause of player death, etc. |
This data is needed to provide context or detail for the event being recorded. Without this data the event is meaningless. For example, a crash event requires information about the crash to be useful. |
| Gameplay Data Data relating to the player character, game items, etc. |
This data is used to make game design decisions relating to the performance and popularity of various game elements. For example, the success rate of the game’s playable characters can be found by using player character information over all the different game end events. |
| Game Settings Selected options from the game’s settings menu. |
This data is used to determine how often players choose various game settings options. For example, I can plan future additions or changes to the settings menu based on the popularity of existing settings. |
| Application Info Game version, platform, and installation source. |
This data is used to determine which version of ShatteredPD an event comes from, and where the game was acquired. For example, this data is used to detect if an event is from an old version of ShatteredPD and is therefore no longer relevant. |
| Device Info Device model, OS version, language, and timezone. |
This data is used to produce statistical information about what devices play ShatteredPD, and to contextualize certain events. For example a particular crash may only occur on one type of device, or one OS version. |
| Coarse Geolocation Location data based on anonymized IP address. |
This data is used to produce statistical information about the general location of ShatteredPD’s playerbase. For example, I can track the game’s popularity in one country versus another. IP address information is anonymized before it is transmitted. |
| Instance ID A unique ID randomly generated when the game is first played. |
This data is used to connect events that come from the same instance of ShatteredPD. For example, the instance ID can be used to tell the difference between 1 instance of the game crashing 10 times, or 10 crashes from 10 different instances. This is not a tracking ID! It can only be used to group events together, not to tell what specific user or device they came from. |
I do not share this data with any third parties. However, I do occasionally share aggregated data with the public if it relates to an announcement or blog post. An example of this sort of data sharing is this figure, which was shared in this blog post, to illustrate that the Rogue was significantly weaker than other characters in the early stages of the game.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
This policy may change occasionally and any updates will be posted here. If there is ever any change to collected personally identifiable information, notice of that change will be provided to users of Shattered Pixel Dungeon via a message within the game.
- Jun 28th, 2021: Improved clarity relating to geolocation data
- Jun 20th, 2021:
- Rewrote the policy to more concisely focus on the data ShatteredPD collects and why.
- Removed excessive information about Google Play and Google Play Games.
- Added information about the App Store, as ShatteredPD will release there soon.
- Jan 21st, 2020: Removed references to Google Analytics for Android, as that functionality has now been disabled.
- Apr 11th, 2019: Updated Google Analytics section, as the game now uses Firebase. No significant change to what data is collected. Also improved wording.
- Feb 19th, 2019: Improved wording in a few places
- Feb 12th 2019: Original policy posted