The short version: GameRelay is a small service run by one developer. Build games with it, pay for your plan if you're on one, and don't abuse the service or your players. It's in alpha, so it comes with no promise of 100% uptime, our liability is limited, and these terms may change.

The agreement

GameRelay is currently run by an individual developer based in California, not by a company. In these terms, "GameRelay", "we" and "us" mean that person and, if the Service is later moved to a company, that company.

These terms are an agreement between you and GameRelay for your use of gamerelay.io, the GameRelay SDK, APIs, MCP servers, dashboard and relay servers (together, the "Service"). By creating an account, using an API key, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you use the Service for a company or team, you agree on its behalf and confirm you're allowed to.

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service, and at least 18 (or the age of majority where you live) to buy a paid plan.

An alpha service

GameRelay is in alpha. Features, limits, prices and APIs can change, sometimes quickly, and some things will break. We'll try to avoid breaking changes to the SDK and APIs and to give notice when we can't, but please don't rely on the Service for anything where an outage or data loss would cause serious harm. Features marked experimental, such as player-to-player connections, may change or be removed at any time.

Your account

You sign in with GitHub, Discord or Google. Keep that account secure; anything done with your GameRelay account is your responsibility.
Secret keys are secret. Public keys (gr_pub_…) are meant to ship in your game. Secret keys (gr_sk_…) belong on your server only. Rotate any key you think has leaked; you're responsible for use of your keys until you do.
AI agents you connect over MCP act as you. Only connect tools you trust, and disconnect them from the dashboard when you're done.
Tell us at dlabs.colin@gmail.com if you think your account has been compromised.

Plans, billing and price changes

The Free plan costs nothing. Paid plans are billed monthly, in advance, in US dollars, through Stripe, and renew automatically until you cancel.
Prices don't include taxes. Where we're required to collect sales tax or VAT, it's added at checkout.
We may change prices and plan limits. A price change applies to new subscriptions right away, and to existing ones only after at least 30 days' notice by email or in the dashboard.
Founding price: accounts that subscribe at the founding price keep it for as long as the subscription stays active. If the subscription ends, the founding price ends with it.
If a payment fails, Stripe retries it for a while. If it keeps failing, the account moves to the Free plan and its limits.

Cancellation and refunds

You can cancel any time from Billing → Manage billing in the dashboard. You keep your plan until the end of the period you've paid for, and you won't be charged again.
We don't give refunds or credits for partial months, unused limits, or downgrades, except where the law requires it.
If you were charged in error or something went wrong on our side, email dlabs.colin@gmail.com within 30 days and we'll make it right, which can include a refund.

Limits and fair use

Each plan has limits on games, players online at once and monthly traffic, listed on the plans section and in your dashboard. When you reach one, new players or rooms may be refused, rate limits may apply, or (on the Free plan) new connections pause until the month resets. Players already connected keep playing where we can manage it. We may also rate-limit or pause traffic that threatens the stability of the Service for everyone, even within your plan's limits. The Free plan is best effort: it can be rate-limited more tightly than paid plans, and when capacity is short, paid plans come first.

Acceptable use

Don't use the Service to:

break the law, or help anyone else break it;
harass, threaten, exploit or harm people, including your players, or share content that sexualizes minors;
distribute malware, run phishing, or send spam;
sell or run cheats, bots or exploits against games you don't own;
attack, probe or overload the Service or other users' games, or get around limits, rate limits or security measures;
collect, track or misuse other players' IP addresses (for example from direct connections), or use them to attack anyone's connection;
resell the Service as a relay or proxy unrelated to games, or use it mainly as general-purpose file storage or bandwidth;
infringe anyone's intellectual property or privacy.

Report abuse to dlabs.colin@gmail.com or with the support form.

Your games and your players

You own your games and everything your games send through the Service, such as messages, room state, saves, leaderboard scores and chat ("Your Content"). You give us permission to host, relay, store and process Your Content only as needed to run the Service for you.
We don't sell Your Content or your players' data, and we don't use it to train AI models. See the Privacy Policy.
Your players are your users. You're responsible for your game, what it does with the Service, and following the laws that apply to it, including privacy and children's privacy laws (like COPPA and GDPR) and getting any consent they require. Don't send us sensitive personal information about players, like government IDs, health information or payment card numbers.
Player-to-player connections. Unless your game turns them off, players' browsers also send messages straight to each other, and a copy of each still goes through the Service. On the same network players share local addresses; otherwise they connect through our relay and don't see each other's IP address. Direct connections between party members are opt-in. If you turn them on (in your game's code and in the dashboard, where they're off by default), players in the same party can see each other's IP address. You're responsible for telling your players and getting any consent the law requires; we recommend asking each player in your game before connecting them directly. Don't turn on direct connections in a game that is aimed at children under 13, or that you know children under 13 play. You can switch direct connections on or off for a game in the dashboard at any time. See the Privacy Policy.
We may remove content or close rooms that violate these terms, and use moderation tools to act on abuse reports.

