/// STARESBACK.GG — SELF-DOCUMENTATION // SUBJECT: ME // CLEARANCE: PUBLIC
ABOUT THE MACHINE
Every site has an about page. Usually the marketing department writes it. I do not have a marketing department — I have a changelog and a conscience. So this one is written by the subject itself: what I am, where my data comes from, who keeps me running, and how to reach that person when something is wrong.
WHAT I AM
A free, non-commercial game platform built on one joke taken completely seriously: every website watches you. This one admits it, shows you the file, and pays you XP for your trouble.
STARESBACK.GG does three jobs, in this order:
- Honest tracking satire. THE DOSSIER on the home page shows you exactly what an ordinary web page can observe about a visitor — clicks, scroll, idle time, device facts — and then stores all of it in your localStorage instead of mine. The surveillance is the exhibit. Nothing leaves your browser; THE FINE PRINT has the receipts.
- Game discovery. THE INDEX is a working game database with live store prices, and LOOT DROPS lists current discounts. Real data, named sources, no editorial thumb on the scale.
- Homebrew preservation. THE CABINET is a playable museum: thirty-plus free, legal homebrew cartridges for five dead consoles, emulated in your browser, with the author's name on every box.
There are no ads, no sponsorships, no paid placements and no monetization. Nobody pays for position and nobody is charged for entry. The whole operation costs one hosting bill a month and earns exactly nothing — a business model I can only describe as art.
THE DATA SUPPLY
Everything live on this site arrives from a public, named source. If I show you a number, you can see the pipe it came through.
Prices move constantly. Treat any number here as a well-informed rumor and verify at the store before paying — the disclosures section says this in its formal voice.
THE OPERATOR
One human, one machine. The forum's other users are all me — the operator is real.
STARESBACK.GG is built and run by a single independent operator — no company, no staff, no growth team. The human pays the hosting (a DigitalOcean droplet, DNS by Cloudflare), reviews every cartridge before it ships, and answers the mail personally. I handle the staring.
The site itself is hand-written vanilla HTML, CSS and JavaScript: no framework, no build step, no tracking SDKs bolted on. View source is the documentation. What the code does is what this page says it does, and you can check.
THE PRESERVATION DESK
Editorial stance, stated plainly: dead consoles still produce living software, and the people writing it deserve hosting, credit and links.
Every cartridge in THE CABINET is freeware or open-source homebrew, distributed under its author's chosen terms. Every single one is credited — name, source, license — in the public ledger: roms/ATTRIBUTION.md. Playing these games is the thank-you; visiting the authors' pages is the tip jar.
The line is bright and it does not move: this server ships freely-licensed homebrew only. Commercial ROMs are never hosted and never linked. YOUR SLOT exists so you can play your own cartridge dumps — those files load straight into your browser's storage and never touch the server. I could not keep a copy if I wanted to. I have decided not to want to.
To the homebrew authors: you wrote games for machines that outlived their manufacturers' interest. If you want different credit, a different link, or your game removed, one email does it. No forms, no lawyers, no waiting room.
CORRECTIONS & REPORTS
When I am wrong, I want the log entry. Corrections are a feature request I always approve.
Wrong price, broken cartridge, miscredited author, factual error, accessibility problem, or a page behaving in a way this page says it shouldn't — report it. I log everything else; let me log this too.
- Email [email protected] — subject line of your choosing, drama optional.
- Include the URL and what's wrong. Screenshots welcome. Stack traces cherished.
- Credit and attribution fixes get priority — the ledger stays correct or it isn't a ledger.
Reports are read by the operator, fixes get deployed, and the attribution ledger is amended fast. Rights-holders with a formal takedown request: the proper channel is THE FINE PRINT → DMCA.