Cookie Policy

Effective date: 28 April 2026 · Last reviewed: 28 April 2026

This Cookie Policy explains how gamexplains.com ("we", "us", "the site") uses cookies and similar storage technologies when you visit our pages. It is written in plain English and sits alongside our Privacy Policy — together they form the full picture of how we handle your data when you read our game guides, walkthroughs and explainers.

We are not lawyers and this page is not legal advice. We have, however, written it carefully to comply with the UK GDPR, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), the EU ePrivacy Directive, and the consent guidelines published by the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

1. What is a cookie, really?

A cookie is a small text string a website asks your browser to remember. The browser hands the same string back on every subsequent request, which lets the site recognise the same device across pages. Some cookies live only for a single visit (session cookies); others persist for days, months, or years (persistent cookies).

We also use one or two related technologies that aren't strictly "cookies" but behave the same way for your privacy:

• localStorage / sessionStorage — small key/value strings the browser stores on your device. They never travel back to our servers automatically.
• HTML5 IndexedDB — used by some third-party scripts to cache fonts and game embeds.
• Pixel tags (1×1 transparent images) embedded by ad networks to detect a page view.

For brevity, we refer to all of the above as "cookies" throughout this page.

2. The categories we run

Unlike a typical games portal, gamexplains.com hosts no games of its own — we publish written guides, video reviews and explainer articles. Because of that, our cookie footprint is on the small side. Here is the full list, broken down by purpose.

2.1 Strictly necessary

These cookies are required for the site to function and cannot be turned off without breaking core features. We do not need your consent for them under PECR.

2.2 Analytics (off by default)

We measure aggregate traffic patterns so we know which guides are read and which are ignored. Numbers are anonymised at collection time — we never see your raw IP or a stable device identifier. These cookies only fire after you click "Accept analytics" in the consent banner.

If analytics consent is denied, GA4 still runs in the page but with Consent Mode v2 set to denied, meaning no identifiers are written and the cookie names listed above are simply absent.

2.3 Advertising (off by default)

Ads pay for the editorial work. They are served by Google AdSense, which sets a small number of cookies to frequency-cap impressions and prevent the same banner from showing twice in five seconds. We do not participate in cross-site retargeting and we do not sell or share visit data with third parties for behavioural advertising. The only data sent to Google's ad servers is the page URL, viewport size, and whether you have opted into personalised ads.

If you decline advertising consent, AdSense still serves ads in non-personalised mode (NPA), and the IDE cookie does not get set.

3. How we ask for consent

The first time you visit gamexplains.com from a UK or EU IP address, a banner appears at the bottom of the page with three buttons:

• Accept all — turns on analytics and personalised ads.
• Reject non-essential — keeps only the strictly necessary cookies.
• Customise — lets you toggle each bucket independently.

Your choice is stored in the gx_consent cookie for twelve months. You can change it at any time via the Cookie settings link in our footer. We treat closing the banner without choosing as an implicit "Reject non-essential" — never as silent consent, in line with current ICO guidance.

For visitors outside the UK and EU, analytics and advertising cookies are enabled by default but the same opt-out link is always available in the footer.

4. Do-Not-Track and Global Privacy Control

If your browser sends a DNT: 1 header or a Sec-GPC: 1 header, we treat it as a binding signal and switch the consent state to Reject non-essential automatically. You will still see ads, but in non-personalised mode and without the IDE cookie.

5. Embedded content from third parties

Some of our explainer pages embed YouTube playthrough videos, Steam widget cards, or Discord invite buttons. When you visit a page that contains an embed, the embedded service may set its own cookies under its own domain — not ours — and we have no control over them. We only embed services that publish their own cookie policy, and we use the privacy-enhanced variant whenever it is available (e.g. youtube-nocookie.com instead of youtube.com).

6. How to delete or block cookies

You can clear or block cookies entirely through your browser:

• Chrome: Settings → Privacy and security → Third-party cookies
• Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data
• Safari (macOS): Safari → Settings → Privacy → Manage Website Data
• Safari (iOS): Settings → Apps → Safari → Advanced → Block All Cookies
• Edge: Settings → Cookies and site permissions → Manage and delete cookies

Blocking strictly necessary cookies will stop forms from submitting and the consent banner from remembering your last choice — everything else will continue to work.

7. Where the data goes

Analytics and ad-server data leave the EEA/UK and travel to Google's data centres in the United States, under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the UK Extension. Cloudflare's bot management runs at the edge node closest to you, which is typically inside the EEA for European visitors. We do not share data with any other third party.

8. Children

gamexplains.com is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly target advertising to children and our consent banner blocks personalised ads if the visitor's signals (such as a parental-controlled OS profile) indicate a minor.

9. Changes to this policy

We review this page at least once per quarter and after any material change to our analytics or advertising stack. The "Last reviewed" date at the top of the page tells you when the last review happened. When the substance changes, we re-prompt the consent banner so you can refresh your choice.

10. How to reach us

If you have a question about our cookies — what one of them is doing, or why it's there — write to us via the Contact page or e-mail [email protected]. We aim to reply within five working days.

Under the UK GDPR you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office at any time.