Availability

We don't guarantee that the Service will be available 100% of the time, uninterrupted, or free of errors, and we don't offer a service level agreement (SLA). We deploy updates, sometimes restart servers (connected players are asked to reconnect, and rooms are restored where possible), and may have outages we don't expect. We back up data regularly but can't guarantee it will never be lost, so keep your own copies of anything important. This applies to every plan, and the Free plan comes with no uptime commitment at all.

Suspension and termination

You can stop using the Service and delete your account at any time, from Account and data in the dashboard; that cancels any paid plan right away, without a refund for the rest of the period. We may suspend or close an account, revoke keys, or remove games that violate these terms, put the Service or others at risk, or haven't been paid for. Where it's reasonable, we'll warn you first and give you a chance to fix things. We may also discontinue the Service, with at least 30 days' notice to paying customers and a prorated refund of any prepaid period we can't provide.

Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind. To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, and any warranties about availability, latency, accuracy, data retention or security.

In particular, we're not responsible for: what your players do or say in your games; Your Content; how your game uses the Service; services we don't control (such as your hosting, GitHub, Discord, Google, Stripe, or internet providers); or access to data by someone who got around reasonable security measures. Features marked beta, experimental or preview may change or disappear at any time.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, GameRelay won't be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data, players or goodwill, even if we were told they were possible. Our total liability for all claims about the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 3 months before the event that gave rise to the claim, or US$50. These limits apply whatever the legal theory (contract, tort including negligence, or otherwise) and even if a remedy fails of its essential purpose. Some places don't allow some of these limits, so they may not all apply to you.

Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless GameRelay and the person who runs it from any claims, damages, losses and costs (including reasonable legal fees) that arise from your games, Your Content, your players' use of your games, your breach of these terms, or your violation of any law or anyone else's rights.

Other services

The Service relies on, and links to, services run by others, such as GitHub, Discord and Google for sign-in, Stripe for payments and DigitalOcean for hosting. Their terms apply to your use of them, and we're not responsible for them. If you connect your own tools, like AI agents or webhooks to your backend, you're responsible for what they do.

Copyright complaints

If you believe something hosted through the Service infringes your copyright, email dlabs.colin@gmail.com with: the work you believe is infringed, where the material is (for example the game or room), your contact details, a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use isn't authorized, and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and that you own the rights or are allowed to act for the owner. We'll remove infringing material and may close the accounts of repeat infringers.

Disputes

Talk to us first. Most problems can be fixed quickly. Before bringing any claim, email dlabs.colin@gmail.com describing it, and give us 60 days to try to resolve it informally.
Law and courts. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Claims that qualify may be brought in small-claims court. Otherwise, disputes will be resolved only in the state or federal courts in San Francisco County, California, and you and we consent to their jurisdiction, unless the law where you live gives you a right to bring them elsewhere.
Individually, not as a class. To the fullest extent the law allows, claims may be brought only on an individual basis, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective or representative proceeding.
Time limit. To the fullest extent the law allows, any claim about the Service must be brought within one year after it arose, or it's permanently barred.

Changes to these terms

These terms are subject to change. We'll update the date at the top when we change them. For material changes, we'll give at least 14 days' notice by email or in the dashboard before they take effect. If you keep using the Service after changes take effect, you accept them; if you don't agree, stop using the Service and cancel any paid plan.

General

These terms and the policies they mention are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service.
If any part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies, and that part is enforced as far as the law allows.
If we don't enforce a term right away, we haven't given up the right to enforce it later.
You can't transfer these terms to someone else without our consent. We may transfer them, for example to a company formed to run the Service, or as part of a sale of the Service.
We aren't responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, such as outages at our providers, network failures, attacks or natural disasters.
We may send notices to the email address on your account or show them in the dashboard. Send notices to us at dlabs.colin@gmail.com.
You must follow US export and sanctions laws, and not use the Service from, or for, sanctioned countries or people.
Sections that by their nature should survive the end of this agreement (such as payment, Your Content, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnity and disputes) do.

Contact

Questions about these terms: dlabs.colin@gmail.com or the support page.