Terms of Use
The Service, Web site, and the community tools featured herein are brought to you by GameSpot, a division of CNET Networks, Inc. ("CNET"). In addition to the general
Terms of Use
applicable to your use of any CNET Networks site (the "CNET Terms of Use"), the following additional Terms of Use (the "Additional Terms of Use") will apply to your use of the Service. Your continued use of the Service constitutes your binding acceptance of these Additional Terms of Use and of the
CNET Terms of Use as well as your acceptance of CNET's
Privacy Policy
GAMESPOT ADDITIONAL TERMS OF USE
1. Some General Rules
- We reserve the right to remove, at any time and without notice, any content from the Service
- Refrain from using inappropriate language, including language that may look, sound like, stand for, hint at, abbreviate, or insinuate profanity, hate speech (including but not limited to racial, ethnic, or religious slurs), illegal drugs/controlled substances or illegal activities.
- You must be at least 13 years old to register for the Service. We do not knowingly collect any information from any users under 13 years of age, and if it is found that an underage user has fraudulently registered, their account will immediately be terminated.
- Cheating of any kind (including by exploiting any bug or error) is expressly prohibited, this includes exploiting any deficiency in our code or design, or in the code or design of any third party product or service used in connection with the Service, to gain an unfair advantage or to gain unearned or unauthorized privileges, access or abilities not clearly intended by the product's design. Communicating information about such activities to others will also be considered cheating.
- We reserve the right to contact your ISP regarding any inappropriate activities by you on the Service.
- Your subscription to the Service is intended for your individual and personal use only. You may not share, license, sub-license, sub-lease, parse, pass-on or in any other way attempt to share, extend or monetize your access to the Service.
- We reserve the right to immediately terminate or suspend anyone who fails to abide by these Additional Terms of Use.
2. Subscription Terms of Service
If you have subscribed to a paid service, then by so subscribing you are entering into a legal and binding agreement between yourself, as an end user (referred to herein as "you," "your," and/or "yourself") and CNET (also referred to herein as "our," "us," and "we"). If you do not wish to be bound by these Additional Terms of Use or by the CNET Terms of Use and/or the CNET Privacy Policy, then you must discontinue your use of The Service.
3. Payment Obligation and Credit Card Authorization
When subscribing to a paid service, you must use a major credit card in order to register for The Service. You hereby authorize us to charge your credit card to pay for your initial Service subscription and for any automatic renewals. Until you cancel your subscription, we will renew it automatically, and we will charge your credit card each year or each month (depending on the subscription term that you selected when you registered) for the price of a then-current annual or monthly subscription (depending on the subscription term that you selected when you registered).
All sales are final. You may cancel the renewal of your subscription not less than ten (10) days prior to its renewal date by using the cancellation Web page (
https://secure.gamespot.com/rps/manage/cancel.php). Once subscription fees have been charged to your credit card, they are nonrefundable. Only in cases of demonstrated fraud will subscription payments be refunded.
You agree to pay all fees and charges that you incur through your account, including, but not limited to, applicable taxes. You will also be responsible for charges for any products or services that you purchase that are offered for sale through The Service. In addition, you are also responsible for paying any amounts billed to your credit card by someone who uses your card without your permission, even if your credit card company does not cover such costs.
If we do not receive payment from your credit card issuer or its agent, you agree to pay all amounts due upon our demand. Your credit card issuer agreement governs your use of your designated credit card in connection with The Service, and you must refer to that agreement and not these Additional Terms of Use to determine your rights and liabilities as a cardholder.
4. Promotional trial subscriptions
We may occasionally offer promotional trial subscriptions to The Service for free or at special discounted prices. If you sign up for a trial subscription, your subscription will be either 1) automatically renewed at the normal subscription rate in effect at the end of the trial period, unless you cancel before the end of the trial period; or 2) terminated, unless you successfully sign up for a paid subscription, depending on the terms of your trial subscription.
