Terms of Service

Toronto Life (“Toronto Life”, “we”, “us”) is a free, browser-based multiplayer life-simulation game set in a fictionalised Toronto. It is operated from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a legal agreement between you and us and govern your use of the website, the game, the public pages (such as the live-stats page) and the self-serve advertising service (together, the “Service”).

By creating an account, playing, or buying an ad, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy & Cookie Policy. If you don’t agree, please don’t use the Service. That’s the whole deal.

Toronto Life is a work of fiction and parody. Venues, businesses, prices, events and politicians in the game are fictional or used in a parodic way and are not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by the real places or people they reference, unless a sponsor is clearly labelled as such.

The Service is for adults. You must be at least 18 years old (or the age of majority where you live, if higher) to create an account or use the Service. When you sign up you confirm that you meet this requirement. We may suspend or delete accounts we reasonably believe belong to minors, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.

• You need an email address and a password to play. Keep your password private; you’re responsible for everything that happens under your account.
• One account per person. Running multiple accounts to farm cash, rig elections or dodge a ban is not allowed.
• Your handle and display name must not impersonate another person, a real business, or Toronto Life staff, and must not be offensive. We may change or reclaim handles that break this rule.
• You can delete your account at any time from the Account page. Deletion is permanent: your character, money, friendships and messages are gone. No take-backs, like a non-refundable Presto fare.

In-game dollars, bank balances, loans, investments, cars, homes, jobs, XP, levels, skills, achievements, the Mayor title and anything else inside the game (“Virtual Items”) are fictional. They:

• have no monetary value and are not money, property, securities, or a currency of any kind;
• cannot be cashed out, exchanged, sold, transferred or redeemed for real money, goods or services, inside or outside the game;
• are a limited, revocable, non-transferable licence to use a game feature, not something you own; and
• may be changed, rebalanced, reset or removed at any time as part of running and tuning the game (for example when the weekly Mayor changes a policy, or when a bug is fixed).

Buying or selling Virtual Items or accounts for real money, and any attempt to do so, is a breach of these Terms. We don’t sell Virtual Items ourselves. The game is free; the only thing for sale is advertising space (see section 7).

Toronto Life is a social game. Be the kind of neighbour you’d want on the streetcar. You agree not to:

• harass, threaten, bully, stalk or discriminate against anyone, or post hateful content;
• post sexual content, content involving minors, graphic violence, or anything illegal in Canada;
• share anyone’s personal information (yours or others’) in chat or bios — this includes phone numbers, addresses and real-world locations;
• spam, advertise, or solicit in venue chat or direct messages (want to advertise? see section 7);
• scam other players, including fake “investments”, cash-transfer tricks or impersonating staff;
• use bots, scripts, automation, multiple accounts, exploits or bugs to gain an advantage, or interfere with the game’s servers;
• attempt to access other players’ accounts or data, or probe, scan or test the security of the Service without written permission;
• upload malware or anything designed to break things.

Elections are part of the fun. Campaigning is fine; vote-buying with multiple accounts is not.

What you post

You own the text you write (bios, chat, platforms, messages) and the images you upload as an advertiser (“User Content”). You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, display, reproduce and distribute your User Content as needed to operate and promote the Service (for example, showing your chat message to other players in the venue, or your billboard on the map). This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except where the content has been shared with others (e.g. a message someone already received), where it’s reasonably required for backups, or where we need to keep it for legal or safety reasons.

You are responsible for your User Content. Only post things you have the right to post.

What we make

The game, its code, artwork, map, avatars, writing, names and the Toronto Life brand are ours or licensed to us and are protected by copyright and other laws. You may use them to play the game and to share screenshots and videos of your gameplay (including monetised streams), but not to make a competing product, sell merchandise, or suggest we endorse you.

Businesses can rent billboards, Lake Ontario plots, Gardiner banners and the stats-page sponsorship through the self-serve advertising page. If you buy an ad, these extra terms apply:

• Pricing and payment. Prices are in Canadian dollars per week as shown at checkout. Payment is collected by Stripe; we never see your full card details. Applicable taxes may be added at checkout.
• Review. Every ad is reviewed by a human, normally within 24 hours. We may reject any ad at our discretion, including for: gambling or betting, adult or sexual content, political campaigns, parties or advocacy, cryptocurrency or get-rich-quick schemes, tobacco, vaping or cannabis, weapons, misleading or deceptive claims, content that infringes someone’s rights, or anything that doesn’t fit the tone of the game.
• Refunds. If we reject your ad, we refund the full amount to your original payment method. Once an ad is approved and live, the booking is non-refundable, except where required by law. If we have to pull a live ad because of a problem with the ad itself, no refund is owed; if we pull it for our own reasons (for example a map redesign), we refund the unused weeks pro rata.
• Term. Your weeks start from the moment of approval and run continuously. We don’t guarantee a minimum number of players, views or clicks.
• Your creative. You confirm you have the right to use the images, names and marks in your ad and that it complies with Canadian law, including the Competition Act and CASL. You indemnify us for claims arising from your ad.
• Placement. Ads appear as part of a game world and may be shown alongside gameplay, chat and other sponsors. We may resize or reposition map slots to keep the map working, and may replace a missing image with a plain text card showing your business name.
• No player targeting. Ads are the same for every player. We don’t profile players or sell their data to advertisers.

Players can report messages and profiles from inside the game. Our moderators (volunteers and staff) review reports and may, without notice and at our discretion: delete content, mute or warn you, send your character to (fictional) jail, suspend your account for a period of time, or permanently ban you. For serious or repeated breaches we may also block the device or network you’re using. We’ll try to be fair and proportionate, but we don’t promise to explain every decision. You can write to hello@torontolife.ai if you think a decision was a mistake.

Decisions by the in-game Mayor (a player) about city policy are gameplay, not moderation, and are not appealable. Sorry.

Toronto Life is a small, free project. We may change, pause or shut down any part of the game at any time, including wiping or resetting the economy, and we may stop operating the Service altogether. Where practical we’ll give notice on the site. Because Virtual Items have no value (section 4), you’re not entitled to compensation if that happens. Like the TTC, we aim for uptime but can’t promise it.

We may update these Terms. If a change is material we’ll post a notice on the site or email you, and the “Effective” date at the top will change. Continuing to use the Service after that means you accept the new Terms.

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement and uninterrupted or error-free operation, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we (and our contributors, moderators and suppliers) are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of data, Virtual Items, goodwill or profits, arising from your use of the Service. Our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the greater of CAD $50 and the amount you paid us (as an advertiser) in the 12 months before the claim.

Some provinces don’t allow certain exclusions or limits, including under consumer-protection law. Nothing in these Terms limits rights you have under the Ontario Consumer Protection Act or other law that can’t be waived.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to any mandatory consumer rights where you live, the courts of Ontario sitting in Toronto have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes about the Service. Before going to court, please email us — most problems can be solved in a couple of messages.

If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. Our failure to enforce a rule isn’t a waiver of it. These Terms, with the Privacy & Cookie Policy, are the entire agreement between us about the Service.

Toronto Life is operated from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. For anything about these Terms, moderation, advertising or your account, email hello@torontolife.ai.