Terms and conditions · version 1.3 · last updated 22 Oct 2026
Terms and conditions
Plain-English terms for a hobby simulation game, accepted at registration and again at checkout.
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What The Watch Room is
The Watch Room is a fictional emergency services incident management simulation game. It is a hobby project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any real emergency service, including Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service, North West Ambulance Service, Greater Manchester Police, or any UK control room. Real station names, locations, appliance types and procedures appear only to make the simulation authentic.
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Not for real emergencies
Nothing in this game is operational guidance, training material, or advice for real incidents. In a real emergency, call 999.
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Your account
An account is needed to save progress. Keep the login details private and provide a working email address. You are responsible for what happens under your account. Accounts that abuse the service or other players may be suspended or deleted.
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Acceptable use
Do not attempt to break, overload, reverse-engineer, or gain unauthorised access to the service or other people's accounts, and do not use the service for anything unlawful.
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Your data
What is kept about you, why, who handles it, who can see it and how to have it deleted is set out in the privacy notice. Newsletters are sent only where the box was ticked, and every one carries an unsubscribe link. Data is not sold.
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No warranty
The Watch Room is provided as it is, and is still being developed. It may go offline, change, break, or lose saved progress at any time, without notice. To the fullest extent the law allows, no liability is accepted for any loss arising from its use. Nothing in these terms takes away your rights as a consumer, including your rights over digital content you have paid for.
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Ways to play
From launch there are three ways to play. The free trial is a short taste of the game at no cost. Silver and Gold are subscriptions that give everything in the game while they run. The base game is bought once and kept, and packs of further content can be added to it, each bought once. Before launch, the tester pass and the supporter pass give testing access, as set out below.
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The free trial
From launch, every account can have one free trial of 30 minutes of active play on the base scenarios in the launch area, Greater Manchester. Only time with a job running, the game open on screen and recent input from you counts. When the trial runs out, no new jobs start, and jobs already running may finish for up to 15 minutes. The trial does not include packs or multiplayer, needs no payment details, and does not turn into a subscription. Its length may change, and it may be withdrawn, for accounts that have not yet used it.
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The base game and packs
The base game is a one-off purchase at £24.99. It gives the launch area, Greater Manchester, with the base scenarios and resources, and every update to them. Packs are one-off purchases of further scenarios, resources or areas, each priced as shown in the store at the time of purchase. Every pack needs the base game: a pack bought by an account without the base game is sold together with it, as two items in one order, with both prices shown before you pay. The base game and packs you buy stay on your account for as long as The Watch Room is offered, whether or not you also subscribe.
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Silver and Gold
Silver is £7.99 a month. It gives every scenario, every area and every pack in single player, including each new pack and area as it is released, for as long as the subscription runs. Gold is £11.99 a month. It gives everything in Silver, plus multiplayer, and is sold only once multiplayer is open. Where a yearly price is offered, it is shown in the store before you subscribe. Members never need the base game or a pack to play what their plan covers, but may buy them to keep.
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Multiplayer
Every player in a shared shift needs multiplayer, the host and every guest alike: either Gold, or the base game with the Multiplayer pack. There is no free joining, and the free trial does not include multiplayer. A shared shift has a limit on the number of players. The Multiplayer pack and Gold go on sale only once multiplayer is open.
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Upgrades and downgrades
A move from Silver to Gold takes effect straight away, and the difference in price for the rest of the current billing period is charged at once. A move from Gold to Silver takes effect at the end of the billing period already paid for, and Gold, with multiplayer, continues until then. A booked move to Silver can be cancelled before it takes effect. Upgrades and downgrades stay on the same billing period, and on the tester rate for holders of it.
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Subscriptions
Silver and Gold renew automatically until cancelled. Cancel at any time from Manage billing in Settings; access continues to the end of the period already paid for, and nothing is taken after that. A reminder is emailed before each renewal, and before a yearly renewal in particular. If a renewal payment fails, access continues while the card is retried; if the retries fail, the subscription ends. Nothing starts a subscription unless you complete the checkout yourself. Prices may change for future periods, with notice by email before any change takes effect; a change never applies to a period already paid for.