5. Protection of Your Password; Unauthorized Access
Users are solely responsible for protecting their accounts from access by others. You are strongly encouraged to select a hard-to-guess password and not re-use that password on any other sites where it may be read by the owners or administrators of that site. Accessing or attempting to access any user account not belonging to you without permission is prohibited. Accessing another user's account in this manner is grounds for a permanent ban of all accounts from the site.
6. Registration Requirements
In order to post messages on our message boards, view boards with level restrictions, and use other advanced services, you must register using a valid e-mail address and follow all required registration confirmation procedures. No posting privileges will be granted until the account is fully activated.
7. Community Rules
The following conduct is not allowed on our message boards, in instant messages, chat rooms, voice channels, user profiles, private messages, feedback forms, reviews, or inside hosted game servers:
Offensive Material -Users may not transmit or encourage others to transmit material or links to material considered patently offensive in nature. This includes, but is not limited to using vulgar, profane, or sexually explicit language; using race, religion, sexual orientation, culture, ethnicity, handicap, nationality, or gender as a means of insult; using threatening, harassing, defamatory, hate-speech, or libelous language; and posting, requesting, or otherwise sharing material considered pornographic, obscene, graphic, or hate speech.
Vulgar language or substitutes for such- Our Service is programmed with a list of words that are considered vulgar under any context, and these words are not allowed to be used under any circumstances. Attempting to bypass the censor by misspelling, inserting spaces or symbols, transposing letters, using look-alike symbols, or any other method is not allowed. The only acceptable method of posting one of these vulgar words is to completely obscure it, making it impossible to determine what the word is without context. Additionally, certain words are prohibited from being used in topic titles and user information pages; bypassing the censor to post those words where they are restricted is also disallowed. For example, if "gris" is a banned word, the following are examples of bypassing that are not allowed: g-r-i-s, gr*s, 9|-1$, girs, gryeeeas, . Allowed: ****, grizzle, ****ed, ****ing, g'ed, g-word. (Note: Neither -ed nor -ing are parts of the banned word "gris".)
Taking advantage of any limits in the Service's language filtering capabilities is not allowed. Any limits in such filters shall not be taken as permission to bypass rules regarding vulgar language.
Flaming - Communications clearly insulting other users, individually or as a group, directly or indirectly, are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to: name-calling ("You're an idiot", "You moron"); direct insults and orders ("Screw you", "Go kill yourself"); insinuations ("Are you stupid or something?"); or insults towards family ("Your mom...").
Trolling (Inciting flames) - Messages intended solely to annoy and/or offend other users by going against the clear nature of a board, topic or chat room are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to: provoking other users to respond with flames; provoking fans of a particular system or game, especially on boards or topics dedicated to that system or game; making misleading topic titles; asking obviously useless questions; and posting false information as fact.
Illegal activity - Communications that violate or incite others to violate the law are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to, asking for or providing: illegal copies of copyrighted software; methods of circumventing copyright protection; illegal copies of copyrighted music, movies, videos, or any other type of media; reprints of material from other web sites; or methods of cheating in online games
Advertising - Messages that clearly advertise a service or product are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to: unsolicited commercial or personal web site advertisements; :For-Sale/For-Trade/For-Auction/Wanted: notices; "Make Money Fast" scams, chain letters, and pyramid schemes; or any referrer-ID based sites (including both games and free-item marketing sites). . Users are allowed to include their web site address in a signature, request comments on their personal site in a social setting, or provide, only once, an interesting or relevant link to another site.
Off-topic postings - The main purpose of the message boards and chat rooms within the Service is to provide discussion forums and opportunities for various video and computer games and their systems. Topicality is expected and will be enforced on all message boards and chat rooms not noted as purely social in nature.
Disruptive Behavior - Behavior that disrupts the Service for other users, intentional or not, are prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: messages or topic titles that force browsers to scroll horizontally; large blank or content-free messages; "bumping" multiple older topics (posting in them well after the last post); posting multiple identical or near-identical messages or topics, including "fad" posts or topics; intentionally hard-to-read topic titles or posts (i.e. ALL CAPS, AlTeRnAtE cApS, no spaces, no or excessive punctuation); posting multiple hard-to-read or nonsensical messages in a single or multiple topics; posting large ASCII art (except in social topics specifically calling for it); or post counting (i.e. "First", "100th Post"). Shouting or otherwise creating noise in an active voice channel is considered disruptive behavior.
