House Rules
The short, readable version of what's allowed here. The Terms of Service is the binding document and wins if the two ever disagree — this page exists because nobody reads the other one, and you deserve to know the rules without a law degree.
The short version
Publish your own work. Be decent to people. Don't break the law. That covers about 99% of it.
What you can publish
Games at any stage — finished, demo, prototype, jam entry, abandoned experiment. Assets of any kind: art, audio, fonts, shaders, tools, templates, writing, source code.
Rough is welcome. A game you're not sure about is more interesting than no game.
It has to be yours to publish
You made it, or you have the right to distribute it.
Building on a template, an asset pack, a tutorial or generated material is completely fine — that's how most games get made. What you publish has to be substantially your own work on top of it.
Reselling a pack you bought isn't that. Shipping a template with the title screen changed isn't either. If you're unsure which side you're on, the question to ask is whether the person who made the original would recognise yours as a different thing.
**Asset creators:** repackaging someone else's pack is never allowed, and neither is reselling assets whose licence doesn't permit redistribution. If you bought it, you can use it — not sell it on.
Fan games
Fan projects are welcome, but I can't protect them. If you build on someone else's characters, world, music or art, the rights holder can ask me to remove it and I'll have to. That's true of every platform and it isn't something I can negotiate on your behalf.
**Fan games can't be sold for money here.** Free and Spark-backed are fine. That single line is most of the difference between "mostly tolerated" and "receives a letter", and it protects you as much as it protects me.
Two things that genuinely help: don't charge, and don't use the original's logo or wordmark.
Adult content
Talking Pixels doesn't host sexually explicit games or assets.
This isn't a judgement about the work. My payment processor won't handle it, and an account suspension would stop payouts for every creator on the platform, not just the ones affected.
Mature themes, violence, horror and difficult subject matter are all fine. The line is sexually explicit content, not adult *subject matter*. A bleak game about addiction is not adult content. A horror game with gore is not adult content.
The bright line
Content that sexualises minors is prohibited outright, removed without notice, and reported. There is no appeal and no grace period.
This is not the same kind of rule as the one above it. That one is a business constraint. This one is not negotiable under any circumstances.
What gets you removed
- Malware, or anything that damages or spies on the person who downloads it
- Content that harasses, threatens or targets a person
- Impersonating someone else, or passing off their work as yours
- Content that's illegal where I operate
- Fraud, scams, or manipulating downloads, reviews, ratings or the hype meter
Being decent
Disagree all you like — about engines, about pricing, about someone's design choices. Game developers argue, and the good arguments are half the point.
What isn't fine: going after the person instead of the work. Pile-ons. Bringing an argument from somewhere else and continuing it here.
If a review or a comment is about what someone made, it belongs here. If it's about who they are, it doesn't.
Reviews
Reviews on paid listings come from verified buyers only. Don't ask people to leave you reviews, don't trade them, and don't review your own work under another account.
A negative review is not a rule violation. Report a review for being abusive or dishonest, not for being unkind about your game.
Reporting something
There's a report option on listings, posts, comments and profiles. A person reads every one.
Write a sentence about what's wrong. "Spam" on its own is much harder to act on than "this is a reupload of an asset pack sold on X".
I don't tell you what happened to someone else's account — not because I'm being unhelpful, but because I wouldn't tell them about yours either.
When I get it wrong
If something of yours is removed, I tell you why and you can reply to [admin@talkingpixels.games](mailto:admin@talkingpixels.games). A person will look again.
This is a small platform run by one person, and that person makes mistakes. Say so when I do.
Copyright claims
If something here infringes your copyright, write to [admin@talkingpixels.games](mailto:admin@talkingpixels.games) with what it is, where it is, and what it infringes. I act on valid notices.
If yours was removed and you think that was wrong, you can counter-notify. The process is in the Terms of Service.
One thing I won't do
Nothing on this platform is for sale to a creator looking to get seen. Featured placement isn't purchasable — not with money, not with points, not by asking nicely. If I ever do sell a slot, it'll say so on the slot.
Discovery stops being worth anything the moment it's an auction.