Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible

The Grind is developed and published by hard2play ("we", "us"). For any question about this policy or about data associated with the game, contact hello@hard2play.com. We answer privacy requests from a person, not a ticket system.

2. What the game collects by itself

Nothing. The Grind is a single-player game that runs completely offline. It does not require an account, a connection, or a sign-in to be played from the first scene to either ending.

The following are stored only on your own device, inside the application's private save data:

• your bankroll, current table and campaign position;
• the reads you have confirmed and the characters they belong to;
• session statistics, decision accuracy and the last session recap;
• unlocked achievements;
• your settings, including language, table speed and card deck.

This data leaves your device only through the Play Games connection described in section 3 - which, as that section explains, Android may start on its own. Deleting the app, or starting a new game from the main menu, erases the copy on the device.

The game contains no advertising SDK, no analytics SDK, no crash reporting SDK and no third-party tracking of any kind. It does not read your location, contacts, photos, files, microphone, camera, calendar or messages, and it does not build an advertising profile. Two pieces of code in the app talk to a network at all: Google's Play Games component, described in section 3, and - in Russia and Belarus only, and only if you use it - the licence code check described in section 3a.

3. The platform sign-in

On Android the game connects to Google Play Games Services. Being honest about how that starts matters more than it sounds: Play Games signs you in automatically when the game launches, if your device is set up for it. That is how the service works on Android; a developer cannot turn it off, and it happens before the game has asked you anything.

What we control is what WE do with it, and there the choice is yours and it is real. Decline the offer the game shows you - or use the settings entry at any time - and this game publishes nothing to your account: no achievements, no scores, no save. You can also stop the sign-in itself, but that switch is Google's, not ours: the Play Games app, under "Automatically sign in to supported games".

If you do sign in, the connection is used for exactly three things:

• showing your achievements and leaderboard standing;
• keeping the list of unlocked achievements consistent across your own devices;
• backing up your save, so a second device can carry on where the first one stopped.

Doing that is not free of data, and it would be dishonest to describe it as three harmless features. Below is everything that leaves your device once you are signed in - the same list, item for item, that we declare on this app's Data safety card in Google Play.

• Your Play Games identity - the player identifier, the gamer name and the avatar that Google already holds for your account. We do not choose them and we cannot change them.
• Achievements you unlock, as identifiers we defined ourselves.
• Leaderboard scores. Note what a leaderboard is: your score and your gamer name are shown to other players of this game. That is the entire point of it, and it is the one thing here that other people can see. If you would rather they did not, do not sign in - nothing else in the game changes.
• A cloud copy of your unlocked-achievement list, so a second device agrees with the first.
• A backup copy of your save file. This is your game: bankroll, which table you are on, the reads you have confirmed, your session statistics and decision history, your achievements and your settings. It is written to the private folder Google Drive gives this app - your Drive, not ours. We have no server and no copy of it. We cannot open it, and neither can any other app: that folder is reachable only by this game, signed in as you. It exists so that a new phone, or a reinstall, does not cost you the campaign. If you would rather it did not leave the device at all, do not sign in - the game plays the same either way.
• Stability and performance data about Google's own Play Games component. Google's SDK reports this to Google for its own product quality. We do not receive it, we do not use it, and we cannot switch it off while the component is running. We are telling you about it because it is collected through our app, which makes it ours to disclose.

All of it goes to Google and nowhere else, over an encrypted connection, and is processed under Google's Privacy Policy. We sell nothing, we share nothing with anyone else, and there is no third party in this picture at all. We do not receive your email address, your legal name, your contacts, or your Google account details.

Your save is backed up to your own Google Drive and to nowhere else. It is not sent to us, we hold no copy of it, and we run no server that could receive one - the whole of this policy has exactly two parties in it, you and Google. Nothing is uploaded on top of the list above: there is no analytics, no crash reporting, no behavioural profile and no telemetry of how you play. Decline inside the game, or turn automatic sign-in off in Play Games, and none of this section happens to you - your save stays on the device, exactly as it did before.

An iOS version is planned. When it ships it will use Apple's equivalents - Game Center for achievements and leaderboards, iCloud for the save backup - for these same purposes, and this policy will be updated before that release, not after.

3a. Licence codes (Russia and Belarus)

Google Play cannot take payments in Russia or Belarus - Google suspended them in March 2022 - so players there cannot buy the game through the store at all. For those two countries only, the game offers a second way to hold a licence: a code, which you obtain from us outside the app and type into the game.

If you never use it, nothing in this section happens. The field is shown only on devices set to Russia or Belarus, and it does nothing until you type a code and press the button yourself.

When you do, the game sends two things to a server we run at hard2play.com over an encrypted connection: the code you typed and your Google Play Games player identifier - the same opaque number Google already uses for your achievements and leaderboard entries. Nothing else. No device identifier, no advertising id, no save file, no telephone number, no e-mail address, no payment details - we never see a payment, because the payment does not happen here.

We store that pair - code and player identifier - together with the date, for as long as the licence exists, because that record IS the licence: it is what lets the game confirm on your next phone that you already own it. Each time the game starts it asks the same server whether your player identifier holds a licence, and the server answers yes or no. That request carries your player identifier and nothing else.

The record is not shared with anyone, is not used for advertising or analytics, and is never combined with anything else - we hold nothing else to combine it with. To have it deleted, write to support@hard2play.com from the address you used to obtain the code; deleting it releases the licence, so the game will stop recognising that account as an owner.

