Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 8, 2026

Arcade Whale ("we", "us") operates https://arcadewhale.com. This page explains what information is collected when you use our free online games and how it is used. We keep it simple: we do not require an account and we do not ask you for personal information to play.

Information we collect

  • Local storage on your device. Games save progress, settings, coin balances and high scores in your browser's local storage; the site keeps your recently played and saved games, your best score and level in recently played games (used to suggest a next goal), any weekly leaderboard trophies, your daily puzzle streak and today's accumulated time in the selected puzzle game (the five-minute goal and completion stay in pv-daily on your device). Progress and settings stay on your device unless you use the progress-transfer feature. Scores and a random browser identifier are also sent for the gameplay counters and weekly leaderboards described below.
  • Aggregate usage data. We count visits per day, new vs returning browser visits, repeat sessions after 30 minutes without activity, and returns exactly 1, 3 or 7 days after the first visit. First-visit dates and daily deduplication stay in local storage; the server stores counters grouped by cohort day, without a browser identifier. We also count when game recommendations, share actions and rating actions are visible, clicked, copied, passed to device sharing or cancelled (recommendations are counted per list and by touch or mouse input), when a next-goal suggestion for a game is shown, visits that arrive through a shared challenge link, games opened and played, games added to or removed from your saved games (counted per game), time spent in a game, daily puzzle game openings, five-minute goal completions and result-share clicks, in some games, levels started, completed (first time or again in this browser; a list of completed levels per game stays in pv-lvl in your local storage), failed, restarted or left unfinished when the page was closed (counted per game, level and device type), when you leave a game page, what the game was showing at that moment (not started yet, playing, idle for more than 30 seconds, paused, a result screen or an ad), how many rounds had ended and whether the last one was won or lost, and roughly how long the page was open (counted per game and device type), game pages whose tab closed while the game was still loading, before any touch, key or click (counted per game and device type; while a game loads, a pv-acilis: key in your local storage holds the game name, device type and the time it was last refreshed, and a pv-acilis-ben key in your session storage marks that tab; the key is removed at the first touch, key or click, when the tab is hidden or when you leave the page, and one left behind is reported by the next game page you open and then removed), game pages that crashed or stopped responding, as reported by the browser itself (browsers that support crash reports, such as Chrome, send one after a crash because our game pages name a Reporting-Endpoints address; counted per game, by cause — out of memory, unresponsive or other — and by device type; the page address and browser version in the report are read once and not stored), blog articles opened and read to the end (reached the last paragraph with the page open for at least 30 seconds; a key in your browser's session storage makes each article count once per tab), liked (a key in your browser's local storage remembers the like so it counts once), share windows opened on blog articles and the first click, key or change inside a playable demo in a blog article (once per article per tab, like opens), games opened from a link inside a blog article together with the first touch, key or click in that game and 60 seconds of visible play after it (counted per article and game; clicking such a link keeps the article and game name in a pv-blogoyun: key in your local storage that is honoured for 10 minutes and removed, once older than that, the next time you open a game or blog article; the game page keeps that tab's progress in your session storage), the domain that referred you (never the full address; when no referrer is sent but the link names its source, only a fixed platform group), and for each browsing session the kind of site it started from (a fixed platform group such as YouTube, Instagram, an AI assistant or a search engine; kept in your browser's local storage with the time of your last activity on the site (a page view, or playing a game with the page visible), and a new session starts after 30 minutes without activity or when you arrive from a different platform) together with how many games that session opened and started, your country as provided by our content delivery network, device type, language, hour of day, ad views and search terms. These analytics events are stored as aggregate counters without a browser identifier. To keep the service light, most of these counters come from a share of browsers: a random number kept with its creation date in pv-orn in your local storage (renewed after 13 months, never sent to us; if local storage is unavailable a new number is drawn on each page) decides whether this browser sends them, and the totals we see are estimates scaled up from that share. Error reports, game loads that did not finish, crash reports, ad events, game page views, the first touch, key or click in a game, time spent in a game and the gameplay counters described below are sent from every browser. Search terms older than 90 days are removed during routine cleanup. Other daily analytics counters are kept for up to 400 days before routine cleanup. We also count, from every browser, when the promotion of our Steam games is shown, opened or clicked (per placement and by touch or mouse input); a marker in local storage (pv-steam-*, kept until you clear it) keeps one browser from being counted twice for opening a game's page or pressing its store button. We also count, from every browser, the Save Arcade Whale row in Settings: when the browser offers to install the site, when its Install button is pressed, whether the browser's install window was accepted or dismissed, and when the site is installed as an app (by touch or mouse input). Links to Steam carry a label naming the placement, so the game's Steam store reports can show which placement brought a visit; on Steam's own site its privacy terms apply.
  • Gameplay counters and leaderboards. A random identifier stored in your browser is used to avoid counting repeated game openings, remember your votes and record weekly high scores. About once a week, if you have sent scores, it is also sent with the list of games you sent scores for to look up the places you earned on past weekly leaderboards (your trophies); that lookup only reads the stored scores and keeps nothing new. Game-opening records are kept for eight days before routine cleanup; weekly scores for six weeks. Votes remain until changed or removed. Public leaderboards show a generated nickname and score, not the browser identifier. For hourly abuse limits, we temporarily store an IP address (for IPv6, only its network prefix: /64, or /48 for progress-transfer limits) with an hourly counter; counters more than six hours old are removed during routine cleanup.
  • Online matches. In games with online matches, joining a match sends your browser identifier to our multiplayer server, which uses it only to generate your nickname and does not store it. Your nickname and your in-game moves (such as position or shots) are passed on to the other players at the same table; there is no chat or free text. The table's nickname list is deleted automatically within minutes after all players have left; if a connection drops without closing, at the latest about 70 minutes after that player joined.
  • Cloud saves (optional, indie store). Games in our indie store can keep their save slots on our server if you choose to sign in with Google. Signing in sends Google's signed identity token to our server, which verifies it and stores only the account's permanent Google identifier (your name and picture are shown in the page from the token and kept only in your browser's local storage). A session cookie (aw_kayit, HttpOnly, 60 days) keeps you signed in; the server keeps only a hash of it. Save slots are stored until you delete them or delete your account from the store page, which removes every slot, session and identifier at once; a deleted slot leaves only its version number so an older device cannot overwrite a newer save. For hourly abuse limits, the IP address (for IPv6, only its /64 prefix) is kept with an hourly counter and removed after six hours.
  • Progress transfer. If you request a transfer code, a compressed copy of your saved progress and settings is uploaded to our server. It can be retrieved using the code for 15 minutes and is removed after retrieval or during cleanup after expiry. The package may include your browser identifier so your progress and leaderboard identity can continue on the other device.
  • Advertising data. Our advertising partners may collect data as described below.

