This Privacy Policy explains how Rune Force Studios (“we,” “us,” or “our”) processes personal information when you use the PokéForce game, game servers, pokeforce.org, community features, Secretary Yuki, and the PokéForce Discord Rich Presence integration (collectively, the “Services”).
1. Information we process
Account and profile information
We process information you provide when registering or managing an account, including your email address, username, password hash, verification status, security settings, profile text, avatar, account preferences, badges, and account creation and update times. We do not store your plaintext password.
Game and economy information
We store the information needed to provide a persistent online game, including characters, Pokémon, inventories, progression, skills, quests, locations, friends and blocks, guild activity, marketplace activity, trades, achievements, game settings, play time, and other save-state and gameplay records. We may keep economy snapshots and transaction records to maintain balance, investigate abuse, and resolve disputes.
Community content and communications
We process content you choose to submit, such as forum posts, profile content, reactions, polls, private or system mail, support tickets and attachments, applications, appeals, reports, feedback, contest entries, and bug reports. Public posts and profile fields are visible to other users as indicated by the relevant feature.
Beta bug tracker
Reports, replies, retest results, and submitted evidence are visible to members with beta access and Game Designer or higher privileges. Reports marked staff-only are visible to their reporter and those staff. Internal notes and internal evidence are restricted to those staff. In-game submissions include a snapshot of the character, map and position, submission time, game environment, version, platform, and input method where available. This technical context is available to staff. We do not record a rolling gameplay or packet history for this feature. Images may be processed to remove metadata and create previews; uploaded videos are processed without audio. Avoid including personal information about yourself or others in evidence.
Security and technical information
We process session identifiers, login and security events, IP addresses, approximate country, request timing, rate-limit records, trusted-device tokens, and diagnostic or server logs. This information helps authenticate users, prevent fraud and abuse, enforce rules, diagnose faults, and protect the Services. We do not use this information for third-party advertising.
Secretary Yuki
Secretary Yuki may process:
- Discord user IDs, display names, server and channel identifiers, roles, and command interactions;
- message activity used to calculate experience, levels, leaderboards, and role rewards;
- direct-message text and attachments submitted for events, contests, staff contact, or other bot features;
- bug-report thread content, author information, timestamps, attachments, and follow-up messages; and
- technical identifiers that prevent duplicate synchronization between Discord and GitHub.
The bot’s local database stores Discord user ID, experience, and display name for progression. Direct messages are forwarded into designated staff channels and are not copied into that local progression database. Bug-report content may be copied to the PokéForce GitHub issue tracker so the development team can investigate and respond.
Discord Rich Presence
When enabled, the PokéForce game client sends selected activity information to the Discord client running on your device. This may include your trainer name and rank, current region, activity, skill and level, battle opponent details, or trading partner name. Rune Force Studios does not create a separate Rich Presence database or receive this information back from Discord through the integration. Visibility is controlled by your Discord activity-privacy settings.
Cookies and local storage
The website uses essential session cookies for login and security. It also uses browser local storage to remember appearance and cookie-banner preferences. We use Cloudflare Turnstile to reduce automated abuse. We do not currently use third-party advertising cookies.
2. How we use information
We process information to:
- create accounts, authenticate users, and provide the game and website;
- save progression and operate social, community, support, event, and marketplace features;
- operate Secretary Yuki and display Rich Presence at your direction;
- moderate content, enforce rules, prevent cheating, and protect users and infrastructure;
- investigate bug reports, improve features, measure game balance, and maintain reliability;
- send account, security, verification, support, and other service-related communications; and
- comply with legal obligations and defend legal rights.
3. Legal bases
Where applicable law requires a legal basis, we rely on performance of our agreement with you, our legitimate interests in operating and securing the Services, your consent where requested, and compliance with legal obligations. You may withdraw consent where processing relies on consent, without affecting processing that occurred before withdrawal.
