Content & player safety
Our content and player safety guidelines ensure every game on Poki is welcoming, fair, and appropriate for a broad audience. If your game doesn't align with these standards, it won't be accepted or may be removed.
Poki is a playground for everyone, including kids. That shapes what content we can and can't work with, and why we're stricter than you might expect.
Why we're careful
Two reasons. First, player safety: our audience spans all ages and backgrounds, and everything on Poki has to feel safe and comfortable for all of them. Second, advertising: both Poki and its developers depend on our ad partners, and every game needs to be something an advertiser is comfortable placing their brand next to.
What's out of scope
Games with themes that aren't safe for an audience of all ages. The most common examples:
- Bullying, abuse, stereotypes, or sexism
- Graphic violence, including open or infected wounds and visible body fluids
- Sustained scary themes
- Sexual content or inappropriate clothing
- Cheating, gambling, alcohol, tobacco, or other offensive material
Checked before testing
Every new game version goes through a content moderation check before it can enter testing (unless the game is already in QA, Soft Release, or Global Release). It's how we make sure everything reaching players, even test audiences, meets these standards.
Player interaction
Chat systems expose players, especially younger ones, to real risks, so games can't include them. Want players to express themselves to each other? An emoji system works well and keeps everyone safe. See the external resources policy for the details.
Quality guidelines
Poki is a highly curated platform. Above all, we focus on games our players are proven to enjoy. Beyond that, we look for games that are original, high-quality, and add something new to the web games space.
What Poki loves to see
- Originality: fresh gameplay ideas, or a creative twist on familiar mechanics. Clear differentiation matters most in crowded genres. Building something trend-inspired? See Trends & trend-driven content below.
- Web-first: designed for the web as a primary platform, not a mobile port.
- Polish: visual cohesion, pleasant animations, responsive and consistent UX, and feedback loops that lift the core experience.
- Wholesome and inclusive: family-friendly themes that welcome players of all ages and backgrounds.
Common reasons we decline
This list isn't exhaustive, but beyond unsafe content and cloned IP, these are the most frequent quality reasons we pass on a game:
- Buggy or broken gameplay
- Excessive load size or poor performance
- Confusing UX, or poor and inconsistent graphics
Take special care with AI-heavy production; see Working with AI below.
Accessibility
When reviewing your game, please take a moment to consider accessibility, especially around control schemes. Not all players can use standard keyboard inputs such as WASD. Where possible, we encourage supporting alternative control methods like mouse only input, drag steering, auto acceleration, or customizable keys.
Controls are the core of gameplay, and offering flexible input options can make the difference between someone being able to play or being completely excluded. Small adjustments can significantly broaden your audience and improve fairness and inclusivity.
Inspired, not imitated
Direct copies and clones are never accepted; they violate our Terms & Conditions. Games inspired by known genres and ideas are welcome, as long as they contribute something new. When a game feels close to another title, we assess these dimensions:
| Dimension | ❌ Clone | ✅ Inspired |
|---|---|---|
| Art style | Near-identical visuals, colors, themes | Reimagined style or a completely different theme |
| Core mechanics | Copied loop, goals, and inputs | A unique mechanic, twist, or genre blend |
| Progression & economy | Same structure, pacing, monetization | Original level flow and progression logic |
| UI, icons, audio | Replicated layout, colors, or audio cues | A distinct interface with custom assets |
| Characters | Same designs, animations, silhouettes | Original characters, no IP infringement |
| Name & thumbnail | Intentionally similar to ride search terms | Presentation focused on your own content |
Games that walk the parody line may be taken down on legal request or limited in marketing. Templates and asset flips with little modification don't qualify as original work either. Use special care with AI-heavy production; see Working with AI below.
If your game falls short
We love developers who iterate with us, and fixing issues is often possible: add innovation where a game feels too similar, remove or reframe mildly inappropriate content, or polish unfinished assets. We only reconsider after significant improvement, and two things are non-negotiable: misused IP and adult themes mean immediate rejection, and strong metrics never override the quality guidelines. We try to be transparent, but we can't always go into detail about why a game was declined.
Working with AI
Poki encourages creative experimentation, and that includes thoughtful use of AI tools. The golden rule: AI should empower, not shortcut. We want developers who use AI well, not developers who rely on it blindly.
Where the bar sits
Experimenting with templates, inspiration, and AI tools while prototyping is normal. But before your game enters a player fit or web fit test, it should reflect your unique perspective and meaningful improvements beyond the base tooling. The more non-original material your game leans on, the higher the risk it won't be accepted after the web fit test, and we reserve the right to decline any game that lacks originality or doesn't add to the diversity of the platform, even if it functions well — as a quick check, “adds to diversity” means offering a mechanic, setting, or angle not already well-represented on Poki, not just a variation on an existing hit.
Before you submit
- Visuals are clean, sharp, and consistent.
- No AI watermarks or prompt text visible anywhere.
- All dialogue reviewed for grammar, pacing, and tone.
- Everything is playtested. No untested generated content ships.
Do and don't, per craft
| Area | ✅ Do | ❌ Don't |
|---|---|---|
| Thumbnails | Match the art style of the actual game; blend tools intentionally | Mismatched patchwork styles, or misleading art that isn't the game |
| In-game visuals | Use AI for concepts, then heavily edit into one cohesive direction | Raw output dropped in as-is, watermarks, or "Mario-style" prompts to dodge originality. AI art doesn't make a clone original |
| UI | Generated menus and icons refined to match the game | Unedited components that clash with the art direction |
| Levels | Generation to speed up creation, with every level tested and balanced by hand | Publishing levels exactly as generated, skipping QA because "the AI made it" |
| Narrative | AI for brainstorms and drafts, humans for the rewrite | Copy-pasted scripts with inconsistent tone |
| Code | AI for boilerplate, you for testing, optimizing, and owning the logic | Shipping untested generated code |
Should you give credit?
Check the terms of the tools you use; some require credit or restrict commercial use. When in doubt, transparency is appreciated, especially for visibly AI-style art, AI-written text, or LLM-assisted code. A simple line works: "Some UI art generated with Midjourney and refined in Photoshop."
Trends & trend-driven content
Staying on top of trends is part of making great web games, and we fully encourage it. Trends are great fuel for creative, fun games. They're not an excuse for rushed, low-effort, or repetitive content.
What we look for
- An enjoyable, polished experience, even when some depth is reasonably traded for speed to catch the moment.
- Something unique added to the trend, not a collection of memes, viral challenges, or tropes without meaningful gameplay underneath.
- Games that feel too derivative may be declined even when they function well; originality and diversity of content always apply.
Oversaturation
We actively manage variety on the platform. When a genre or trend gets crowded, we may decline additional similar submissions: overlapping games fragment the audience and drag each other's performance down. Approach a trend from a fresh angle that evolves it, rather than replicating what's already well represented.
Working together on trends
We're working on ways to share trend insights with the developer community proactively, and we're open to input on these guidelines. As trends evolve, so will our approach, balancing creative freedom with long-term content diversity.