Pure Spades — Terms of Service
Pure Play Studios LLC
Effective date: September 25, 2026
These are the terms for using Pure Spades. They are an agreement between you and Pure Play Studios LLC (“we”, “us”). By installing or using the app you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use the app.
They are written to be read. Where a term has a legal purpose we say what the purpose is.
1. What Pure Spades is
Pure Spades is a partnership Spades card game for iPhone. You can play against computer opponents on your own device, or against other people through Apple’s Game Center. There is an optional store for cosmetic items and an optional ad-free upgrade.
We run no game servers. Your settings, statistics and rank live on your device. Online play, leaderboards and Game Center friends are provided by Apple through Game Center under Apple’s own terms. The only contact the app has with us is that, at most once a day, it reads a small announcements file from our website so we can tell you about updates to Pure Spades or other apps we make; nothing about you is sent with that request beyond what any web request carries. Our Privacy Policy, at https://www.pureplaystudios.net/privacy-policy, explains all of this in full and is part of these terms.
2. Who can use it
You must be old enough to have an Apple ID in your country, and to agree to these terms. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian must agree to them for you. Accounts for children are managed through Apple’s Family Sharing, and where Apple restricts what a child’s account may do — multiplayer, for example — the app respects that restriction.
3. Your license
We give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to install and use Pure Spades on Apple devices you own or control, for your own entertainment, in accordance with these terms and with Apple’s App Store terms. That is all the license is: you may play the game. You may not copy, modify, reverse-engineer, decompile, or make derivative works from the app, sell or rent it, or use it to build something else, except where the law says we cannot stop you.
4. Accounts and friends
Pure Spades has no accounts of its own. You play either as a Game Center player, using the Apple account and nickname you already have, or as a guest, with a name the app makes up. A guest can play practice matches only; playing against other people requires Game Center, because there is no other way to tell one player from another.
Your Game Center account is yours and Apple’s. We do not control it and cannot recover it. Your guest identity lives only on your device and cannot be moved.
You can ask another player at your table to be your friend, and accept or decline their request. Friends made this way are a list the app keeps on your device under your Game Center identity; if your device uses iCloud, Apple copies that list between your devices for you. We never see it. Either of you can remove the other from your own list at any time, and blocking a player removes them from it. Friends made in Pure Spades are not Game Center friends unless you also add them there.
You can delete everything the app keeps about you on the device at any time under Account › Delete account.
5. Conduct at the table
Pure Spades is meant to be a good table to sit at. When you sign in you agree to keep it civil, and that is a term of use, not a suggestion.
There is no free-text chat in the app, by design. Everything a player can say is a fixed phrase from a list we wrote, so nobody can be abusive to you in words. What remains is how people play, and how they choose a name and a photo in Game Center, and for those you agree that you will not:
• use a Game Center nickname or photo that is offensive, hateful, sexual, or aimed at another person;
• deliberately throw matches, stall, or abandon games to spoil them for others;
• collude with another player to disadvantage the rest of the table;
• run a modified version of the app, or any tool, that lets you see cards you should not see, alter the deal, or misreport what happened in a match;
• impersonate anyone, or harass, threaten or target any player inside or outside the game, including by what you share from it.
You can block or mute any player from the table, and those choices are kept on your device and honored whenever a table is built: a blocked player is never seated with you again, and their invitations do not reach you. Game Center nicknames and photos belong to Apple’s service, and an abusive one can be reported to Apple from that player’s Game Center profile. We do not monitor games, and we are not obliged to; the game is built so that it does not need us to.
6. Honest deals
Deals in Pure Spades are never adjusted for wins, losses, purchases, advertising or skill. In practice, cards come from your device’s secure random generator. Online, each player’s device contributes a secret random value before any card is dealt, the deal is derived from all of them together, and at the end of every hand each device independently checks that the hand it just played was the one those values required. A match in which a hand cannot be verified does not count toward anyone’s rank.
This is a description of how the game works, and we stand behind it. It is not a guarantee that no one will ever try to cheat — it is the reason that trying does not pay.
7. Ranks, ratings and leaderboards
Your rank, rating, statistics and leaderboard position are game features. They are not money, property, or a promise. They are computed by the app, submitted to Game Center where applicable, and may be corrected, reset or removed — for example, where a match could not be verified, where cheating is found, or where a change to the game’s rules or ladder requires it. You have no claim against us for a change to your rank.
Leaving an online match after the cards are dealt counts as a loss for you and costs the other players nothing; a computer player takes your seat so their game can go on. The app tells you this before you leave.
8. Purchases, subscriptions and virtual items
Pure Spades offers optional purchases: avatars, card decks and backs, table felts, gifts, and No Ads. All purchases are made through Apple’s App Store under Apple’s terms, using your Apple ID. We never see your payment details.
No Ads comes in three forms. The monthly and yearly plans are auto-renewing subscriptions: they renew at the end of each period, at the price shown in the App Store at the time, until you cancel. You can cancel at any time in your Apple ID’s subscription settings; cancelling stops the next renewal and you keep No Ads until the current period ends. A free introductory period on the monthly plan, where offered, converts to a paid subscription when it ends unless you cancel before then. The Forever option is a single purchase that does not renew. Apple bills and manages all three; we cannot change or cancel a subscription for you.
