Privacy policy

This policy covers Someone Else's War on Steam, the online service it uses, and this website. It is written for players: what leaves your computer, who receives it, how long it is kept, and how to have it deleted. Ghamra Studios is responsible for it. Write to press@ghamrastudios.com with any question or request.

The short version

• The game needs an internet connection. AI writes the world as you play, so the text the game builds from your run, including what you type, goes through our server to the AI companies listed below. They are told not to keep it or train on it.
• We keep your SteamID so you have an account, a record of how much you play so we can run the service, and your purchases. We do not keep what you type.
• Pictures and cutscenes for your Book are only made when you order one, and are deleted from our storage after 30 days.
• The game has no ads, no analytics and no crash reporting. Your saves stay on your computer.
• You can ask us for a copy of your data, or to delete it, at any time.

Your account

You sign in through Steam. Steam tells us your SteamID, whether your account owns the game, and whether it is banned by us as the publisher. From your public Steam profile we also store your Steam name and avatar, which only our admin tools show. We never see your Steam password, email or payment details.

Your SteamID is linked to an account number we create. Sign-in tokens last 15 minutes and are renewed for up to 30 days; we store only scrambled versions of them.

Writing the world: text generation

To write characters, places, quests, dialogue, your abilities and the chapters of your Book, the game sends a prompt to our server for each piece of text. A prompt is built from your run: the world so far, recent events and conversations, and anything you typed, such as what you said to a character or the kind of world you asked for.

Our server passes the prompt on and sends the reply back. We do not store prompts or replies. For each call we keep a usage record: when it happened, which model answered, how many words went in and out, what it cost, which run and build it came from, and a fingerprint of the prompt that cannot be turned back into text.

Prompts go to OpenRouter (openrouter.ai, United States), which forwards each one to a company that runs the model. Every prompt carries OpenRouter's "deny data collection" setting, so it is only sent to hosts that neither keep prompts nor train on them. Your SteamID, account number and email are never sent with a prompt. Today the hosts are:

• Alibaba Cloud, StreamLake and GMI Cloud, for DeepSeek models. Alibaba Cloud is headquartered in China, and your prompt may be processed outside your country, including in China.
• DeepInfra (United States), for NVIDIA Nemotron and Google Gemma models.

We may also route a request to Groq or Anthropic (both United States). No part of the game uses them today. When we add a host, this list changes before it is used.

Pictures and cutscenes in your Book

The Book writes chapters about your run for free. You can also spend credits to have a chapter illustrated or turned into a short video cutscene. Nothing is sent unless you order one and confirm the price.

Each order sends a written request made of:

• your run's art style: the one you typed at New Game, or one of ours;
• a short written look for each of the one or two characters in the shot, described generically ("the elf woman"), never by name;
• a scene: where it happens, what happens, the mood and the camera. It is written by the game's AI from your run, so it can retell what you said and did;
• for a cutscene, a one-sentence summary of the chapter and possibly one short line of dialogue from it (at most 15 words), with names removed;
• reference portraits: the first time a character appears in something you order, a portrait is drawn from their written look and reused so they look the same next time. These are drawn pictures, never photos of you.

Your character's name, other characters' names, the chapter text and your save are not sent. The request goes through our server to Higgsfield (higgsfield.ai), which makes the media with the image and video models it hosts. Higgsfield's own terms and privacy policy govern what it keeps.

Finished pictures and videos are deleted from our storage 30 days after they are made, and reference portraits 90 days after their last use. The game downloads them into your save as soon as it can. The written request is erased from our database 30 days after the order finishes; a record of the order (its kind, its time and the credits) stays with your credit history. Our storage is private and encrypted, and download links expire after 15 minutes.

Purchases and credits

Steam handles every payment; we never see your card or bank details. When you buy credits, we keep your SteamID, the pack, the price and currency, Steam's transaction number and the order's status, plus Steam's own report of the transaction. We keep your credit balance and the history of what was granted, spent and refunded.

Reports you send us

You can report a specific line, chapter, picture, cutscene or portrait, or report a problem from the pause menu. A report contains what you write, the reason you pick, the game's build, where you were in the run, and for a specific item the generated text (with up to three lines before it) or the request behind the picture or video. If you agree, your session log is attached; it can contain the game's prompts and the AI's replies.

Reports are emailed to our support inbox with your account number. They are not stored in our database. Reported pictures and videos are hidden on your computer straight away.

Running the service

When you play, we record when a session starts and ends, the game's build, your platform and the run, so we can see the service is working and plan its costs.

Our server's logs are kept for 30 days. They hold your account number, and your SteamID when you sign in. IP addresses are shortened before they are logged (the last part is removed), and are otherwise held only in memory for rate limits, for at most an hour. Logs never contain your prompts, sign-in tokens or email.

What stays on your computer

Your saves, settings, Book pictures and videos, and the game's session logs stay on your computer, in the game's data folder. A session log can contain the game's prompts and the AI's replies; it only leaves your computer if you attach it to a report.

Dictation (talking instead of typing) runs a speech model on your own computer; your voice is never sent anywhere. Read-aloud uses your operating system's own voices and is off unless you turn it on.

The writing style you pick at New Game (Simple, Plain or Rich) is stored only in your save and only changes how plainly the text is written. We never ask for or keep your age.

Playtesters

If you signed up to playtest, we also keep the username and email you gave, your cohort, when you agreed, and when you last signed in, and use them to understand what the game costs to run. They are deleted when you ask us to.

This website

This site sets no cookies, and we add no analytics or ads to it. It is served by Cloudflare, which receives your IP address and browser details to deliver the page, under its own privacy policy.

Where your data is kept

Our server, database, storage and email run on Amazon Web Services in the United States. The database is encrypted and backed up for 7 days. The AI companies above may process prompts in other countries, as noted.

Why we use it

• To give you the game you bought: your account, text generation, Book media you order, credits and purchases.
• To keep the service safe and running: usage records, logs, rate limits, suspending accounts that abuse it, and understanding costs. This is our legitimate interest.
• Because you chose to: reports, the session log attached to one, and the playtest sign-up.
• Because the law requires it: purchase records for accounting.

We do not sell your data, show you ads, or use your data to train AI.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of your data, to correct it, or to delete your account and its data. Write to press@ghamrastudios.com with your SteamID or Steam profile link; we may ask you to prove the account is yours. We answer within 30 days.

Deleting your account removes your SteamID, Steam name, play sessions, credit orders and Book media from our storage. Purchase and usage records are kept for accounting, with everything that could identify you removed. Server logs are not rewritten; they are gone within 30 days. After deletion, signing in again starts a new, empty account.

If you are in the UK, the EU or another place with data protection law, you can also object to how we use your data and complain to your data protection authority.

Children

The game is sold through Steam, whose accounts are for people old enough under Steam's own rules and the law where they live. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you think a child's data reached us, write to us and we will delete it.

Changes

When what we collect or who receives it changes, we update this page and its date before the change goes live.