Ethics Statement

01 Our promise

We believe games are a craft, not a treadmill. Three commitments shape everything we ship:

• Respect the player's time. No mechanics designed to keep you online when you'd rather log off.
• Respect the player's wallet. No deceptive pricing. No predatory pulls. No paying to ruin someone else's match.
• Respect the player's story. Your character, your guild, your deck — they belong to you. We don't hold them hostage.

02 Fair play

Competitive integrity is non-negotiable. Anti-cheat runs server-side wherever possible. Reports are reviewed by humans, not just heuristics. Bans are appealable, and appeals are read.

We will never sell competitive advantage — no "premium" cards stronger than the free pool, no XP boosters that change ladder placement, no paid tournament-entry shortcuts.

03 Monetisation

• Pity timers on every pack. If RNG doesn't smile, the mechanic catches you within a known number of opens.
• Drop rates published. Every loot box's odds are listed on its purchase screen.
• Real-money cap per week. A soft spending limit you can lower (never raise without a 24-hour cool-off).
• No FOMO time pressure on first purchases. Welcome bundles stay available 30 days.
• No real-money gambling. Tournaments with prize tiers are skill-based; pack opens are not gambling under EU/UK consumer law.

04 AI use

We use AI as a tool, with clear rules:

• AI never replaces credited art or writing without disclosure. Final card art is human-authored.
• AI-assisted content is labelled. NPC flavour text generated with AI carries an ai-assisted tag in metadata.
• Players' content is not used for training. Your decks, characters, and chat are off-limits to any AI vendor.
• AI-driven moderation has human review. No account is permanently banned by a model alone.
• Open weights or transparency on request. If you've been moderated by an automated system, you can ask which signals were used.

05 Moderation

We moderate to keep the community welcoming, not silent.

• Clear rules, published in plain language.
• Graduated responses: warn → mute → temporary ban → permanent. Severity scales with intent and repetition.
• Appeal channel on every action, read by humans.
• Targeted hate speech is removed on sight; in-character roleplay is given context.
• We disclose our annual moderation numbers on /trust.

06 Wellbeing

• Built-in session reminders. A gentle nudge every 90 minutes; togglable.
• No daily-login addiction loops. Daily quests reward steady play; they never punish missed days.
• Mute & report tools are first-class. Available from any player profile in one click.
• Crisis resources surfaced. When the system detects keywords of self-harm in chat, we link to local hotlines.

07 Data ethics

• Data minimisation: we ask for less, store less, and keep it for shorter than we're legally allowed to.
• No selling personal data; no participation in real-time bidding for ads.
• Anonymous-by-default analytics; aggregation before any human reads it.
• Your right to deletion is a button, not a 14-step ticket form.

08 Sustainability

Physical products (boxed game, deluxe sets) ship in FSC-certified board with vegetable inks and recyclable trays. Our hosting providers run on certified renewable energy. We publish an annual carbon-footprint estimate.

When we have to choose between cheap-and-plastic or a little more expensive and recyclable, we pick the second.

09 Accountability

We publish a yearly Ethics Report on /trust covering: monetisation rates by region, moderation outcomes, security incidents, and the environmental footprint of our infrastructure.

If we get something wrong — and we will — we want to hear about it. Email ethics@engarde.lt. Threads go to the executive team and are reviewed monthly.