Licensing policy
Every game on PlayVori remains the property of its creators or licensors. We host a game only when we hold evidence that its rights allow it. This page explains the rules we apply. It is a description of our process, not legal advice.
Three ways a game can be here
| Model | What it means | Rights come from |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed embed | The game runs on the distributor's or developer's servers, shown in a sandboxed frame on our page. | A signed publisher agreement with that distributor (e.g. GameDistribution, GamePix, GameMonetize) |
| Licensed self-host | The developer or distributor supplies files for us to host. | A written licence covering hosting |
| Owned / open | Games we own, or whose licence clearly allows public hosting. | Ownership or an open licence covering code and assets |
Every game page says which model it uses. A licensed-embed game cannot go live until the distributor agreement is signed and recorded.
What must be covered (self-hosted and open games)
A game is publishable only when the code licence, every image, sprite, sound, music track and bundled font, and any third-party library it includes are all covered by a licence or permission that allows public hosting on an ad-supported website, and when the game doesn't use anyone else's characters, brands or trademarks.
What we never treat as permission
- A game being publicly visible, playable or downloadable somewhere.
- A public GitHub or GitLab repository without a licence. No licence means no permission to redistribute.
- Being labelled "free", "HTML5" or "open source" without an actual licence.
- A permissive code licence when the art or audio is separately licensed — or not licensed at all.
- Appearing on another game portal. We never copy games from other portals.
Licence classes
| Class | Examples | Our decision |
|---|---|---|
| Permissive | MIT, BSD, Apache-2.0, zlib, ISC, CC0, CC BY | Allowed, with attribution where required |
| Copyleft | GPL, MPL, CC BY-SA | Allowed with obligations: licence kept, source offered for the exact build |
| Network copyleft | AGPL | Case-by-case review; source link on the game page |
| Restricted | CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, "personal use only" | Not hosted, unless the creator gives written permission |
| Missing or unclear | No licence, conflicting statements, unknown asset sources | Not hosted |
| Direct permission | Written agreement with the creator | Allowed; the permission is kept on file |
| First-party | Games made for this site | Allowed; no third-party assets |
The record we keep for every game
For each game we store: the creators, source location and the exact version or commit we reviewed; the code licence and the evidence for it; a list of every asset with its origin and licence; attribution wording; whether commercial use and modification are allowed; every change we made while packaging; who reviewed it and when; and a fingerprint (hash) of the exact files we host. If the files change, the build refuses to publish until the review is repeated.
Removals
If rights to a game are disputed or turn out to be unclear, we disable it while we look into it. See Copyright & takedown.