Plot Spoilers - Posting "spoilers" (critical plot details) about games, movies, time-delayed broadcast events, or other media in the title of a topic or in a message without a clear notice is prohibited. To discuss such information in a topic, users should leave the title of the topic as vague as possible, ensuring that no mention of the actual spoiler itself is included, and include a warning (i.e. "SPOILER") in the topic title. In a message post in a non-marked or otherwise unexpected topic, users should leave several blank lines in a post after a warning before revealing any vital plot information.
Flooding, Invading, and Board Wars - Flooding a board or chat room with multiple disruptive topics or messages; invading another board (flooding a board as a group with multiple topics or messages); instigating, participating in, or retaliating in an invasion of a message board or any other online service; announcing or inciting a "war" or any conflict with the regular members of another board.
Impersonation - Impersonating other users by creating and/or using a user account with a name clearly intended to impersonate, mock, or antagonize another user, or otherwise falsely claiming to be another member is strictly prohibited.
Harassment/Stalking/Privacy - Continual harassing behavior directed towards a certain individual or group with the intent of creating an intimidating, offensive, or hostile environment on the Service, with or without use of explicit or implicit threats is strictly prohibited. Posting contact or other private information of any person (Service user or not) is also prohibited.
8. Multiple Accounts
While it is acceptable for users to maintain multiple accounts, we can and do track all accounts used on the same computer(s) , and consider them one account for the purpose of monitoring violations of these Additional Terms of Use. If these Additional Terms of Use are violated severely enough to warrant the termination of one account, all known accounts held by that user and/or all accounts using the same computer(s) may also be banned at the administrators' discretion.
9. Violations and Penalties
Topics and messages that violate these Additional Terms of Use will be deleted from the boards and additional penalties may be applied at our moderators' discretion. Re-posting deleted violations (yours or those of others) is also considered a violation.
Messages and topics may be removed at any time and for any reason at the sole discretion of our editors and designated moderators. User accounts may be warned, suspended, or revoked at any time and for any reason at the sole discretion of our editors and our designated moderators. All determinations of what is "acceptable" and "unacceptable" content will be determined solely by our editors and moderators.
Intentional, repeated, or severe violations are cause for the banning of your account, all use of the boards from your IP address or your entire ISP. In such event, we also reserve the right to contact your ISP concerning your activities.
10. Contacting You
We may contact you via e-mail or postal mail to provide you with information about the Service or your account or to provide you with information about special offers available only to Service subscribers.
11. No Warranty; Limitation of Liability
The Service, any software we may provide for the purpose of interacting with the service (the "Software") and all related documentation are being provided to you "as is" and without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. We do not warrant that the functions contained in the Software or on Service will meet your requirements. We do not warrant that the Service or the Software will be uninterrupted, error free or free of viruses or other harmful components. We are not responsible for content posted by our users. No oral or written information or advice given by us or any of our authorized representatives shall create a warranty or in any way increase the scope of this warranty. The above exclusions will not apply in any jurisdiction that does not allow the exclusion of implied warranties.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, NEGLIGENCE, SHALL GAMESPOT, CNET, ANY PARTNER OF CNET THAT MAY BE INVOLVED IN THE DISTRIBUTION OR PROVISION OF THE SOFTWARE OR THE SERVICE, OR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, DIRECTORS, AGENTS, LICENSEES, SUBLICENSEE OR ASSIGNS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES THAT RESULT FROM THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE, THE SOFTWARE OR RELATED DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF SUCH PARTIES HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF THOSE DAMAGES. THE ABOVE EXCLUSIONS WILL NOT APPLY IN ANY JURISDICTION THAT DOES NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES. IN NO EVENT SHALL OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL DAMAGES, LOSSES, AND CAUSES OF ACTION (WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE) EXCEED THE AMOUNT PAID BY YOU FOR THE SOFTWARE.
