Important information
If you do not understand this page, please ask your parent or guardian to explain it to you.
We collect information about you in different ways, for example, when you play Dead Take or use this website.
When you register to play Dead Take we will ask you for information about you. We will need to use information we have about you to allow you to play Dead Take or use this website. This means we might need to share your information with people and companies who help us run our games and our website, and who might be based around the world.
People around the world might also see your display name you use when you play Dead Take.
Who are we?
We are Surgent Studios. Our registered office address is at C/O Affect Simpsons Fm, Pentlow, Sudbury, England, CO10 7JT, and our company number is 11744214 (Surgent, we, our, us).
We are a controller of your personal data under data protection legislation which means that we are responsible for how the personal data we hold about you is processed.
We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
How do we collect personal data?
Personal data is collected by us from users playing Dead Take, through various platforms and social media, as well as during job applications and other communications you may have with us.
We collect personal data directly from you. You will provide us with your personal data when you play Dead Take.
You can play Dead Take via Steam or the Epic Game Store. When you play Dead Take on these platforms we will receive your personal data from these platforms.
We receive your personal data including, any information about you that you provide in an online form such as a player support ticket, or a survey or feedback form.
We may also receive your personal data through social media and other online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Discord, Reddit, Instagram, and TikTok when you use tools to tag us and mention us in your posts, statuses, videos, and comments through your accounts on these platforms, and when you otherwise provide us with your personal data on our accounts on these platforms, e.g. when you comment on one of our posts on Facebook or Instagram or when you take part in discussions on our Discord channel.
We may also collect your personal data through Steam when you communicate with us via a Steam forum.
We may also collect your personal data from other individuals who may, for example, mention you in any communications they send to us.
We will receive personal data about you when you take part in a job application process with Surgent Studios.
What personal data do we collect?
We collect personal data when users log in to play Dead Take, including usernames, IDs, gameplay data, device and network information, chat and voice communication content, and information from online forms and social media interactions. This data also extends to hardware details and any personal details shared during job applications.
When you log in to play Dead Take we collect basic log-in information such as your username or information related to your account with Steam and/or Epic such as your username or console ID.
We may attach a unique reference ID to you as a player. This unique reference ID will be different to your console ID.
We will also receive gameplay data, which will include information about your progress and choices you make on Dead Take about your character, statistics, and session time. We may receive data that relate to you and your devices such as your location, IP address, unique device ID, network and computer performance, language, and operating system. We may also receive information relating to your engagement with Dead Take, your preferences or activities on third-party platforms or websites as well as any relevant advertising or other analytics identifiers that our system of third-party providers may produce about you.
We may also receive information about your hardware such as the CPU, RAM, GRAM, graphics card, brand, model, and operating system.
When you complete any online form, we receive the date that you provide in any player support ticket, survey or feedback form.
We may also receive any data that is included in any correspondence you have with our team, including on any online forums, social media correspondence or when an individual mentions you in any correspondence they send to us.
We will receive any personal data you or any third parties (such as recruitment agencies) provide as part of a job application process with Surgent.
How do we use your personal data?
We process your personal data based on lawful bases including fulfilling our contract with you, complying with legal obligations, your consent, and our legitimate interests, while carefully considering your rights and interests. Our processing activities encompass various purposes like facilitating your gameplay experience, verifying your account, delivering marketing materials, analysing advertising effectiveness, handling communications, ensuring network security, and processing job applications.
In accordance with data protection laws, we will only process your personal data if we have a lawful basis for doing so.
In respect of your personal data, these bases are: (i) if it is necessary to provide services to you under the performance of a contract we have with you; (ii) if we are required to do so in accordance with legal obligations; (iii) if you have given your consent; and, (iv) if it is in our legitimate interests to process your personal data, provided that none of these prejudice your own rights, freedoms and interests.
The following is a list of the purposes for which we process your personal data, and the lawful basis on which we carry out such processing.