Items you buy are a license to use them inside Pure Spades, not property. They have no cash value, cannot be exchanged for money, and cannot be transferred to another person or another Apple ID. Apple’s purchase records are what the app uses to show what you own; Restore Purchases in the app asks Apple for them again if a device is new or was reset.
Items you earn by watching an advertisement — a paid avatar, present, card back or felt to use for the day — are a courtesy, not a purchase. They last for the period the app shows, on that device only, are not restored on another device, and may be withdrawn or changed at any time.
We may change, add, or retire items and prices. If we retire an item you have paid for, you keep it. Refunds are handled by Apple under Apple’s policies, and we cannot issue them ourselves.
Any gifts you send to other players at the table are a gesture inside the game; the recipient gets nothing they can keep, and neither do you.
9. Advertising
The free version of Pure Spades shows advertisements from third-party networks between and after matches. You may also choose to watch an advertisement to use a paid item for the day; nothing in the game ever requires you to. We do not choose individual advertisements and are not responsible for their content, or for any site or product they lead to. Ads are removed by purchasing No Ads. Our Privacy Policy describes the information advertising networks may collect.
10. What is ours, and what you share
Pure Spades, its name and logo, Pure Play Studios and its name and logo, the artwork, animations, card designs, avatars, sounds, text and code are ours or licensed to us, and are protected by copyright, trademark and other laws. Pure Spades™, Pure Play™, and Pure Play Studios™ are trademarks of Pure Play Studios LLC. These terms give you no right to any of it beyond playing the game.
Your Game Center nickname and photo remain yours, subject to Apple’s terms. You allow the app to show them to the other players at your table, which is the point of them, and to include them — with your avatar and how the match went — in what those players may share from the app, such as a screenshot or the newspaper-style front page of a match you were part of. The same is true the other way round: what you share may include the other players at your table.
Anything you share from the app is yours to share, and you are responsible for where you send it. A shared image carries the Pure Spades name and a link to the app; you may not remove them or present the image as anything other than what it is.
11. Availability and changes
We may update the app, and we may change, suspend or stop any feature — including online play, leaderboards, announcements or the store — at any time. We will try to be sensible about it, but we do not promise that any feature will always be available, that the app will always work, or that it will be free of errors. Online play depends on Apple’s Game Center and on your own network, neither of which we control.
12. Ending it
You can stop using Pure Spades at any time by deleting it. We may restrict or end your access to online features if you break these terms, and we may do so through an update to the app. If we do, the license in section 3 ends for the features concerned. Sections 6 through 16 survive.
13. No warranty
Pure Spades is provided as is and as available. To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the app will meet your needs, be uninterrupted, or be error-free. Some jurisdictions do not allow these disclaimers, in which case they apply to you only as far as the law allows.
14. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, Pure Play Studios LLC will not be liable to you for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, rank, virtual items, or profits, arising from your use of or inability to use the app, however caused. Our total liability to you for anything arising out of these terms or the app will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us through the app in the twelve months before the claim, or twenty-five US dollars. Some jurisdictions do not allow these limits, in which case they apply to you only as far as the law allows.
15. Apple
These terms are between you and Pure Play Studios LLC, not Apple. Apple is not responsible for the app or its content. The following applies because the app is distributed through Apple’s App Store:
• Your license is limited to a non-transferable license to use the app on Apple-branded products that you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in Apple’s Media Services Terms and Conditions, except that the app may be accessed and used by other accounts associated with you through Family Sharing or volume purchasing.
• We, not Apple, are solely responsible for the app and for providing any maintenance and support for it. Apple has no obligation to provide any maintenance or support.
• If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price of the app to you. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation whatsoever with respect to the app, and any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs or expenses attributable to a failure to conform to a warranty are our responsibility.
• We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claims by you or any third party relating to the app or your possession or use of it, including product liability claims, any claim that the app fails to conform to a legal or regulatory requirement, and claims arising under consumer protection, privacy or similar legislation.
• If a third party claims that the app or your possession and use of it infringes that third party’s intellectual property rights, we, not Apple, are solely responsible for the investigation, defense, settlement and discharge of that claim.
• You represent and warrant that you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated by the US Government as a “terrorist supporting” country, and that you are not listed on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• You must comply with any applicable third-party terms when using the app, including Apple’s terms for Game Center.
• Apple and Apple’s subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms, and upon your acceptance of them Apple has the right, and is deemed to have accepted the right, to enforce them against you as a third-party beneficiary.
Our contact details for questions, complaints or claims about the app are under Contact, below.
16. Governing law and disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute arising out of these terms or the app will be brought in the state or federal courts located in King County, Washington, and you consent to their jurisdiction. Nothing in this section prevents either of us from seeking an injunction to protect intellectual property, and nothing in it takes away any right you have under the consumer protection laws of the place you live that cannot be waived by agreement.
17. General
These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about Pure Spades. If any part of them is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce a term, that is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these terms; we may assign them to a successor to our business. We may change these terms; if we do, we will update the effective date above and note material changes in the app’s release notes or its announcements, and your continued use after that is acceptance of the change.
Contact
Pure Play Studios LLC