Privacy & Accounts

A Small Account For Your Games And 1UPs

GameCrunch.net, formerly CheatRZ.com, stores your username, the information needed to verify your passkeys, secure sign-in sessions, the version and acceptance time of the Terms of Service for new signups, and the games and platforms on your Watchlist. Your Watchlist stays private. When you give a story a 1UP, an account-linked record prevents duplicate votes, lets you remove it, and provides your private 1-UP History in your account. Voter identities and individual histories are not published.

Signup does not ask for your real name, birthday, email address, or phone number. Use a nickname for your username. Your fingerprint, face data, device PIN, and passkey private key are not sent to the site.

What The Stored Information Does

Account information is used to sign you in, keep your Watchlist available on other devices, and protect the account. It is not used for advertising profiles or sold. Passkey labels and the times they were added or last used help you manage access. Recovery codes are stored as a one-way hash; the readable code is shown to you only when it is created.

Sign-in cookies are necessary for your account. Account sign-ins are remembered on that browser or installed app for up to 30 days, unless you sign out or clear its cookies. Owner access to the control panel requires passkey verification again after eight hours; this does not sign the owner out of the rest of the site. Account security changes require recent passkey verification. Unfinished signup and passkey requests expire after five minutes. IP addresses are processed for connection security and short-lived request limits; account tables do not store them.

Visitor Analytics

Public news pages record page views, a separate visit identifier, referral website, and broad browser and device categories. Visits expire after 30 minutes of inactivity. Page-view analytics records are kept for up to 90 days and are not linked to your account, Watchlist, or 1UPs. Page-view analytics exclude account, recovery, and control-panel pages. Separate daily totals count completed account signups and deletions without keeping usernames or account identifiers; these aggregate totals are retained after an account is deleted. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control are respected.

On Your Device

This browser remembers up to 500 recently opened stories to distinguish them in the feed. These reading indicators expire after 90 days and return to normal when a story receives new coverage. These reading indicators stay on your device, are not sent to GameCrunch.net, and can be removed by clearing the site’s browser storage.

Your choice of light or dark mode is saved in a preference cookie on this browser for up to one year. If you change it while signed in, the choice is also saved to your account and restored when you sign in on another browser or device. Light mode is the default for new visitors. This preference is not linked to visitor analytics.

When you sign in, temporary information in that browser tab remembers your return page and reading position for up to 30 minutes. If you started by adding a game to your Watchlist or giving a 1UP, it also remembers that action. It helps return you to where you left off and is not included in visitor analytics.

Your Choices

Stop watching games on Releases or select a story’s 1UP button again to remove your vote. In account settings, you can add or remove passkeys, replace your recovery code, sign out, or delete your reader account. Deletion removes the account, its Watchlist, any retired story bookmarks, and its 1UPs from the active database. Records from the retired story-bookmark feature are no longer displayed or added, but may remain until account deletion. Restricted operational backups rotate separately and may temporarily retain deleted records.

With no email address or identity documents on file, an account cannot be recovered using a username alone. Keep a backup passkey or recovery code. Public stories and the release calendar are available without creating an account.

Linked Websites And Images

Article links, official game links, and cover images may connect to their publishers or image hosts. Those services receive connection information and have their own privacy practices. Calendar exports contain the selected game titles, platforms, and release dates; downloaded files do not update automatically.