Privacy Policy: Basketball Career Simulator

This Privacy Policy describes how the Android game Basketball Career Simulator ("the App", "we", "us"), published by PlayBrain, handles information. The App is a single-player text basketball career game: a player starts at 18 on a college scholarship, you make their choices season by season, and the career ends when they retire. Every player, team and league in it is fictional.

The short version

• No account and no sign-in. The App never asks for your name, email, phone number, location, contacts, photos or files.
• The player is invented by the game. Their name, gender, nationality and position are picked at random from the game's own lists when a career begins. The one text field is the optional Name box on the Create your player screen, where you can type a name for the player (up to 40 characters) instead of a random one. That name stays on your device unless you share it yourself.
• Your careers and progress are saved on your device.
• The App sends anonymous gameplay analytics to our own server. Every event is listed below.
• Gameplay recording is optional and off until you choose Allow.
• The App shows Google AdMob adverts, with Google's consent form where the law requires it.
• Optional in-app purchases go through Google Play.
• An optional daily reminder is a local notification, off until you say yes to it.
• Share this career hands one line of text to your phone's own share sheet, only when you tap it. Nothing is uploaded to us.

What is stored on your device

The App saves the following in its own private storage on your phone:

• the career you are playing now, and the start of the season you last played, so Rewind can take you back to it (replaced every season, dropped when a new career starts),
• your hall of fame: up to 20 finished careers with their name, position, nation, seasons, games, points, trophies, legacy score and tier, teams, generation and retirement age,
• your coins (earned and bought), how many careers you have started and finished, your Career of the day streak, the daily gift, which milestones have been reached and paid today, whether the first-career guide has run, and your sound, music, vibration and theme settings,
• when the App last asked for a rating, the analytics identifier and any events not yet sent, whether the daily reminder is on and whether it has been offered, the full-screen advert counters, what you own from the store, your gameplay recording choice and at most one recording waiting to be sent, and a cached list of our other games.

Google's consent form keeps your advertising consent answer in the App's storage through Google's own SDK.

Settings, Reset progress erases your current career, your hall of fame, your Career of the day streak and earned coins. Coins you bought stay, and so do your sound, music, vibration and theme settings. Uninstalling the App, or clearing its storage in Android settings, deletes everything above.

What is sent to our own servers

The App sends anonymous gameplay analytics over HTTPS to a server we run at playbrain.games. Events are queued on the device and sent in batches, so playing offline loses nothing. Each batch carries:

• a random identifier the App generates for itself on first launch, so one installation can be told apart from another. It is not your advertising ID or any hardware identifier,
• a random session identifier,
• the app version and the platform,
• the events below, each with a timestamp.

What is never sent: your name, email or any account, your advertising ID, your location (other than the country, see below), your language or locale, anything you typed, prices or payment details, your contacts, photos and files. The analytics code's own privacy rules exclude locale and location, so neither your language nor your country is sent by the App (our server records the country only, see below). Every value is a number, true or false, or a short word chosen by the App's own code.

In this game a "level" is one season: it starts when a season is being prepared and completes when it has been played. Nothing from the career itself is attached to any event: no journal line, no choice, no event text and no player name.

The complete list of events. Nothing outside it is sent:

• first_open: the app was opened for the first time after install
• install_attribution: where this install came from: a Google ad, the Play Store, another PlayBrain game, or elsewhere, plus the ad campaign name (never the ad click identifier). Sent once, after install
• session_start: a play session began, and how many sessions this install has had
• session_end: a play session ended, how long it lasted and which screen it ended on
• screen_view: which screen you are on, and which screen you came from
• first_interaction: the first time you touched anything, and how long after opening
• level_start: a season began, which season of the career it is, and whether it is a normal career or the Career of the day
• level_complete: a season was played, how long it took and how many actions and choices were made
• level_fail: part of the shared level set; this game treats every played season as completed
• level_abandon: a season was left unfinished, how far through it was, and how you left it
• currency_earned: coins were earned, and from what (a season, a milestone, the Career of the day, the daily gift, an advert, a purchase)
• currency_spent: coins were spent, and on what (a scout report, the physio, a workout, one more season or a rewind)
• ad_offer_shown: an optional advert was offered
• ad_offer_hidden: an optional advert was not offered, and why
• ad_offered: you tapped an optional advert offer
• ad_load_result: whether an advert was available, and how long it took
• ad_result: how the advert ended
• ad_reward_granted: the reward for watching was given
• interstitial_check: whether a full-screen advert was due, and if not, why not
• interstitial_shown: a full-screen advert was shown
• interstitial_result: how the full-screen advert ended, and how long it was open
• ad_revenue: what one advert earned, as reported by the ad network (the advert type, the amount, its currency and how precise the network says that amount is)
• iap_offer_shown: a purchasable item was shown
• iap_purchase_start: you tapped buy
• iap_purchase_result: whether the purchase completed, was cancelled, is pending, or failed
• iap_restore_start: you asked to restore purchases
• iap_restore_result: whether the restore found anything
• iap_entitlement_changed: what you own in the game changed
• iap_unavailable: the store could not be reached
• review_prompt_shown: the rating prompt was requested
• review_prompt_skipped: the rating prompt was not shown, and why
• reminder_offer_shown: the game offered to send you reminders
• reminder_offer_result: whether you said yes or not now to that offer
• reminder_permission_result: whether your phone allowed notifications when asked
• reminder_scheduled: a reminder was set, what kind and how many hours away
• reminder_opened: you opened the game from a reminder
• cross_promo_open: the More games sheet was opened
• cross_promo_click: another of our games was tapped
• app_error: something went wrong, which kind of error and on which screen, with no message and no personal data

Our server also records the country you are in, which it works out from your network address when the App first reports; the address itself is not stored.

