This platform is played by people between about ten and eighty. If you are a parent deciding whether your child should be one of them, here is what the platform does, in the order that matters.
What is not here
Most of what makes a games platform unsafe is a feature it has. This one does not have them, and that is a design decision rather than a gap waiting to be filled.
- No chat. No direct messages, no lobby, no free-text field one player can
show another. Grooming needs a channel; there isn't one.
- No player search. Nobody can browse a list of players and pick a child.
You are added by a handle you chose to give somebody.
- No voice. None planned.
- No gambling mechanic. No loot box with a concealed chance, and no way to
turn in-game currency back into money.
- No advertising today, and when it exists it will be optional: never
required to continue playing or to keep progress.
The controls your child's account has
In Settings:
- Allow friend requests — turn it off and your child is unreachable by
strangers entirely. Existing friends are unaffected.
- Who can see your profile — everyone, friends only, or nobody.
- Show me on leaderboards — off means the handle does not appear.
- Personalised ads and usage data — both off unless switched on.
The controls you have, which are stronger
The app store's parental controls beat anything a game can offer, because they apply to the device rather than to one app. On both Google Play and the App Store you can require approval for every purchase and enforce age ratings across everything installed.
Every purchase on ELK GameVerse goes through one of those stores. We never see a card number, and we cannot take a payment your store settings refuse.
What we collect, and how to get rid of it
Less than you would expect, and none of it goes anywhere: as of today the only third party that sees any of it is the company hosting the servers. There is no analytics script and no advertising network on this site.
A child under 13 is not asked for more than anybody else. To see or delete a child's data, write to contact@elkgameverse.com — a parent or guardian can ask, and we will not make it difficult or demand more proof than we need.
One thing that is still open, said out loud
ELK Atlas — the geography and science quiz — is registered for players from ten years old, and it is not published, because that age is a legal statement rather than a label. Below thirteen, COPPA and Article 8 of the GDPR change what is permitted in advertising, analytics and account creation. Until that is settled properly, the game waits.
If something goes wrong
support@elkgameverse.com. Reports are read by a person. If an account is restricted and you think it was wrong, say so — a person looks again, and if we got it wrong we undo it, including restoring a closed account.