Content Policy

Advertising within Mods

Any kind of advertising should keep the user experience in mind.

• blocking/timed UI elements/popups
• embedded advertising platforms serving video or image ads

• an unobtrusive link/button that the player must explicitly click in a part of the mod's interface
• an in-game chat message as a direct result of interacting with the mod some number of times

In general, a player should not encounter a mod's advertising unless they are interacting with that mod, and recurring advertising should be preventable via a clearly visible mod configuration option.

These lists of allowed/disallowed methods are not exhaustive, whether some specific advertising is allowed will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Content Disclosures

As a platform, we have a responsibility to ensure players can make informed decisions about the content with which they engage. To facilitate this, we require mod developers to provide some information about their mods' behaviors and creation. Mod developers are responsible for keeping their disclosures up to date as policies evolve.

Network Activity Transparency

Mods are required to clearly and explicitly state, in the mod's "Network Activity Transparency" section on Ficsit.app, any external network connectivity that will occur when using the mod. Multiplayer interaction and game-to-game synchronization are the only exceptions.

• API integrations with 3rd party services such as Patreon
• Communications with remote servers for which the player did not expressly opt-in

Links within the game to external sites or services should be explicitly marked as such, before the player follows them.

Generative AI Transparency

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rapidly changing, legally and morally murky technology with an unclear future. As a result, expect this section the be updated as technology and laws develop.

In order to empower players to make their own informed decisions about the mods they play with, we require mod developers to be transparent about their usage of AI in the mod creation process.

Mods are required to clearly and explicitly state, in the mod's "AI Usage Transparency" section on Ficsit.app, the purposes for which any AI tools have been used in the creation of the mod or its content. This includes both the mod's in-game content and the content displayed on Ficsit.app.

• If mod art assets (textures, icons, models, sounds, etc.) were created with AI assistance
• If Ficsit.app modpage assets (logos, images, etc.) were created with AI assistance
• If text content of the Ficsit.app modpage and patch notes were created with AI assistance
• If the mod allows the player to access generative AI at runtime (It is up to the mod developer to implement guard rails that prevent players from creating or being exposed to content that violates any other Ficsit.app policies)
• If translations of the mod to other languages were created with AI assistance
• If portions of the mod's source code were directly created by generative AI models
• If any of the mod's dependencies use AI and are hidden from normal display, the depending mod should restate the disclosure information (That is, do not use the mod dependency system to try to cover up AI usage)

• Creation of voice lines for the character ADAlaunch via the approach covered in the modding documentation. (Because ADA's original voice lines are created using WaveNetlaunch, a generative AI technology, the only way for mods to ensure consistency with the base game's ADA is to use the same systems.) Using a model other than WaveNet to create ADA audio must still be disclosed.
• Usage of AI by downstream dependencies of the mod, or its development tools, over which the mod developer has no reasonable level of control.
  Example: core Unreal Engine libraries, IDE intellisense suggestion ranking, search engine results

Due to the fast-changing nature of the field, we may work with developers to update disclosures for reasons not yet listed here.

Paid Content

Mods can advertise the payment or donation platform of their choice¹ as long as it does not create any intrusive advertisement experience for a player. If an API is used, it must be included in the description of the mod as part of the network activity transparency. If a link is displayed in game, the full url must be visible, (as this is for safety's sake, no url shorteners may be used).

Mods cannot lock features behind any form of payment, donation, or subscription. Mods can have early access versions of itself behind payment, donation, or subscription as long as the intent is to release the early access version to the public within a reasonable timeframe.

Mods cannot include a 'remove ads' payment, donation, or subscription feature.

Violent, Harmful, and Explicit Content

Until the platform can responsibly hide content from minors using some form of age-gating, mods with violent, harmful, explicit, gory, or otherwise adult-only content are expressly forbidden.