4. How information is shared
We do not sell or rent personal information. We may disclose information:
- to authorized Rune Force Studios staff and contributors who need it to operate or protect the Services;
- to Discord for bot functions and Rich Presence;
- to GitHub when Discord bug reports and their follow-up discussion are synchronized to our issue tracker;
- to infrastructure, hosting, content-delivery, storage, email, anti-abuse, and security providers, including OVHcloud, Cloudflare, and our email-delivery provider;
- to an IP geolocation provider for best-effort country-level login security information;
- when you direct us to share information or make content public; or
- when reasonably necessary to comply with law, respond to valid legal process, prevent harm, or defend rights.
Service providers may process information only for the services they provide to us, subject to their agreements and applicable law.
5. Public information
Usernames, selected profile fields, forum content, leaderboard entries, guild information, marketplace listings, contest submissions, and Rich Presence may be visible to other users or the public. Avoid submitting personal information that you do not want others to see.
6. Retention
- Unverified website accounts are normally deleted after 24 hours.
- Short-lived abuse-prevention counters are normally removed within one day of their window starting.
- Individual successful login entries (time, website or game, IP address, and approximate country) are retained for up to one year. Address summaries are retained for up to one year after the last recorded use.
- Account and game-save information is generally retained while the account remains active and as needed to provide the Services.
- Sessions, verification links, password-reset records, and trusted-device tokens expire or are removed according to their security purpose.
- Yuki progression records are retained while the progression service is provided or until a valid deletion request is completed.
- Beta tracker reports and their attachments are deleted two years after resolution or closure; reopening a report restarts that period. Open reports remain while needed for investigation. Removed attachments are queued for deletion, normally within five minutes.
- Community, moderation, support, transaction, contest, and other bug-report records may be retained as needed for community continuity, safety, dispute resolution, attribution, and legal compliance.
When information is no longer reasonably needed, we delete or anonymize it. Some information may remain temporarily in backups or be retained where required by law, necessary for security, or needed to establish or defend legal claims. Content copied to Discord or GitHub is also subject to those platforms’ retention and deletion processes.
7. Your choices and privacy rights
Depending on your location, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or obtain a copy of personal information, object to or restrict certain processing, withdraw consent, or complain to a privacy regulator. We may need to verify your identity before completing a request.
You can disable Rich Presence through Discord’s activity-privacy settings, stop using Secretary Yuki, adjust available profile and community settings, or request account and Discord-bot data deletion through the PokéForce Support Center. Tell us the PokéForce username and/or Discord user ID relevant to the request. We may retain limited information where applicable law or legitimate security and recordkeeping needs permit it.
When requesting account deletion, you may choose permanent deletion without a recovery period, or explicitly request a 30-day recovery period. We disable account access when a verified request is confirmed. During an optional recovery period, your account data remains stored and you can contact our staff through Discord to verify a cancellation before the stated deadline. Signing in does not cancel a request. Completed erasure cannot be reversed.
Account erasure covers the shared website account and its live and beta game progress. We remove personal account records and uploads and remove or redact personal information in shared records. Other players keep items and Pokémon already transferred to them. We review external copies and any justified retention separately. We retain a minimal deletion record and non-public numeric identifiers to prevent old saves or restored backups from recreating erased accounts. Detailed verification and review notes are removed after 90 days following completion or cancellation. Backups expire under their retention schedules; any restored data must have completed erasures reapplied before it is made available. We explain any applicable retention exceptions when responding to your request.
8. International processing
Our staff and service providers may process information in Canada, the United States, and other countries. Privacy protections may differ from those in your jurisdiction. Where required, we use appropriate contractual or legal safeguards for international transfers.
9. Security
We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect information. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please use a unique password and report suspected account compromise promptly.
10. Children’s privacy
The Services are not intended for anyone below Discord’s minimum age or the minimum digital consent age applicable where they live. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child who is not permitted to use the Services. A parent or guardian who believes this occurred should contact us so we can review and remove the information where appropriate.
11. Third-party services
Discord, GitHub, and other linked services process information under their own privacy policies. This Policy covers Rune Force Studios’ processing and does not replace those third-party policies.
12. Changes to this Policy
We may update this Policy as the Services or legal requirements change. We will publish the new version here and revise the effective date. Material changes may also be announced through the website or community channels.
13. Contact
Privacy questions and requests may be submitted to Rune Force Studios through thePokéForce Support Center.