Necessary for the performance of a contract:
- To facilitate you logging in and playing Dead Take
- Account verification
- Administering a connection between your Steam, Epic or console accounts and Dead Take
- Displaying in-game profiles or display names and leader boards
- To make event/content related information available to you
- To send you service messages and updates about Dead Take
You have given your consent:
- To deliver marketing materials to you, including personalised advertising communications to you
- To process any job applications you make with Surgent
Legitimate interests of understanding the success of our marketing and advertising campaigns:
- To understand when players have interacted with advertising and been directed to our website
- To collect and analyse statistics that provide us with an understanding of the level of success of our marketing activities
Legitimate interests of promoting our offerings, including commercial interests in expanding our business:
- To administer gaming events
- To share anonymised gameplay data with third-party services to analyse and/or publish
Legitimate interests of handling communications:
- To respond to communications, including player support queries received via our support desk, online forums such as Steam or via our support form on our website
Legitimate interests of improving our customer service
- To record and analyse customer communications for training purposes
Legitimate interests in running our business, including preventing data breaches or other misuses of information, preventing and mitigating other legal or reputational risks, and ensuring network security
- To prevent the use of Dead Take in breach of the terms of use or relevant legislation
Legitimate interests of ensuring Dead Take is as enjoyable as possible
- To prepare and analyse statistics relating to the use of Dead Take by you and other users, testing, player feedback and reporting
Legitimate interests of running our business:
- To run our everyday operations, e.g. communications between employees in connection with the provision of our services
- To administer and protect our business and the website including troubleshooting, data analysis and system testing
Legitimate interests of facilitating any such possible or actual transaction or restructuring
- To administer a sale or possible sale of the whole of or part of our business or the restructuring of our business
We may also process your personal data (a) to comply with a legal obligation we are under; and (b) for additional purposes in the future, but only if such purposes are compatible with those listed above and if we believe that the same lawful basis applies.
In certain circumstances, you may be obliged to provide us with your personal data under a statutory or contractual requirement. This might include, but is not limited to, personal data we require to enter into an agreement with you; for tax and accounting purposes; and to enable us to fulfil our compliance and other obligations under relevant legislation or regulation. Failure to provide us with personal data required under a statutory or contractual requirement may prevent us from entering into or performing our obligations under a contract with you.
Information you make available on online platforms and Dead Take
Be aware that anything you post publicly about Dead Take could reveal personal details, and anything posted on Discord or Instagram etc, is openly accessible. Avoid sharing sensitive information on these platforms. Our website may link to third-party content or services, whose privacy practices are not covered by our Privacy Policy, so please review their policies separately.
PLEASE DO NOT SHARE ANY SENSITIVE INFORMATION (FOR EXAMPLE, INFORMATION ABOUT MEDICAL CONDITIONS) ON DEAD TAKE OR OTHER ONLINE FORUMS OR OTHERWISE MAKE IT AVAILABLE TO US OR OTHER PARTIES VIA ANY POSTS OR COMMUNICATIONS.
Our website may, from time to time, contain or connect you with third party content or services. Our Privacy Policy does not cover the activities of these third party sites or companies, so please refer directly to their privacy policies.
Marketing emails
If you consent to receive marketing or game update emails from us, we'll periodically send you information that might interest you. You can unsubscribe at any time using the 'unsubscribe' link in our email footer.
If you have consented to receiving marketing emails from us we will contact you from time to time with information that may be of interest to you.
We would love to stay in touch with you, but we completely understand if you do not want to receive communications from us via email. Our communications will contain an ‘unsubscribe’ feature. This can be used to object to receiving future communications.
If you unsubscribe from our marketing communications, we will maintain a record of your unsubscribe request and associate it with your email address to ensure you do not receive future communications.
When do we disclose your personal data?
We may share your personal data with service providers, contractors, gaming platforms (like Epic, Steam, Xbox, PlayStation), social media platforms for sharing content, external advisors, law enforcements, potential business purchasers or investors, and third parties involved in our recruitment process.
We may disclose your personal data to other parties. We may share your personal data with the following categories of recipients:
- Service providers we use to help us operate our business, including organisations that provide us with technology related services, such as data storage and IT service management services, player support helpdesks and ticket management systems and game backend services.
- Contractors we engage to assist us in providing our services.
- Platforms or consoles you play Dead Take on such as Epic, Steam, Xbox and PlayStation.
- Social media and other online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Discord, Reddit, Instagram and TikTok to communicate with you or to share photos and text that you share via your profiles on these sites, for example, when you tag Surgent on a post that you make and we reshare that post via our profile on a social media site.
- External professional advisors who need to access such information for the purpose of advising us.
- Law enforcement bodies which may have any reasonable requirement to access your personal data, for example, in order to assist with any investigations, when we bring a claim or defend ourselves against a claim that requires the disclosure of personal data.
- Potential purchasers of our business or investors in it (including in the event of insolvency).
- Any third parties involved in the recruitment process for a job opening at Surgent, for example, recruitment agencies.
International transfers
We ensure your data receives protection similar to UK and EEA standards during international transfers, using approved safeguards like specific contractual clauses and government-approved mechanisms.
How long do we keep your personal data for?
Summary: We keep your personal data only as long as needed for its intended purposes and to comply with legal and contractual obligations, considering the data's sensitivity, risk of unauthorized disclosure, and applicable legal requirements.
