Ad Content & Brand Safety Policy

Bonus Round ads are playable rounds inside other people's games, often in front of young players. This policy sets out what can be advertised, where, and how we keep ads and games safe for each other. It applies to every advertiser and every publisher.

Scope and how this policy works

This policy covers everything shown to players through Bonus Round: brand kits, concepts, copy, images, 3D models, audio, sponsored rounds, ambient props, calls to action and the landing pages they link to. It also sets minimum standards for the games that show ads. It is part of the Terms of Service, the Advertiser Terms and the Publisher Terms. Following this policy doesn't replace following the law. Where the law in a player's country is stricter, the law applies.

How review works

1. Brand classification. When a brand is learned, we place it in a category (for example, beverage, snacks, energy drink, alcohol, gambling, tech, toys).
2. Automatic safety check for every brand–game pair. Before a brand is matched to a game, and again on every ad request, we check the brand's category against the game's rating, audience and blocked categories. Hard blocks (below) mean the pair is never matched and never served.
3. Automated play-test. Each generated round is played in the game and checked against a quality checklist (for example, scale, readability, and whether the round fits its arena).
4. Advertiser approval. The brand plays the round in a preview of the game and must approve it before it can run. Nothing serves until it's approved.
5. Publisher controls. Publishers can block categories of brands, set their game's rating and audience, and pause a format or their whole game at any time.
6. Reports and takedowns. Anyone can report an ad to Aidan Wolf, our ad-policy and brand-safety contact, at aidan@dreampark.app. We investigate and may remove ads at any time, including approved ones.

[Decision: Whether Bonus Round staff will review creatives before they run, for all ads, for restricted categories only, or for games with young audiences only. Today there is no Bonus Round-side human review step]

Automatic category detection covers the prohibited and restricted categories in this policy. A brand detected in a prohibited category is never matched or served, and publishers' category blocks use the same category names.

Prohibited everywhere

These can't be advertised on Bonus Round, in any game, for any audience:

• tobacco, nicotine and vaping products, and cannabis or CBD products [Decision: Whether CBD and legal cannabis are prohibited outright or restricted];
• illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, and prescription medicines;
• weapons, ammunition, explosives and weapon accessories, including replicas presented as real;
• adult, sexual or sexually suggestive content, dating services aimed at sex, and adult entertainment;
• hate speech, harassment, or content that demeans people for who they are;
• content that glorifies real-world violence, self-harm, terrorism or extremism;
• scams, pyramid or multi-level schemes, get-rich-quick offers, and payday or other high-cost short-term loans;
• initial coin offerings, token sales and unregulated financial products [Decision: Whether any regulated crypto or trading products are allowed, e.g. adults-only];
• counterfeit goods, and anything that infringes intellectual property;
• spyware, stalkerware, hacking services, cheats or exploits for other games, and malware;
• political ads, and ads about elections or social issues [Decision: Confirm the prohibition on political and issue ads];
• misleading health claims and health misinformation; and
• anything illegal where the ad would be shown.

Restricted categories

These are allowed only under the conditions listed. "Mature games" means games rated mature whose audience doesn't include children or teens.

Games with young audiences

A game has a young audience if the publisher has turned on its directed to children setting, if it is rated everyone and its audience includes children, or if it has the kids category. For these games:

• Contextual only, always. Bonus Round never uses behavioural targeting, profiling or retargeting for any player. Ads are chosen by matching the brand to the game.
• No data from players. A round must not ask players for names, emails, photos, location, or any other personal information, and must not encourage them to share it.
• Category limits. No alcohol, gambling, energy drinks, dating, mature-rated entertainment, or financial products, plus the prohibited list above. We recommend publishers of kids' games also block crypto, tobacco, weapons and fast food & candy.
• No pressure. No direct calls on children to buy something or to ask a parent to buy it, no "only today" urgency, and no suggestion that a child is missing out or will be less liked without a product.
• Clear separation. The round must be clearly labelled as sponsored, and players must be able to tell it apart from the game.
• Rewards. Rewards are only for playing the round, never for clicking through to the advertiser.
• Landing pages must be suitable for children and must not collect personal information from children without verifiable parental consent.

We design these rules with COPPA, the FTC's guidance on advertising to children, the CARU guidelines, the UK CAP Code and Age Appropriate Design Code, and the EU Digital Services Act in mind. [Decision: Legal review of kids' audience rules against each target market]

Creative standards for playable rounds

• Labelled. Every sponsored round shows that it is sponsored and names the brand, at the start, during play and on the results screen. Ambient props in the game world carry a "Sponsored" label next to the brand.
• Honest. Products, prices and claims must be accurate. Don't imitate the game's own UI, system messages, error dialogs or another brand.
• Safe to play. No rapidly flashing images or patterns that could trigger photosensitive seizures (no more than three flashes per second), no sudden loud audio, and no content that frightens younger players.
• Respects the game. A round lasts its set time (15 seconds of play plus a short results screen), then hands control back. It mustn't trap players, block exiting, or change the game's controls afterwards.
• Calls to action must say where they go and open the advertiser's own page in a new tab. No automatic redirects or downloads.
• Self-contained. Rounds use only Bonus Round's runtime and assets. No third-party scripts, trackers or pixels.
• Respects the brand-kit "avoid" list, and any restrictions the publisher sets.

Landing pages

A call to action must link to a working page on the advertiser's own site, or an authorised retailer, that matches the product in the ad. It must not contain malware, phishing or deceptive downloads, must comply with privacy law (including consent for cookies where required), and must follow the rules for young audiences above when it is linked from a game with a young audience.

Standards for games that show ads

To show Bonus Round ads, a game must not:

• contain illegal content, sexual content involving minors, or content that is hateful, extremist or glorifies real-world violence;
• be pornographic or primarily sexual;
• infringe someone else's intellectual property (for example, an unlicensed copy or clone of another game, or pirated assets);
• run on a site the publisher doesn't control, or be wrapped or framed by someone else's site without permission;
• contain malware, or deceptive or abusive monetisation; or
• misrepresent its rating or audience.

Games with user-generated content, such as player names or chat, are allowed, but the publisher must moderate it in line with the law and its own rules.

Enforcement

If something breaks this policy, we may, depending on how serious it is: ask for a fix; reject or remove a creative; pause a campaign or a game; block a brand from a game or category; withhold or reverse charges or earnings tied to the breach; or suspend or close the account. We will tell you what happened and why, unless the law or a safety risk prevents us. You can ask us to reconsider by replying to our notice.

Report an ad or a game

Ad-policy and brand-safety contact: Aidan Wolf. Email aidan@dreampark.app with the game's address, the brand, and what you saw (a screenshot helps). Publishers can pause a format or the whole game straight away from the dashboard. We aim to respond to reports about games with young audiences within [Decision: Target response time for reports (e.g. 1 business day)].