Game Server Terms

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

These Game Server Terms are an agreement between you (you, the customer) and Elite Gaming Fest (we, us, EGF), for the rental of game server hosting ordered through this portal. They apply in addition to the portal's general terms and privacy notice. Where the two differ on anything about game servers, these terms apply.

You agree to these terms when you tick the box on the order form. You must be 18 or older, or have permission from a parent or guardian who accepts these terms on your behalf.

2. What you are buying

A slice of a shared physical machine — memory, CPU allocation, storage and backup slots — running a game server, together with a control panel you use to manage it. Your server is hosted in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Servers are rented month to month. There is no minimum term and no contract beyond the month you have paid for.

The resources listed on your plan are the limits your server may use. Your plan is a share of a shared machine: it is not a dedicated server, and it is not a guarantee of a specific processor, a dedicated IP address or a fixed port.

3. Your account and access

You are responsible for everything that happens on your account and on your server, including anything done by people you give access to (panel sub-users, SFTP details, in-game admin passwords). Keep your credentials to yourself, use a unique password, and tell us immediately if you think someone else has gained access.

We may access your server when it is necessary to provide, secure, repair or bill for the service, to investigate a suspected breach of these terms, or where the law requires it.

4. Ordering, provisioning and your cooling-off rights

An order becomes a contract once your payment succeeds. Your server is then created automatically, usually within minutes. We will email you the connection details as soon as it is ready.

Immediate provisioning and section 44 of the ECT Act. The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act normally gives a consumer seven days to cancel an electronic transaction. By ticking the consent box at checkout you ask us to start providing the service immediately and you accept that this cooling-off right falls away once we have done so. Our own money-back promise in clause 7 still applies, and nothing here limits your rights under the Consumer Protection Act.

If we cannot provision your server — for example a technical fault on our side that we cannot fix — we will tell you and refund you in full.

5. Fees, billing and renewals

• Prices are quoted in South African Rand and include VAT where it applies. All prices in ZAR.
• Payments are processed by Paystack (Visa, Mastercard, Instant EFT, SnapScan). We never see or store your full card details.
• Your first payment covers your first month and any once-off setup fee shown at checkout.
• Auto-renew (card). Your card is charged automatically on the same day each month until you cancel. You can switch off auto-renew, change your card or cancel at any time from your dashboard.
• Manual (EFT / SnapScan). You pay each month yourself from your dashboard. We send you a reminder 5 and 1 days before the renewal date. If payment does not arrive by the renewal date, clause 6 applies.
• Add-ons (extra RAM, CPU, storage or backup slots) are billed monthly alongside the plan. The price of an add-on is locked to what you paid for it; a later price change only affects new orders and new upgrades.
• We may change plan prices with at least one month's notice, taking effect on your next renewal. If you do not accept a price change, cancel before that renewal and you will not be charged the new price.

6. Late payment, suspension and termination

If a renewal is not paid by its due date, your server is marked past due and we will try to collect and remind you. A server that is still unpaid 3 days after its renewal date is suspended: it goes offline and your players cannot connect, but your world, configuration and files are kept.

Pay the outstanding amount and your server is switched back on — your data is untouched. We do not automatically delete suspended servers — we will contact you before terminating one, but do not rely on a suspended server as a backup.

We may also suspend or terminate a server immediately, without a refund, where it is being used in breach of clause 12 (acceptable use), where it puts our network, hardware or other customers at risk, or where we are required to do so by law.

7. Cancelling, and refunds

Cancel from your dashboard at any time. Your server stays online until the end of the month you have already paid for, and is not charged again. You can undo a cancellation before that date. We do not pro-rate a cancellation part-way through a paid month.

Money-back: 48-hour money-back on your first server if it isn't right for you — open a support ticket and we'll refund via Paystack.

Beyond that, time already used is not refundable. If we miss our 99.9% monthly availability target through a fault of our own, ask us for a pro-rata credit for the affected time and we will apply it to your account.

Download anything you want to keep before you cancel. Once a server is terminated its files, worlds and backups are deleted and cannot be recovered.

8. Upgrading and downgrading

You can add resources at any time from your dashboard. Upgrades take effect immediately and are charged pro-rata for the days left in your current month; from the next renewal you pay the new monthly price. Downgrades take effect at your next renewal, so you keep what you have paid for until then. A downgrade that would leave your server with less storage than it is using may fail — reduce your usage first.

