Short version: no account, no ad network, and analytics stays off until you say otherwise.
DMG Forge has no login and no user database. Bookmarks, achievements, XP, and course progress are all stored in your browser's local storage and never leave your device.
If you accept the cookie banner, we load Google Analytics via Google Tag Manager to see which content gets read, which links get clicked, and whether the site's features are used. This tells us which articles work and whether unbuilt pages (like the asset store) are worth building — it doesn't identify you personally. We don't send GA4 your email, IP address, or any visitor identifier.
Until you accept, GA4 runs in a cookie-less, consent-denied mode that sends only aggregate pings with no persistent identifier. Declining keeps it fully off. You can change your choice at any time by clearing this site's data in your browser and reloading — the banner will reappear.
If you sign up for the newsletter or leave a comment, we store your email as a one-way SHA-256 hash, not as plain text — we can check whether an address already signed up, but we can't read it back out. Comments are held for moderation before they appear publicly.
Links to itch.io, the Unity Asset Store, and similar destinations carry a short-lived tag used only to measure that the click happened — it is not sent to analytics as part of the URL and does not identify you across sites.