Terms of service

1. What Plouch is

• Plouch rents you a computer with an NVIDIA graphics card, one player to a machine, played in your browser and charged by the minute from a prepaid balance.
• Plouch does not sell, license or provide games. A machine comes with a few free, open-source games; anything else you install yourself, from stores you sign in to with your own accounts, under those stores’ own terms.
• Some games do not run on Plouch, for example those whose anti-cheat refuses Linux or rented machines. We do not promise that any particular game will run.

2. Your account

• You must be at least 13 to use Plouch. To buy credits you must be 18 or older, or have the permission of a parent or guardian.
• An account is one verified email address, reached by a code we email you, by Discord or by Google. One person, one account.
• You are responsible for what is done with your account. Keep your email and the accounts you sign in with secure.

3. Credits and prices

• Your balance is in US dollars, and you add to it by buying a credit pack. Packs are sold by Polar, our merchant of record: Polar takes the payment, issues the receipt and handles sales tax or VAT, and its own terms apply to the purchase.
• A play costs the hourly price shown when you pressed Play, charged for each started minute from when the stream to your browser begins until the machine is given back. That price holds for the whole play. Prices for later plays can change; the current ones are on your account page.
• When your balance cannot pay for the next minute, the play ends on its own. You are warned about five minutes before.
• A balance does not expire. It has no cash value, cannot be withdrawn or transferred to another account, and is refunded only as section 5 says.

4. The free trial

• Each person can claim one free trial: thirty minutes on the Standard tier, added to your balance at your region’s Standard price. Claiming it needs a Discord or Google sign-in.
• We may refuse or take back a trial claimed through more than one account.

5. Refunds

• If a play fails because of something on our side, tell us within 30 days and we will credit the minutes it cost back to your balance.
• A refund of a purchase is made through Polar; ask us or Polar. When a pack is refunded, its credit is taken back from your balance.
• If we close Plouch for good, we refund the unused part of balances you paid for.
• Nothing in these terms limits a right to a refund or to cancel that the law where you live gives you.

6. Your disk

• Your account can keep a disk: the games you install, their saves and your settings. It is stored with our storage provider and copied onto the machine for each play. While you play it is saved every thirty seconds, so the last moments before a machine stops can be lost.
• Storage is charged once a day from your balance, by the size of your disk, at the rate shown on your account page. Storage alone can take your balance below zero. A balance below zero cannot start a play, and your next purchase pays what is owed first.
• If your balance stays below zero, your disk is deleted thirty days after it first went below zero. We email you when that happens, with the date, again three days before, and when the disk is deleted. A purchase at any point stops it.
• You can clear your disk yourself from your account page. A deleted disk cannot be recovered, so keep your own copy of anything you cannot afford to lose.

7. Machines run by others

• Machines are rented from third-party hosts. While a play runs, the host of the machine could in principle see what is on it, including your disk and what you type or sign in to. Do not put anything on Plouch you would not put on a computer somebody else can access.
• Signing in to a game store on a machine is your choice and your responsibility.
• A machine can stop without warning. We do not promise a machine, region or tier at any given time, or any particular picture quality; how a play runs also depends on your own connection.

8. Rules for using Plouch

You must not use Plouch to:

• break the law, or infringe anyone’s rights, including copyright;
• mine cryptocurrency, or run work other than playing and setting up games, such as training or serving AI models;
• attack, scan or send spam to other systems, or run servers for other people;
• get into other people’s accounts, data or machines, or into our systems;
• avoid charges, claim more than one trial, or share, resell or automate access to your account;
• run cheats or other software that breaks a game’s or a store’s own rules.

We may end a play, or suspend or close an account, that breaks these rules. The balance of an account closed for breaking them is not refunded.

9. The Discord Activity

In Discord, the Plouch Activity is a lobby: it signs you in with Discord and starts a play in your browser. Nothing is sold inside Discord, and Discord’s own terms also apply there.

10. Closing your account

You can stop using Plouch at any time, and ask us at support@plouch.com to delete your account. Deleting it deletes your disk and the personal data our privacy policy describes, except records the law requires us to keep. The balance of an account you close is not refunded unless the law requires it.

11. No warranty

Plouch is provided as it is and as available. As far as the law allows, we make no promises about it beyond those in these terms.

12. Limits on our liability

As far as the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for lost data or profits, and our total liability to you for any claim is limited to what you paid us in the twelve months before it arose. Where the law does not allow these limits, they apply only as far as it does.

13. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. When a change matters, we say so on this page and by email before it takes effect. A change never alters the price of a play already running. Using Plouch after a change takes effect means you accept it.

14. Law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Missouri, USA, and disputes about them go to the courts there, unless the law where you live gives you the right to bring them where you live.

Contact

YAYCE LLC, which runs Plouch: support@plouch.com