9. Availability, maintenance and support

We aim for 99.9% monthly availability of the hosting platform. This is a target we work to, not a guaranteed service level, and it excludes scheduled maintenance, faults in the game itself or its publisher's services, attacks or failures upstream of our network, and anything caused by your own configuration, mods or content.

We may carry out maintenance that requires a restart or short downtime. Where it is planned, we give notice on our Discord and by email where the impact is significant. Urgent security work may happen without notice.

What support covers. Support is provided by ticket on this portal and through our Discord community, in South African hours. Our responsibility is the server itself: that it is powered on, reachable from the internet, running on the resources you paid for, and that its backup features work. See clause 10 for where that ends.

10. Mods, plugins and third-party content

Your server, your rules — mod it however you like. What we look after is the server itself: that it is powered on, reachable from the internet, on the hardware you paid for and backed up. Mods, plugins, modpacks and custom game files sit outside that, so we cannot debug a mod that misbehaves or two mods that disagree. If something goes sideways we will always help you get a clean, running server back — take a backup before you add or update mods and you can roll back yourself in a click.

Some games can be ordered with a mod framework already installed. Installing the framework for you is a convenience — it does not extend our support to the mods you then run on it, or to any modpack, plugin, script or custom game file you add. You are responsible for the licences of anything you install, for keeping it updated, and for the behaviour of code you put on your server.

If a mod makes a server unbootable, unstable or a risk to the machine it shares, we may stop it and ask you to remove or roll back the change. We will always help you get back to a clean, running server.

11. Your data and backups

Your worlds, configuration and files are yours. Your plan includes backup slots you can use and restore yourself from the panel, and you can schedule them. These are a convenience, not an archive. Keep your own copy of anything you cannot afford to lose, especially before you install or update mods, and before you cancel.

We process your personal information in line with the portal's privacy notice and POPIA. Payment details are handled by Paystack and never stored by us.

12. Acceptable use

You may not use a server we host to:

• break South African law, or host, share or link to unlawful content;
• attack, scan, flood, proxy, relay or otherwise interfere with any other network, service or person — including using your server as a source of a denial-of-service attack;
• host or distribute malware, stolen credentials, cracked software or pirated game files;
• run software unrelated to the game server you ordered, such as cryptocurrency mining, general file sharing, VPN or proxy exit nodes, or bulk email;
• deliberately consume more CPU, memory, disk or bandwidth than your plan provides, or evade the limits we set;
• harass, threaten or endanger anyone, or allow your community to be used for that;
• resell the service as your own hosting product without our written agreement.

You must also comply with the game publisher's own terms and end-user licence. Running a server does not give you or your players a licence to the game, and a publisher may change what dedicated servers are allowed to do at any time.

13. Breach, abuse and legal requests

Where we receive a credible abuse report or see a breach of clause 12, we will normally contact you first and give you a reasonable chance to fix it. Where the issue is serious or ongoing — an active attack, unlawful content, or a real risk to other customers — we may suspend the server immediately and tell you afterwards.

We will comply with lawful requests from South African authorities, and with valid takedown notices for infringing content.

14. Liability

We provide the service with reasonable skill and care, but we cannot promise that a game server will never go down or never lose data. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for lost worlds, saves, mods or configuration, for lost profits, revenue, community or goodwill, or for any indirect or consequential loss.

Where we are liable to you for anything connected to a server, our total liability in any twelve-month period is limited to what you paid us for that server in that period. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud.

You agree to cover us for claims brought against us because of content you hosted, code you installed or the way you or your community used a server.

15. Your consumer rights

If you are a consumer, the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 and the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 give you rights that these terms cannot take away. Nothing here is intended to limit them, and where a clause conflicts with those rights, the law wins and the rest of these terms continue to apply.

16. Changes, notices and general

• We may update these terms. Material changes are announced by email or on the portal at least 30 days before they take effect, and apply from your next renewal after that date. The current version always lives on this page.
• Notices to you go to the email address on your account — keep it current. Notices to us go to the address in clause 17.
• You may not transfer your server or this agreement to someone else without asking us first. We may transfer it as part of a sale or reorganisation of our business, on the same terms.
• If a clause is found to be unenforceable, the rest stays in force.
• These terms, the order form and the plan you bought are the whole agreement about your server.
• These terms are governed by South African law, and the South African courts have jurisdiction. Talk to us first — most things are sorted out in a ticket.

17. How to contact us

The fastest route is a ticket: log a support ticket. You can also email info@elitegamingfest.co.za or find us on Discord.

Effective 17 September 2026. Elite Gaming Fest, South Africa.