Terms of Use and License

Last updated: [OWNER: the date these terms take effect]

These terms are between you and [OWNER: legal name of the person or company that makes Malbec] (“we”, “us”). Our trader details are on the company page. By installing or using Malbec you agree to them. If you don’t agree, don’t use Malbec, and ask for a refund if you paid.

1. Who sells Malbec

Malbec is sold through Stripe Managed Payments: Stripe ([OWNER: the Stripe legal entity that is merchant of record for buyers, from Stripe’s Managed Payments buyer terms]) sells it to you as the merchant of record, through its checkout, Link. Checkout shows “Sold through Link”. Link’s terms, shown at checkout, cover the purchase: payment, taxes, receipts and the checkout itself. These terms cover Malbec: what you may do with it and what we promise. Your license key comes from us, by e-mail and on the page you see after paying.

LAWYER: Under Stripe Managed Payments, Link’s standardized terms appear in the checkout footer, and we can add links to these terms and our privacy policy in Stripe’s Checkout settings (and, if Stripe’s sandbox accepts it, a required terms checkbox, consent_collection[terms_of_service], decision OD-22). Confirm how these terms and Link’s fit together, the wording “sells it to you as the merchant of record, through its checkout, Link”, who owes the consumer the conformity duties for digital content (Directive 2019/770), and the pre-contract information (Directive 2011/83/EU Article 6(1)(r) and (s): functionality, interoperability, the activation and the 2-Mac limit) that the line next to every Buy button and the Stripe product description give: “Needs the internet once per Mac to activate. Works on 2 Macs at a time. Apple silicon, macOS 26.5 or later.”

2. Your license

When you buy Malbec you get a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to install and use Malbec on Macs that you own or use, 3 at a time. Activating Malbec on a Mac needs the internet once. After that it works offline, with no time limit, and it ends only as section 9 says. To move Malbec to another Mac, choose Deactivate This Mac in Malbec’s Settings › License, or remove a Mac by the link we e-mail you (Manage Macs in Settings › License, or “Lost your key?” on our website), then activate the new one.

Your purchase includes every Malbec update we release, for as long as we make Malbec. There is no subscription and no paid upgrade. If we ever stop making Malbec, we will release a final version that needs no license.

The price is the one shown at checkout, in US dollars, with sales tax or VAT added where it applies. [OWNER: price display, decisions OD-2 and OD-24 in docs/design/licensing-v2.md §5.2 and P1 in docs/legal/README.md. With the Stripe prices set tax-inclusive (OD-2, recommended), replace this sentence with “The price is the one shown on our website and at checkout, in US dollars, including VAT or sales tax where it applies.” If buyers outside the US can pay in their own currency at a converted price (Stripe’s Adaptive Pricing, OD-24), add how that price is made.]

You may not:

share, sell or publish your license key, or use one key on more Macs than it allows;
work around Malbec’s license or trial checks, or change Malbec’s app to do so;
remove copyright, license or trademark notices from Malbec;
use Malbec to play games or run software you don’t have the right to use, or to cheat in online games.

Malbec checks that its own app is the copy we signed. A changed copy of Malbec refuses the six actions that need a license (section 3), so it can’t start games; nothing else happens to it, your license isn’t affected, and installing our own copy again fixes it.

Nothing in this section limits what the open-source licenses in section 4 allow you to do with the parts they cover.

3. The free trial

Malbec is free for 7 days, and the trial starts when you choose. One free trial per Mac. It starts when you choose Start Free Trial, which Malbec offers the first time you use one of the six actions named below, and in Settings › License. Downloading Malbec, setting up stores, bringing games over and changing settings don’t start it. Once started, the trial runs for 7 days (7 × 24 hours) whether you play or not, and it can’t be started again on that Mac (our license server forgets a trial 12 months after it ended); setting your Mac’s clock back doesn’t extend it. Starting the trial registers the Mac with our license server once, so reinstalling Malbec doesn’t start a new trial (our privacy policy says what is sent). If you got a Mac whose trial someone else already used, write to us with the support code from Settings › License and we reset it. After the trial, Play, Install, Open Store, Uninstall in Store, Run an Installer and Run a Windows Program need a license; while a store is already running, Open Store (which brings it to the front) and Uninstall in Store still work for that store. Everything else keeps working without one: setting up stores, bringing games over, adding a game by its folder, settings, diagnostics, updates and quitting games or stores. Malbec never stops a game that is already running.

4. Open-source parts

Malbec’s engine is built from open-source software: Wine, DXMT and other components, with changes from the Recall project and from us. These parts are under their own licenses, listed in Malbec (Settings › About › Licenses and Source Code) and on the licenses page. The complete source code for every engine we ship is on the source page, on the same server as the app.

Nothing in these terms limits any right those licenses give you. In particular, you may modify the engine’s LGPL libraries, use your modified versions with Malbec, and reverse-engineer Malbec as far as needed to debug such modifications (LGPL-2.1 section 6). Some engine parts are under the GPL-3.0 (Soju’s patch to Wine’s ncrypt module).

