Step 1 of 5
What an online game account actually involves
Before any decision about money or time, it helps to know what kind of thing you are agreeing to. An online game account is not a purchase you make once. It is a standing relationship with a company, and it has moving parts.
Why this is not like buying a boxed game
If the last game you bought came in a box or on a disc, the arrangement was simple. You paid once, you owned a copy, and the shop had nothing more to do with you. Whatever happened next happened on your own machine.
An online game works differently. The game runs partly on your device and partly on computers the vendor operates, and the two halves talk to each other constantly. That means the vendor has to know who you are every time you play, which is what an account is for, and it means the vendor can change the game after you have started playing it.
The practical consequence is that you are not finished when you have decided to say yes. You have agreed to a relationship that continues: charges may recur, rules may change, the thing your child is playing in March may not be exactly the thing they are playing in September. None of that is sinister. It is simply a different shape of commitment, and it is worth seeing clearly before you sign anything.
The second consequence is that there is a second party in every decision. With a boxed game, you could lose your receipt and nothing changed. Here, losing control of the account email loses the account.
The four parts of an online game
Nearly every online game, whatever the genre, is built from the same four parts. Naming them makes the vendor's own pages much easier to read, because vendors assume you already know this.
The client is the program on your device. It may be an app from a phone or tablet store, a program you install on a computer, or in some cases a page that runs in a browser. It is usually the part that takes up storage space and the part that updates.
The account is your identity with the vendor. It is typically an email address and a password, and it holds everything you have earned, bought or set up. Accounts usually outlive devices: the same account works if you replace the laptop.
The server is the vendor's side. It holds the shared world and decides what is true in it. If the server is down, the game does not work, no matter how healthy your device is. This is also why an internet connection is not optional in an online game the way it is in a boxed one.
The shop is the part that takes money, and it is often a layer of its own rather than a single price tag. We come back to shops in Step 3, because they are where most of the surprises live.
The words you will keep meeting
These terms appear on nearly every game vendor's site. Each is defined here once; later steps assume them.
A short glossary
- Free-to-play
- A game you can create an account for and play without paying, usually with limits on what you can reach or do. It is not the same as a trial, which ends.
- Subscription
- A recurring charge, usually monthly or yearly, that keeps some or all of the game available. It renews by itself unless cancelled.
- In-game currency
- Points, coins or gems bought with real money and spent inside the game. Buying currency and spending currency are two separate moments, which is part of why spending is easy to lose track of.
- Cosmetic item
- Something that changes how a character or object looks without changing what it can do.
- Randomised item
- A purchase whose contents are decided by chance rather than chosen — sometimes called a loot box, chest, crate or pack. Step 3 deals with these at length.
- Client update
- A download that changes the program on your device, often required before you can play again.
- Server
- The vendor's computers that run the shared world. Sometimes split into regions, so players in Australia may be on a different one from players in Europe.
- Terms of service
- The contract between you and the vendor, agreed when the account is created. It is the document that says what happens if the account is suspended or the service closes.
The three ways money usually moves
Online games generally take money in one of three shapes, and many use more than one at the same time. Knowing which shapes are present tells you what to look for in Step 3.
The first is a one-off purchase: you pay once for the client or for permanent access. This is the least common shape in games aimed at younger players, and the easiest to budget for.
The second is a subscription. The amount is predictable, but the timing is not always obvious, and the amount on your statement may be in a foreign currency with a conversion applied by your bank or card issuer. A subscription keeps charging until somebody cancels it, which is the single most common cause of a charge nobody expected.
The third is purchases inside the game, usually through an in-game currency. This shape has no natural ceiling. It is not a criticism of any particular vendor to say so — it is a property of the design, and it is exactly why Step 2 asks you to write a monthly limit down before you look at any store page.
A note on who is actually charged
On phones and tablets, the money usually moves through the app store account rather than directly to the game vendor. That matters later: refunds, purchase approvals and spending limits may be controlled by the device platform rather than by the game. Step 4 treats these as separate things to check, because they are.
The part that is other people
An online game's defining feature is that other players are present. Depending on the game that can mean seeing other characters, typing to them, speaking to them, trading with them, or joining groups.
This is usually the part a parent is most uncertain about, and it is the part that varies most between games — so it is also the part you should check specifically rather than assume. Some games have open chat with everyone; some restrict chat to a fixed set of phrases; some let a parent turn chat off entirely. Step 4 covers how to find and test those settings on whatever game you choose.
For the general question of what to do about contact, bullying or unwanted messages online, the eSafety Commissioner is the Australian body that publishes guidance and takes reports. It is worth knowing the name before you need it, which is why it appears here in Step 1 rather than later.
Where Australian classification fits in
Games distributed in Australia are classified under the national classification scheme, and the classification markings you see on games are explained by the Australian Classification Board. A classification tells you about the content of the game; it does not tell you anything about the pricing model, chat features or purchase design, which are the things this course spends most of its time on.
Treat the classification as one input among several, and read what the Board itself publishes about what each marking means rather than relying on summaries, including this one.
The worked example starts here
The hypothetical household, Step 1
Two adults, an eleven-year-old, one shared laptop and one tablet. The eleven-year-old wants an online game that school friends are playing. The adults have never had a game account.
Reading this step, the adults find they had assumed one thing that was not true: that the game would be a single purchase. Realising that it may involve a recurring charge changes who they think should own the account. They decide, before doing anything else, that the account email will be an adult's.
They also notice they do not know whether the game has chat. They write that down as a question rather than guessing, and carry it into Step 2. This example is illustrative only; it is not drawn from a real household and makes no claim about any product.
Before you move on
You should now be able to say, in your own words, what the client, the account, the server and the shop each are, and which of the three money shapes a game is using. You do not need to have chosen a game yet. Step 2 is about your household, not about any product.
Step 1 checklist
- I can explain the difference between buying a game once and holding an account with a vendor.
- I know which four parts make up an online game, and which one needs an internet connection.
- I have read the glossary and can define subscription, in-game currency and randomised item.
- I know which of the three money shapes I am prepared to accept, and which I am not.
- I have written down the question "does this game have chat, and can it be turned off?" to answer later.
- I know that the eSafety Commissioner is the Australian body for online safety reports.
- I have decided whose email address any account will use.