Privacy notice

This notice explains what Indie Games Wiki stores when you read or edit the wiki, what other people can see, and how to ask for a copy of your data or its deletion. In short: reading needs no account, the site sets a cookie only when you log in or create an account, and there are no ads and no third-party analytics.

When you read

• Reading needs no account, and the site sets no cookie until you log in or create an account.
• To count views and improve search, your browser sends a few anonymous signals, such as a view of a wiki or article, a search results page and how many results it had (not what you searched for), a click on a search result, the number of autocomplete suggestions shown and whether one was selected, a visit to a page that has not been written yet (only which wiki, not the page), and your answer to whether an article helped. If you choose a feedback reason, only its fixed label (such as Missing steps) is recorded; there is no free-text feedback field. Each is stored with the time and, where relevant, the game or page involved. None includes search text, an IP address, an account or a browser identifier. Views are kept only as a running total for each page and each wiki.
• If an application error occurs, the site may record its numeric error reference, a general route pattern such as /wiki/[game]/[page], whether it came from the server or browser, the time and an occurrence count. These records contain no exception messages, stacks, dynamic page names, URL parameters, account details or browser identifiers. Daily maintenance keeps up to 500 groups from the last 30 days. Administrators use them to diagnose failures.
• Your theme, text size and editor layout stay in your browser, along with local draft-recovery copies, the last few pages you viewed, which the search box suggests when it is empty, the name and unread count on your account button, kept until you log out or the site next finds you logged out, so the header shows that button as soon as a page opens, and short-lived markers, such as the one that stops a view or an answer being counted twice in one visit. Draft text is sent to the site when you preview or publish it, or request AI editing assistance.

When you create an account

• We store your username, your email address and a hash of your password (made with bcrypt; the password itself is never stored), plus a display name and bio if you add them. We also keep your role, edit count, join date and when you were last active.
• Logging in sets one cookie, igw_session: a signed token with your account number and an expiry date. It cannot be read by scripts, lasts 30 days and only keeps you logged in. Logging out removes it.
• Your email address is used for your account: you can log in with it, request a password-reset email when automatic delivery is available, and use it to confirm that an account is yours. It is never shown publicly. Moderators and administrators can see it when they handle account or abuse issues.
• If you forget your password, visit Reset your password. When automatic delivery is configured, Resend receives your email address and the reset message to deliver it. Otherwise, email thegameswiki.com@gmail.com from the address on your account. An administrator can give you a reset link. Links work once and expire after an hour. The site stores only a one-way hash of the link's code, its expiry time, whether it was used and, for manual links, which administrator created it.

What other people can see

• Your username and profile: display name, bio, join date, number of edits, and your role if you are a moderator or administrator.
• Edits to published pages, with their time and edit summary, in page histories, recent changes and your profile. Published guides can also appear in the RSS feed. Hidden drafts and removed pages are available only to staff; a removed page and its history remain stored so a moderator can restore it.
• Your comments in page discussions.
• Game requests you submit or support, and your offers to volunteer, which can be shown with your username.
• Images you upload. They are public files that anyone with the link can open while awaiting moderation or after approval. Moderators can remove an image and its stored file.

Your email address, watchlist and notifications are private. Reports you file are seen by moderators, not by the public. Contribution check submissions retain your evidence note, username, checked revision and submission time for moderator review. Moderator responses are sent to your private notifications. Staff changes to game details, account roles, suspensions and page removals are recorded in a private staff audit log with the acting account and reason.

AI-assisted editing

When a moderator or administrator requests an AI suggestion, the site sends the current draft, page title, game context and editing instruction to Anthropic, which provides Claude. This can include unpublished text. The site does not add your email, password or session cookie to that request. Suggestions return to your editor for review and are not published automatically. The wiki does not store prompts or suggestions in its database; applied text joins your local draft and enters the page history only if you publish it. Usage counters enforce request limits.

Requests do not create a stored conversation or enable prompt caching. Anthropic's retention and data-handling rules still apply; see its API data retention policy.

Rate limits and security

To slow down spam and abuse, login, reset and contribution limits are shared in the database. They store a keyed, one-way hash of the connection or account identifier, a request count and a window expiry, never the raw IP address or requested reset email. Windows last up to a day; later security requests remove expired counters. Read-only search suggestions and anonymous measurement requests use temporary counters in server memory. Upload quotas also store an account's daily count, daily bytes and total stored bytes. The media moderation queue records who reviewed or removed an image and their reason.

Outside services

• Hosting: the site runs on Vercel, which keeps standard request logs (such as IP address, browser and the page requested) under its own privacy policy.
• Database: accounts and wiki content are stored in a Postgres database hosted by Neon.
• Game images and screenshots load directly from Steam's image servers, run by Valve. Like any image request, this shows Valve your IP address and browser details.
• Images that editors upload are stored with Vercel Blob.
• Password reset email: when automatic delivery is configured, Resend sends reset messages and receives the address each one goes to.
• AI editing: Anthropic receives the drafts and instructions that moderators and administrators send for a suggestion, as described under AI-assisted editing.
• There are no ads, no advertising cookies and no third-party analytics or tracking scripts. Fonts are served by this site, not by an outside font service.

Your contributions

Text you add to wiki pages is published under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license and credited to your username in the page history. Others may reuse it under that license, so published text stays available in page histories even if you close your account.

Your choices and requests

You can change your display name, bio and password in settings. To get a copy of your data or have your account deleted, email thegameswiki.com@gmail.com from the address on your account, and we will confirm what was changed.

Changes to this notice

If the site starts storing something new, such as search text, this notice will be updated before that change goes live. Questions about privacy go to thegameswiki.com@gmail.com.

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.