Advertising & cookies

We display ads through Google AdSense / H5 Games Ads. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites.

  • Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to our site and/or other sites on the Internet.
  • You may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings.
  • You can opt out of some third-party vendors' use of cookies at aboutads.info/choices.
  • Learn more in Google's partner policy.

Advertising to visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland is served only after a consent choice has been presented through Google's certified consent message. Google's advertising script is loaded on every page so that Google can verify our implementation; it shows no ads while our account is not yet active.

Embedded videos

Some game pages and blog articles show a gameplay video from our YouTube channel. Until you press play, nothing from YouTube runs on the page. On game pages the video's cover image is loaded from YouTube's image server (i.ytimg.com) when the video area scrolls near the screen, and that server receives your IP address like any image request; blog articles use a cover stored on our own server. Pressing play loads YouTube's player from youtube-nocookie.com, YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, and from then on Google's privacy policy applies to the video, including any cookies or local storage the player uses. We receive nothing from YouTube about who watched a video.

Your rights

You can reset local game progress and settings by clearing your browser's local storage. For questions or requests about data held on our server, contact us using the address below. If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, the GDPR gives you rights over personal data our advertising partners process; you can exercise those directly with them through the links above. If the consent message has been shown to you, you can reopen it and change your choice at any time from the Privacy choices link at the bottom of any page.

If you live in California or another U.S. state with a consumer privacy law, you have the right to know what personal information is collected about you, to have it deleted, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. We do not sell personal information for money. The personalized advertising described above can, however, count as "sharing" for cross-context behavioral advertising or as "targeted advertising" under laws such as the CCPA/CPRA. You can opt out at any time through Google Ads Settings and aboutads.info/choices; if a privacy message has been shown to you, the Privacy choices link at the bottom of any page reopens it. We do not treat you differently for exercising these rights.

If you believe we hold personal data about you, write to arcadewhaleinfo@gmail.com and we will answer.

Children

Our games are family-friendly, but the site is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. Where required, we request non-personalized ads for traffic that may include children.

Your choices

You can clear your browser's local storage at any time to reset game progress, and you can manage or block cookies in your browser settings.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Email arcadewhaleinfo@gmail.com.