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What you keep if you cancel
When a subscription ends, the access it gave ends with it, at the end of the period paid for. Anything bought outright stays yours: the base game and any packs. Your career, your service record and your account stay too. Content you do not own is then shown as locked, with the ways to unlock it.
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The passes
Before launch, two one-off passes are sold, and they are not sold after launch. The tester pass is £19.99. The supporter pass is £29.99, and includes everything in the tester pass, plus an in-game supporter badge and a co-branded velcro patch posted to a UK address, with 10% of the payment going to the named charity partner. The supporter pass is a single release of 100 places, one patch each, and is sold to UK addresses only because the patch is posted. Both passes give testing access to the game until launch. From launch, a pass gives the base game.
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The pass holder's choice
From launch until 30 days after it, a pass holder may make one choice: keep the base game, or give it up for the tester rate. The tester rate is Silver at £4.99 a month and Gold at £8.99 a month, every time the holder subscribes, for as long as the account exists, including after a cancellation. The choice is made once, from the account's Settings, and cannot be changed. A holder who chooses the tester rate does not have the base game, and packs need the base game, so while they are not subscribed there is nothing to play, packs they have bought included. A holder subscribed at the standard price who chooses the tester rate moves to it from the next billing period. A holder who makes no choice by the deadline keeps the base game. If the launch date moves, the window moves with it.
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The build
What a pass gives access to before launch is a game in development. It is unfinished: features are missing, things break, saved shifts can be lost, and the service can go offline without notice. A pass is early access to that build and to the builds that follow it up to launch, not a finished product. Nothing in these terms promises a launch date.
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Digital content and your right to cancel
The passes, the base game and packs are digital content. By law you have 14 days to cancel a purchase of digital content, unless you ask for it to be supplied straight away and acknowledge that you lose that right once it is. At checkout you are asked to confirm exactly that: for a pass, that you want testing access to start straight away; for the base game or a pack, that you want the content to unlock straight away; and in each case that you understand you lose your 14-day right to cancel once it does. The time you gave that confirmation is recorded against the purchase and repeated in the confirmation email. Access starts as soon as the payment is confirmed.
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Refunds
Once access has started, a purchase is not refundable, except where the law or these terms say otherwise. A purchase made from the EU while EU sales are closed is refunded in full automatically, and a subscription started from the EU then is cancelled and its first payment refunded. A supporter purchase with a billing address outside the UK, or made after the last place has gone, is refunded in full automatically. A refund takes back what the purchase gave: refunding a pass removes its testing access, its base game and any tester rate chosen with it; refunding the base game or a pack removes that content. When a pack and the base game were bought in one order, each is a separate item and is refunded separately. Refunding a gift that has not been redeemed cancels its code.
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The patch
The supporter pass's patch is physical goods and carries its own 14-day right to cancel from the day it is delivered, which the confirmation above does not take away. To return it, write to the address below within 14 days of delivery, then post it back unused within 14 days of telling us; the price of the patch element is refunded once it arrives. The testing access that came with the pass is digital content and is covered by the clauses above.
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Prices
Prices are in pounds sterling and include any VAT due where you are. The prices in these terms are those in force on the date at the top. The store and the checkout always show the current price, and the price shown at checkout is the one you pay.
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Payment data
Payments are taken by Stripe. Card details are entered on Stripe's pages and go to Stripe; they never reach The Watch Room's servers and are never stored by it. What is kept here is the record a business must keep: what was bought, when, for how much, under which version of these terms, the Stripe identifiers, the consent given at checkout, and, for the supporter pass, the postal address for the patch. Those records are kept after an account is deleted for as long as tax law requires.
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Changes to these terms
These terms may be updated as the game develops. Continued use of the service after an update counts as acceptance of the new terms. A purchase stays under the terms in force when it was made. The date above always shows the current version.
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Contact
Questions about these terms or your data: thewtchroom@gmail.com.