3b. The press kit form (this website, not the game)

The press kit at hard2play.com/the-grind/press/ has a form for journalists and content creators to ask for a free code. It is part of this website: the game never touches it, and nothing in this section happens to a player.

If you send that form, we store what you typed - the outlet or channel, the link to it, your name if you gave one, the e-mail address the code should go to, the audience size if you stated one, how many codes you asked for and your message - together with the date and the IP address the request arrived from. The IP address is kept only to stop the form being flooded.

We use it for one thing: to answer you and to send the code by hand from hello@hard2play.com. This website sends no automatic mail of any kind, adds nobody to a mailing list, and shares these requests with no one. What you type into the form is never sent to any analytics tool, and there is no advertising anywhere on this site. The website does measure page visits, which is section 3c.

We keep a request while it is open and for up to twelve months after we answer it, so we can tell who already has a code, and then delete it. Ask us to delete yours sooner at hello@hard2play.com and we will, at once.

3c. Analytics on this website

This website uses Google Analytics 4 (property G-LQY9QMCB43) to count page visits. The game does not. There is no analytics SDK inside The Grind and there is not going to be - everything section 2 says about the app still holds. This section is about the pages you are reading right now, and nothing else.

What it records when you open a page here:

• which page you looked at, when, and how long the visit lasted;
• the page or search that sent you, if any;
• your device type, browser, screen size and language;
• an approximate location - country, usually city - worked out from your IP address. Google does not log or store the address itself for Analytics;
• a randomly generated number that lets Google tell one browser from another. It is not your name and it is not tied to anything else we hold.

That number lives in two first-party cookies, _ga and _ga_LQY9QMCB43, which sit in your browser for up to two years. They are the only cookies this site sets. Google acts as our processor and the data is handled under Google's Privacy Policy and how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

We look at it for one reason: to see which pages people actually find and read, so the next thing we write is the thing worth writing. It is not used for advertising, it is not sold, it is not combined with anything from the game, and no one else is given access to it.

To opt out, block or delete cookies for this site in your browser - the site works exactly the same without them - or install Google's Analytics opt-out add-on, which switches it off on every site at once. If you would rather we deleted what has already been recorded for you, write to hello@hard2play.com.

4. Purchases

The full game is unlocked by a single one-time purchase. There are no subscriptions, no consumable purchases, no in-game currency and no second paid screen anywhere in the game.

The purchase is processed entirely by the app store (Google Play, and the App Store on iOS). We never see, receive or store your payment card, billing address or any other payment detail. The game stores only the fact that the unlock is owned, so that it can restore your entitlement on a new device.

To know whether to unlock the game, the app asks the store one question - does this account own it? - and keeps the answer on your device. In Google Play's vocabulary that answer is purchase history, and we declare it on the Data safety card for exactly that reason. It is a yes or a no about this one product. It is not a list of what you have bought elsewhere, and it is never sent to us or to anyone else.

5. How to disconnect and delete your data

Summarised here; the full page, which is also the deletion address we give Google Play, is Delete your data.

1. From inside the game. Open Settings (the gear, on every screen) and choose "Delete from cloud". It appears there while you are signed in, and asks for a second tap to confirm, because it cannot be undone. It deletes the cloud backup of your save and disconnects the game from your account on that device. Your progress on the device is kept, so you can carry on playing offline; only the cloud copy goes.
   
   What it deliberately does NOT claim to do: remove your achievements or your leaderboard entries. Those are held by Google, and Play Games Services gives a developer no way to delete them - so a button here that said it had would be lying. Route 3 below is the one that removes them, and it works whether or not the game is installed.
2. On the device. Uninstalling the game, or choosing New game, erases the local save including progress, statistics and achievements.
3. With the platform. Data held by Google Play Games can also be removed, per game or in full, from your Play Games profile or in Google Account settings, independently of us and without the game installed.
4. By writing to us. Email hello@hard2play.com and we will help. Because we hold no personal data ourselves, in practice we can only tell you which of the three routes above applies to your case.

6. Data retention

We operate no servers and keep no database of players, so we retain nothing. Local save data lives on your device for as long as the app is installed. Achievement data and the backup of your save are held by the platform - in your own Google Drive, in the private folder belonging to this app - and are retained under that platform's own policy until you delete them by one of the routes in section 5.

7. Children

The Grind is not directed to children and is not designed for them. It contains simulated gambling in the form of poker played with virtual chips, and is age-rated accordingly on each store. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has signed in to the game and you want that removed, use the in-game "Delete from cloud" option or write to us.

8. Simulated gambling

All chips, buy-ins and bankrolls in The Grind are virtual and have no monetary value. No real money is wagered, no real money can be won, and there is no way to cash anything out. The game is a decision trainer built on poker, not a gambling product.

9. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, export or erase personal data held about you, and to object to its processing. Since the game holds no personal data on our side, these rights are exercised against the two parties that do hold something: the platform (Google, or Apple on iOS) for your player identifier and achievements, and your own device for the save file. Section 5 lists how to reach both. Write to us if you need help with either.

10. Changes to this policy

If the game changes in a way that affects this policy - for example if crash reporting is ever added - we will update this page and change the "last updated" date above before shipping that change, and we will re-submit the store data-safety declaration to match.

11. Contact

hello@hard2play.com