Announcement Changes to the General Terms and Conditions from 01.11.2016

Dear Mayors,

Bigpoint will apply changes to the General Terms and Conditions on 01.11.2016.

We would like to explain what changes have been made and why.

FAQ
Q: Does the change affect all players?
A: The change will affect all the game accounts that are registered with Bigpoint Sàrl and Co, SCS. Players who have registered with Bigpoint Inc. remain unaffected and will not therefore be asked to agree to the GTC again.

Q: What changes will be made to the GTC?
A:

• Change to the contractual partner, place of jurisdiction, applicable law
  • Following internal restructuring, all the game accounts registered under Bigpoint Sàrl and Co, SCS have been transferred to our German company, Bigpoint GmbH. Your new contractual partner for your game user agreement is now Bigpoint GmbH in Hamburg and the place of jurisdiction (new: Hamburg) and the applicable law for the user agreements (new: German law) have therefore also changed.
• Expanded scope of application
  • Bigpoint develops and distributes not only browser games but also games and Internet sites for the individual games. The GTC shall apply to all these services in future, and certain details have been modified accordingly.
• Ban on pushing and boosting
  • The new GTC explicitly state that pushing and boosting is prohibited not only between accounts of the same users, but also between accounts of different users. This is stipulated in the interests of fairness and game enjoyment for all.
• Ban on the use of anonymization services (e.g. proxies)
  • For accounting reasons we must ensure that we can assign payments from players to their physical location. The use of anonymization data (e.g. proxies) or other methods that conceal the player’s place of residence or habitual residence are now expressly prohibited in our games and services.
• Payments via mobile phone
  • In accordance with the legal situation and jurisprudence, payments via mobile phone (e.g. premium SMS) will be deemed as accepted by the terminal owner even if the user is not also the subscriber to the relevant mobile contract. Any objections to billing via mobile devices must be asserted within eight weeks.
• Charges for delays and cancelation
  • In the event of delays in payment, Bigpoint reserves the right to demand the statutory rate of interest. However, an administrative charge for blocking a game account following a delay no longer applies. Should cancelation charges be incurred for which the user is liable (e.g. insufficient funds), Bigpoint may demand compensation for such costs.
• Blocking
  • The new GTC clearly and transparently stiuplate the circumstances that could justify a blocking of an account.
• Confidentiality of account data
  • To prevent any abuse of an account, all non-public access and account data must remain confidential. This obligation to secrecy not only applies to external persons, but also to e.g. friends, family members and other players, i.e. clan members.

Q: Do I have to agree to the new GTC?
A: Yes, we are obliged to request you to explicity agree to the updated GTC.
The GTC window will therefore appear in the game from 01.11.2016, and you must agree to these before you can continue playing our games.

Q: What happens if I don’t accept the GTC?
A: Once these GTC come into effect you can decide not to agree to them. However, this means that you will no longer be able to play our games.

Your Rising Cities Team

 

Hi everyone,

First of all we would like to thank you for your interest on this subject. We have received several questions from our communities in regard to the Official Announcement posted on 18 October 2016 and we would like to address the most discussed concerns you expressed at this point.

All in all, we acknowledge that such updated terms and conditions can cause some discussions and fears from our users but we are convinced that the changed terms and conditions will not have any negative effect on you as a player nor as a consumer. The main reason behind the change is that we are closing down our Luxembourg office location as of 1 November 2016 to operate under Bigpoint GmbH in Germany. For this reason our legal department took a close look at our current terms and conditions and updated them to represent the structure of the company today.

Pushing/Boosting/Multiaccounts
To be able to push in Rising Cities, the player needs to actively install software specifically designed for pushing. That means that the player will gain an advantage compared to other players who are playing fairly to obtain their in-game items. Players using this method are subject to tracking and sanctioning. These cases are extremely rare and we have verified that the vast majority of our players are playing by the rules, meaning they will not undergo this violation.

What is NOT considered pushing in Rising Cities:

• More than one account in the same household;
• Manually sending items to a family member or to any other account that is registered on the same IP-address or Email address
• Interaction of several accounts of the same player, if none of them use unauthorized methods/scripts/software to progress in the game.

It is very important for us that you understand that these situations are allowed and will under no circumstances be tracked and/or punished.

Why those situations are not considered as pushing?
In Rising Cities, even playing with multiple accounts, you cannot generate significant advantage to the main account. If you want to supply the main account or another player’s consistently, the player needs to be actively playing on all accounts. For that reason, pushing in Rising Cities is only characterized when a third party script or software is used to make this boosting possible.

Proxy/VPN
Nowadays, it is not uncommon that home routers and company networks use locally set-up proxies and/or VPNs. This will not be considered a violation of the T&C, as long as the use of such proxies and VPN sessions do not conceal your GeoIP/physical location. The T&Cs clearly state that the violation does not centre on the use of the resource itself, but on the intentional interchange of the location from where the game is being played. This can only be achieved by actively setting up a Proxy/VPN connection that will display your computer as being used in a different location from the one you are physically standing on, and is not related to your home or company proxy/VPN servers.

An example of a violation:
A player based in Germany uses a proxy/VPN server to trick Bigpoint’s Game Services to acknowledge his/her location as Turkey in order to profit from differentiated price offers. In this case it is a clear violation as it has been set up by the player to obtain advantages that are not at the reach of his fellow players in Germany.

An example of a regular situation that does not consist of a violation:
A user playing from his/her home connected with a router that uses a Proxy/VPN service or feature without placing his/her apparent location to a different country. This is the case with regular home connections and company networks that have not been intentionally set up by the user to display the users on a different location.

If you didn’t set such a feature to active on your connection, you will not be tracked and sanctioned for violating the Terms and Conditions.

Payment methods
In regard to the upcoming change in the Terms and Conditions nothing will change. You will still be able to use your payment methods as you know them today, whatever it is: credit card, PayPal, PaySafe etc.

We hope this answered some of the uncertainties you had in regard to the announcement of the upcoming changes of our Terms & Conditions,

Kind regards,

Your Rising Cities team