We will retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collect it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any contractual requirements or other legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the purposes for which we process the personal data, the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, whether we can achieve those purposes through other means and the applicable legal requirements.
Cookies and similar technologies
Our main website uses cookies for essential functions, performance analysis, and advertising (additional terms apply to our careers site).
The data collected includes IP addresses, location, and website activity. We use both session (temporary) and persistent (long-term) cookies.
You can manage these through our website or browser settings, but blocking all cookies may affect website functionality.
Cookies are small pieces of data that online services you use place on your device for record-keeping and identification purposes. Cookies and other similar technologies allow the website to recognise your device and store or access some information about your preferences or actions.
We use different types of cookies and similar technologies (including local storage and session storage technologies) on our website (https://www.surgentstudios.com/).
We currently use the following types of cookies and other technologies on our website, some of which are set by us and some by third party providers:
Necessary:
Those that are necessary for the operation of our website, for example, to distinguish between visitors who have accepted or not accepted non-necessary cookies and similar technologies and to implement cookies according to visitor selection, and which enable core functionality such as security, credentials authentication, network management and accessibility.
Performance:
Those that analyse the use of our website, including to detect and resolve problems with the website and improve our website.
Functional:
Those that are used to provide certain functionalities within our website, for example, to play YouTube videos embedded on our website.
Advertising:
Those that are used to deliver advertisements about our game on third party websites and apps and measure the effectiveness of such advertising.
Information collected by cookies or similar technologies is generally much more limited than the information set out in the “What personal data do we collect?” section above. It may include:
- The IP address used to connect your device or computer to the Internet
- The location of your device or computer
- Information about your activity on our website, for example, information on items you have clicked on
- Device and browser settings and metrics, for example, event errors and time zone settings
- Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) used to gain access to, through and from our website (and relevant information regarding your visits).
Some of the cookies and other similar technologies set on our website may be set by third party service providers. Where we use third party service providers, we ensure that we apply strict privacy settings in their technologies.
We use a combination of session and persistent cookies and other similar technologies. Session cookies and session storage keep track of your current visit and how you navigate the website and persistent cookies and local storage enable our website to recognise you as a repeat visitor when you return. The session technologies will be deleted from your device when you close your browser. Persistent technologies remain on your device after you have left the website.
In addition to being able to refuse non-necessary cookies and other similar technologies through the functionality on our website, you can also manage these technologies through your browser settings.
Most browsers have cookies enabled by default, but you are able to change your settings, which are usually found in the 'options' or 'preferences' menu of your internet browser. Cookie. You can block any cookies from any website by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of some or all cookies. However, if you block all cookies you may not be able to access all or part of our website or use some features of our website. You can also use your browser settings to delete cookies. For more information about cookies please visit https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/online/cookies/
Your rights:
You have several rights under data protection laws, including access to your data, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, portability, withdrawing consent, and lodging complaints with a supervisory authority.
You have the following rights under data protection legislation. If you have any questions about your rights, or you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us atsurgentstudios.com/contact.
We may require you to provide forms of identity should you wish to exercise one of your rights below.
Access: You are entitled to confirmation that we process your personal data and a copy of such personal data.
Rectification: If the personal data we hold about you is incorrect, you have the right for this to be rectified. You may also update your personal data through your account settings.
Erasure: You can request us to erase your personal data if there is no compelling reason to continue processing.
Restriction: You may request a restriction on the processing we undertake on your personal data. This will only apply if we have no lawful basis to process your personal data, your personal data is inaccurate, or to comply with an objection request (see below).
Objection: You may object to our processing of your personal data if our processing is carried out on the basis of legitimate interests. Please note, however, that should we determine that our interests are so compelling as to override your objection we may continue to process your personal data.
You may object to receiving direct marketing at any time.
Portability: You have the right to receive some of your personal data in machine-readable format. This right extends to you being able to request that such data is sent to a third-party controller.
Withdrawing consent: If the lawful basis we rely on to process your personal data is consent you have the right to withdraw this consent. Please contact us atsurgentstudios.com/contact to withdraw consent for the processing of your personal data.
Complaining to a supervisory authority: Further information about your rights can also be obtained from your national data protection regulator – in the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ico.org.uk/). If you have any cause for complaint about our use of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your national data protection supervisory authority, although we would ask that you contact us in the first instance.
Your right to be informed: You can contact us to find out more or to ask any questions you may have about our use of your personal data.
Changes to this Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our practices or for legal reasons. The most current version will always be posted on our website.
Contact Us
For any questions, concerns, or data access requests, please contact us atsurgentstudios.com/contact