An error report carries the kind of error, where it was caught, the screen, whether the App could carry on and a short code-location fingerprint. No error message, stack trace or anything you did is included, and no third-party crash service is used. Purchase events carry a product name chosen by our code and where you opened the store from, never an amount of money, a currency or a transaction id.

The App also asks our server how often the full-screen advert may play, sending only the App's name and version, and the More games sheet downloads a list of our other games with a request that carries no identifier.

We use these events to understand retention and progression, see which features are used, measure adverts and find bugs. They are not used for advertising and are not sold. To request deletion, email [email protected].

Optional gameplay recording in this game

Recording is off until you choose Allow, either on the "Help improve this game" invitation shown a moment after the App opens until you answer it, or in Settings, Gameplay recording, where you can also turn it off at any time.

In this game a recording holds only which screen you are on (from a fixed list), where you tapped as a position on the screen (not on the store or settings screens), timing, and the numbers and code words from the analytics events above. It never holds the career, the player, your choices, any text, a screenshot, video or audio. Each recording is capped at 800 entries, ten minutes and about 120 KB, and our server accepts at most 20 new recordings a day across all of our games, so most sessions are not recorded even with Allow switched on. Turning recording off asks our server to empty any recording from your device straight away.

Sharing a finished career

When a career ends, the retired card offers Share this career. Tapping it opens Android's share sheet with one line of text: the player's name (the random one, or the name you typed), the age they retired at, their legacy tier and score, a few career numbers (draft pick, pro points, titles, All-Star selections) and the address of the web version of the game. You choose where it goes. Nothing is uploaded to us, and the App is not told what you did with it.

Rating prompt

The App may occasionally ask Google Play to show its own in-app review dialog. Google decides whether it appears. Any rating you leave goes to Google Play, not to us.

Advertising (Google AdMob)

The App includes Google's Mobile Ads SDK and shows adverts from the App's own AdMob advert units. Before it requests any advert, the App runs Google's consent form. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland the form is shown and nothing is requested until you have answered; if the answer means adverts may not be requested, none are. Where required, Settings shows a Privacy options row that reopens the form.

• Rewarded videos, only when you choose one, from a button that says Watch an advert: double the coins for a season or a milestone (the offer lasts five seconds), read a scout's report, see the physio before a season, work out for the scouts for a fresh set of offers, sign for one more season when retirement is forced early, collect extra coins on the daily gift page, or repair a lapsed daily streak. The scout report, the physio, the workout and one more season can also be paid for with coins instead. In your first career these offers appear once its first season has been played. These may be personalised where the law allows it. In the EEA and the UK this follows the choice you make on Google's consent form, and you can turn personalisation off at any time in your device settings (Settings → Privacy → Ads).
• One full-screen advert is not optional. It may play when you tap Play season or start the next career from a retired card, never on a decision (declaring, signing, staying, retiring), never straight after a rewarded advert, and never more often than a time gap and a per-session cap allow. It is not shown at all until your first career has ended, even if you close the App and come back to it part-way through. It may be personalised on the same terms as the rewarded videos.
• A banner under the career screen, on the same rule as the full-screen advert. It uses the SDK's default request, so whether it is personalised follows your consent answer.

When an ad is requested, Google may process:

• your device's advertising identifier,
• device information (model, operating system, language),
• your IP address and the approximate location derived from it,
• interaction with the advert (views, taps).

Buying No adverts or the lifetime unlock removes the full-screen advert and the banner. The rewarded bonuses stay and become free.

Google's handling of this data is governed by its own policies: Google Privacy Policy and How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services. You can reset or delete your advertising identifier in Android settings.

In-app purchases

The App contains optional purchases through Google Play: No adverts, a lifetime unlock (with an upgrade price if you already own No adverts), and three coin packs. Nothing in the game needs them: coins are earned by playing. Google Play handles the payment, and we never see your card, billing address or name. What you own can be restored from Settings. We record only which product was shown and bought, never an amount of money.

Daily reminder

An optional reminder that your daily gift and a new Career of the day are ready, and a nudge if you have not played for a while. It is off until you say yes. The App offers it once, three seasons into a normal career (not the Career of the day), and the switch is also in Settings. Only saying yes, or switching it on, makes Android ask for notification permission; the App never asks at launch. When a career is in progress, the nudge names your player and their age, including a name you typed. It is scheduled and shown on your phone, so that name does not leave your device: nothing is sent to us or to anyone else, and there is no push service. Switching it off cancels anything already scheduled.

Permissions and the microphone

The App uses internet access (analytics, adverts, purchases), vibration, audio settings for its music, notifications (only if you switch the reminder on) and billing (for optional purchases). The advertising library adds the advertising ID and network-state permissions it needs. The App plays sound but does not record audio: the microphone permission and access to your files are blocked in its configuration.

Children

The App is intended for players aged 13 and over and is not directed at children. Its career events include a night out with teammates, dating and contract money. We do not knowingly collect data from children; if you believe a child has used the App and want data removed, contact us.

Deleting your data

To request deletion of analytics connected to your installation, email [email protected] with the App's name. The App has no accounts, so we will never ask for a password. Data sent to us is encrypted in transit, is not sold, and is shared only with infrastructure providers acting for us and, for adverts, with Google. Analytics is kept only as long as reasonably needed, and gameplay recordings are deleted after seven days.

Changes to this policy

If the App's data practices change, this policy will be updated before that version ships, and the date above will change.

Contact

[email protected]