5. What Malbec does on your Mac

Malbec runs Windows games you own, through their official stores (Steam and Battle.net) or from an installer or folder you choose. It comes with no games and no store accounts. Use your own accounts, and follow the stores’ and the games’ own terms.
It downloads each store’s installer from Valve or Blizzard and checks that it is signed by them before running it.
It keeps the Windows environments that stores and games run in inside its own folder, ~/Library/Application Support/Malbec, and changes Windows settings there for each game (graphics, mouse, display and compatibility settings).
It doesn’t change game files, with one exception: for Overwatch it writes your screen’s display mode into Overwatch’s settings file (Settings_v0.ini), and keeps a copy of the original the first time.
Games you add run from where they are, unless you choose to copy them. Games you bring over from CrossOver or Recall are copied; the originals are not changed. On the same APFS volume the copy shares the original’s data and takes no extra space until either copy changes; elsewhere it is a full copy.
When Malbec removes a game, a game’s folder or a Windows environment, it moves it to the Trash; nothing of yours is deleted until you empty the Trash. Things Malbec can rebuild are deleted directly: compiled shaders when you choose Clear Shaders or remove a game, the Game Mode app and settings files it made for a game you remove, its own temporary files, and old logs, crash reports and launch records as newer ones replace them. When you uninstall a game with its store or its own uninstaller, that program removes the game its own way.
You sign in on the store’s own window. Malbec never asks for, sees or stores your store passwords.
Windows programs you run in Malbec can read and write files that your Mac user account can reach. Run only programs you trust.

Our privacy policy says exactly what Malbec sends over the internet and to whom.

6. No promise that a particular game runs

Every game in Malbec has a label: Tuned, Supported, Preview, Untested or Won’t run. Labels describe what we have tested and what we know; they are not a guarantee. Before you play a game, Malbec shows any reason it knows of that the game won’t run; a game nobody has tested can still fail. Games, stores and macOS change, and a game that runs today can stop after one of their updates. Use the trial to check your games before you pay, and ask for a refund if Malbec doesn’t do what we said it does.

Games that need DirectX 12 and games with kernel-level anti-cheat don’t run in Malbec. Our disclaimers explain anti-cheat in more detail.

Malbec needs a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 26.5 or later. Malbec needs Rosetta 2. macOS 27 is the last version with full Rosetta. We are working on an engine that doesn’t need it and will say before macOS 28 ships what Malbec needs there. We can’t promise games will run on macOS 28 today.

7. Beta testers and beta versions

Before launch we invite testers to use the released version of Malbec with a free license from us, marked as a beta license. It works like a bought license, on 2 Macs at a time, for as long as we make Malbec, and these terms apply to it. As thanks, it stays yours after the test; we can end it as section 9 says, and we don’t sell or refund it.

We may also hand out test versions that stop on a stated date. Such a version shows “Beta ends” and its last day in the app. After that day, Play, Install, Open Store, Uninstall in Store, Run an Installer and Run a Windows Program stop working in that version (while a store is already running, Open Store and Uninstall in Store still work for it), and Malbec points you to the download page; your games, imports and settings stay where they are. Test versions can have more bugs than released versions.

8. Refunds

You can get a full refund within 14 days of buying, for any reason. See the refund policy. A refund ends your license on every Mac (a smaller goodwill refund of less than half the price doesn’t).

9. When the license ends

You can stop using Malbec at any time. Uninstall Malbec explains how to remove it and its data; deactivate your Macs first if you want to free them.

Your license ends, and your key stops working, if your purchase is refunded or charged back (your bank reversed the payment after a dispute). While a dispute is open, the Macs that already use the key keep playing, but no new Mac can be added. We may also end a license if you seriously break section 2, for example by selling or publishing keys; we’ll tell you by e-mail first when we can, and the key stops working no sooner than 72 hours after that e-mail. A key that was shared publicly is replaced first: we e-mail you a new key, and the old one stops working 7 days later. You can replace a key yourself in the same way, by the link we e-mail you to manage your Macs.

If you remove a Mac from your license (Deactivate This Mac in Malbec, or by the link we e-mail you), the license ends on that Mac only; enter your key there again to use it.

A license doesn’t end because our servers or our payment provider can’t be reached, or because it hasn’t been checked for a while: only an ending our license server has signed and published ends one. When a license ends, Malbec says why in Settings › License, and it never stops a game that is running. A changed copy of Malbec can’t start games (section 2), but that doesn’t end your license.

10. Warranty and liability

We make Malbec carefully and fix problems we can reproduce. Beyond that, and as far as the law allows, Malbec is provided as it is: we don’t promise that it will run any particular game, store or version of macOS, or that it will never have bugs.

As far as the law allows, we are not liable for indirect losses, for what game publishers or stores do with your accounts, or for lost game progress. If you are a consumer, nothing in these terms limits your mandatory rights under the law of the country where you live, including your rights when digital content doesn’t conform to the contract.

11. Law and disputes

Danish law applies to these terms. If you are a consumer living in another country, you also keep the protection of the mandatory law of that country, and you may bring a claim where you live. Before going to court, please write to us; most problems are solved by an e-mail.

12. Changes to these terms

If we change these terms, we post the new version here with a new date and mention it in the release notes. Changes never take away the updates or the refund you already have.

13. Contact

support@malbec.app · [OWNER: geographic address] · company details