The short version
- PointStage works without an account and sends no usage data unless you turn reports on.
- Your library, builds, save slots and settings stay on your Mac. If you sign in to an account, your play times sync to it; without one, they stay on your Mac too.
- Usage and crash reports are optional, anonymous, and deleted from our server when you turn them off.
- Without an account we never collect which games you play. We never collect what you search for or your file names.
- You can delete your account, and everything stored with it, at any time from the app.
- No advertising, no selling or sharing of data, no third-party trackers on the site or in the app.
Who we are
PointStage is made by Wiles Creative Studio ("we"). This policy explains what the PointStage app and the pointstage.org website collect, why, and the choices you have. It does not cover the games you build with PointStage, which are made by their own developers, or other sites we link to.
What the app does on its own
With no account and reports turned off, the app makes only the connections it needs to work:
| Catalog and artwork | The app loads game listings, descriptions, logos, screenshots and homepage rows from our server at api.pointstage.org, and keeps a connection open while it runs so catalog edits appear live. These requests carry no account or device identifier. |
|---|---|
| Update check | At launch the app fetches a small release file from pointstage.org to see whether an update exists. Nothing about you is sent with it. |
| Game files | Game files and the catalog database come from the Flashpoint Archive's servers (download.unstable.life, infinity.unstable.life and db-api.unstable.life), which are run by the Flashpoint project, not by us. Like any download, those servers see your IP address and which files you fetch. |
| Poptropica Legacy | Legacy is built from a source archive you supply. The build recipes come from pointstage.org. |
| Built games | A built game is the original game running in a wrapper. Some old games try to reach their original servers for things like high-score boards or ads. When those servers still exist, the request goes to them, as it would have in a browser. We do not control those servers. |
Everything else stays on your computer: your library, built apps, save slots, play times, settings and
mods. On macOS they live in ~/Library/Application Support/PointStage and
~/Library/Application Support/PointStage Games. Deleting those folders deletes that data.
Usage and crash reports (optional)
Reports are off until you turn them on. The app asks once, with a banner, and you can change your answer any time under Settings → Share anonymous usage & crash reports. Nothing is recorded or queued before you say yes.
When reports are on, the app sends:
- What happened: app started, a build succeeded or failed (how long it took, whether a mod was used, an error code), a game session ran (which runtime, how long, how it exited, whether it crashed), how many catalog searches were made and how many came back empty, JavaScript errors in the app, a renderer or GPU process crash, and whether the previous run shut down cleanly.
- About the install: app version, operating system and version, processor architecture, and interface language.
- A random install ID created when you opt in. It is not tied to an account, a device serial, or anything else about you.
Reports never include game names or IDs, search text, file names, folder paths, or account details. Error messages are scrubbed of file paths before they leave your Mac. Games you build never send reports. Your IP address is not stored with reports. We keep report rows for 90 days, then delete them.
Turning reports off deletes the install ID from your Mac and asks our server to delete every row sent under it.
Accounts
An account is optional. It keeps your play times in sync across your computers. If you create one, we store:
- Sign-up details: an email address, a username, and a password. Passwords are stored only as a salted hash (argon2), never in a readable form.
- Sign-in sessions: a hashed session token, the IP address and app identifier of the sign-in, when it expires, and when the account was last seen. Signing out deletes the session, and changing your password signs out your other devices.
- Email: used only to verify the address, to reset a forgotten password, and to tell you when your password or email address changes. Those messages are delivered through Resend, an email delivery service.
- Play stats sync: while you are signed in, the game IDs you have played, first and last play dates, total play time and session counts, with a random per-device ID so your devices can merge. Only you can see them.
You can change your email address or password, or delete your account, in the app under Account settings. Deleting it removes all of the above from our server straight away.
Ratings, comments, discussions, friends and profiles are not available yet. When they launch, the things you post will be shown to other PointStage users under your username, and this policy will say so before they do.
The website
pointstage.org has no analytics, no advertising and no tracking cookies. The home page's live demo runs on a recorded copy of catalog data and makes no requests to our API. Two things do leave your browser:
- The page's typeface loads from Google Fonts, so Google's servers see your IP address and browser details, as with any site using Google Fonts.
- Downloads and the pages themselves come from our own server, which keeps ordinary access logs (below).
Server logs and hosting
Our website and API run on a server we rent from Hetzner. Like almost every web server, it keeps access and service logs: IP address, requested address, time, the requesting app or browser, and errors. We use them only for security and troubleshooting. They rotate automatically and are not kept longer than 90 days. Catalog requests from the app are not linked to any account or install ID in those logs.
What we don't do
- We don't sell, rent or share your data, and we don't use it for advertising.
- We don't build profiles or link usage reports to accounts.
- We don't collect which games you play, unless you sign in to sync your play times. We don't collect what you search for or the files on your computer.
- We don't collect crash dumps from your system.
Children
PointStage does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Accounts are for people aged 13 and over, and creating one asks you to confirm your age. Everything else in PointStage works without an account. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
Your choices and rights
- Turn usage and crash reports off at any time in Settings. That also deletes what was sent.
- Delete local data by removing the PointStage folders named above.
- Ask us what we hold about you, or ask us to correct or delete it. Depending on where you live, laws such as the GDPR, the UK GDPR or the CCPA give you these rights formally; we honour them for everyone.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and anything that affects what we collect is called out in the app's update notes.
Contact
Questions and requests about privacy go to Wiles Creative Studio through wilescreative.studio.
PointStage builds apps from Flash games you have downloaded yourself from BlueMaxima's Flashpoint. It does not include or distribute any game files.