Plain words on coins, tribute, refunds, and your realm. Last updated 2026-08-11.
serf.games ("serf", "we") hosts on-demand multiplayer game servers ("realms"). You summon a realm, play, and pay only for the hours the realm is running. When nobody plays, the realm sleeps and costs nothing.
serf is in invite-gated beta. Features, prices, and supported games can change while we build.
One account per invitation. Keep your credentials to yourself; you are responsible for what happens under your account.
You must provide a working email address — it is how we send receipts, low-balance warnings, and account notices.
Your treasury holds coins, a prepaid balance denominated in US dollars ($1 = 1 coin). Coins are a prepayment for hosting services, not money, deposits, or investments. Coins you buy never expire. Promotional grants can carry a stated expiry — the Founding Charter's trial coin, for example, expires 30 days after it is granted — and any expiry is shown in your treasury before it happens.
A realm bills at the hourly rate shown when you summon it. Billing starts only when the realm is actually running and joinable — a failed boot is never charged. When you summon or wake a realm, the first hour is reserved from your balance; when the session ends, any unused remainder returns to your balance automatically.
If your balance runs out mid-session, the session ends cleanly and your world is saved. Worlds are never deleted because a treasury ran dry.
Each realm's metered charges stop for the rest of the calendar month (UTC) once they reach the realm's monthly cap — 60 hours at the realm's hourly rate. The cap applies automatically per realm; there is no recurring charge, nothing to enroll in, and nothing to cancel.
Anyone with a realm's court link can contribute tribute — a one-time payment into that realm owner's treasury to help keep the realm running.
Tribute is a gift toward the realm's hosting. It is not a subscription, not a deposit, not an investment, and grants the contributor no ownership, rights, or services from serf or the realm owner.
Tribute is non-refundable — to the contributor and to the realm owner alike. In the owner's treasury, tribute (together with promotional coin) is spent first against play charges and is never paid out as cash. If an account closes with tribute remaining, that remainder is not paid out.
Coins you bought with your own card (top-ups) that remain unspent are refundable on request — write to support@serf.games and we refund to the original payment method via Stripe.
Not refundable: tribute received from others; promotional coin (signup and founding grants, the Steward's match, and bonus coin included in coin packs); and charges for server time already delivered.
Session refunds happen automatically and are separate from cash refunds: the unused remainder of a prepaid hour always returns to your coin balance when a session ends.
If a charge looks wrong, contact support@serf.games first — most issues are fixed faster than a dispute resolves.
A chargeback filed against credited funds may lead us to pause the affected realms or account while it is resolved, and forfeits any remaining promotional or tribute balance associated with the disputed credit.
World save data is yours. You can export it anytime (Export World) — the files are standard game saves, usable outside serf.
While your account is active we keep world backups so a dismissed or interrupted realm can be restored. You can ask us to delete your account and data at support@serf.games.
Realms are for hosting the game they were summoned for. No abuse of the infrastructure, no unlawful content, no attempts to disrupt other realms or the platform. We may suspend accounts that do.
serf is a beta service provided as-is, without an uptime guarantee. Pay-per-play realms run on interruptible cloud capacity; on the rare interruption your world is saved automatically and the realm can be re-summoned. We work hard to keep sessions smooth, but we cannot promise uninterrupted service.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, serf's total liability for any claim related to the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the three months before the claim. We are not liable for indirect or consequential damages, including lost game progress beyond the backups we keep.
We may update these terms as the service evolves; material changes will be announced by email or in the app, and the date above always reflects the current version. Continuing to use serf after a change means you accept it.
Questions, refund requests, disputes, deletion requests: support@serf.games.