Step 3 of 5

Reading the cost and purchase terms before you agree

A vendor's pricing page and its terms of service are written for different audiences, and the second one is where the answers are. This step is a reading method: six things to find, in order, on any game's own website.

Where the answers actually live

Most game sites have a page that shows prices attractively and a set of documents that nobody is expected to read. The marketing page tells you what you get; the documents tell you what you have agreed to. You need both, and you should read them in the opposite order to the one the site suggests.

Look for links labelled terms of service, terms of use, subscription terms, purchase terms, store terms or refund policy. They are usually in the footer in small type. Open them in separate tabs before you create anything.

Use your browser's find function rather than reading top to bottom. Searching for "renew", "cancel", "refund", "currency", "chance" and "virtual" will reach most of what matters in a few minutes. This is a legitimate way to read a contract you did not write.

Find the recurring charge

You are looking for a plain sentence of the form: this amount, this often, until cancelled. If you cannot find that sentence, you have not yet found the right document.

Watch for the gap between an introductory price and the ongoing one. A first month at a lower rate is a normal commercial offer and not a problem in itself — the problem is only when the ongoing rate is harder to find than the introductory one. Write both numbers down side by side.

Also check whether the subscription is per account or per player. In a household where two children might play, that distinction doubles or halves the figure you are comparing against the number you wrote in Step 2.

Find the currency

Game vendors frequently operate from outside Australia and price in US dollars or euros. If the figure you are reading is not marked as Australian dollars, it is not the figure that will appear on your statement.

Two costs attach to this. Your bank or card issuer converts at its own rate on the day, and many Australian cards add an international transaction fee. Neither is the vendor's doing, and neither will appear on the vendor's pricing page.

The practical move is to find out your own card's international transaction fee once, from your bank, and keep it in mind as a rough margin on every foreign-currency game charge you ever make. You only have to do it once.

Find the renewal date and the notice

Two separate facts: when the next charge happens, and whether you are told before it happens. The first is usually in the account area after signing up; the second is in the terms.

Many subscriptions renew silently. That is common and lawful, but it means the calendar is your responsibility. Step 5 asks you to put a reminder a few days before each renewal, which is the single most effective habit in this whole course.

If you buy through a phone or tablet app store rather than the vendor's site, the renewal is managed in the store's subscription settings, not in the game. People frequently cancel in the game, see the game still working, and are charged again. Know which of the two you are dealing with before you subscribe.

Find the cancellation path

Before you start, write down the literal sequence of clicks that ends the arrangement. If the terms do not describe it, look in a help or support section; if it is still not findable, treat that as information about the vendor.

Check also what cancelling actually does. Usually access continues to the end of the paid period and then stops; sometimes items bought with in-game currency remain, sometimes they are only usable while subscribed. These are different outcomes and the terms will say which applies.

Find out what the in-game currency buys

Where a game sells a currency, three things are worth establishing. What is the smallest amount you can buy, what does a typical item cost in that currency, and does the pack size divide evenly into item prices?

The third question sounds pedantic and is not. Where packs and prices do not divide evenly, a small remainder is left over after every purchase, and the natural way to use it is to buy another pack. Noticing the arithmetic in advance is not an accusation against any vendor; it is just reading the design.

Establish too whether the currency expires, whether it transfers between accounts or devices, and whether it survives a lapsed subscription. Each of those has a plain answer in the purchase terms.

Find out whether anything is randomised

Some games sell items whose contents are decided by chance — chests, crates, packs, boxes. The purchase is of an opportunity rather than of a specific thing.

This course takes a simple position: a randomised purchase is a different kind of transaction from a chosen one, and a household should decide about it explicitly rather than meet it by accident. Decide whether randomised purchases are permitted at all under your Step 2 number, and tell the player the decision.

Nothing of this sort should be presented to a child as an ordinary purchase, and this site will never describe a randomised or gambling-like feature as suitable for a minor. If you want to understand how games are classified in Australia, including any consumer advice attached to a classification, read what the Australian Classification Board publishes. We do not state classification outcomes or thresholds here, because they are specific to each title and change.

Your position under Australian consumer law

Buying from an overseas game vendor does not place you outside Australian consumer protection in every case, and it is worth knowing where to read about your position rather than guessing it. The ACCC publishes guidance on consumer guarantees, on when a business may be engaging in misleading conduct, and on buying digital products and online games. A vendor's own terms cannot remove a guarantee that the law does not allow to be removed.

If a charge appears that you did not authorise, two avenues exist in parallel: the vendor or app store's own refund process, and your bank's disputed-transaction process. Starting with the vendor is usually faster; the bank path is there if that fails.

If what you have met is not a billing dispute but an approach that looks fraudulent — a message offering currency, an unofficial site asking for account details — the Australian reporting point is Scamwatch, run by the National Anti-Scam Centre.

Weighing a subscription against pay-as-you-go

The one product this course names

Star Stable Online appears in this step as a worked target for the reading method above, not as a recommendation. We have a paid affiliate arrangement with the network that operates its referral links, and that is the reason it is the title named here rather than another.

We deliberately state no prices, currencies, subscription terms or classification for it. The only description we hold from the network is that commission is paid on sign-up, first play and purchase. Everything in the six checks above has to be read on the vendor's own site, where it is authoritative and current, and where it may have changed since this page was reviewed.

Visit the Star Stable Online websitePaid link. Subtle Shift is paid a commission for sign-ups made through it; your price is unaffected, and nothing in the six checks changes depending on whether you use it.

The worked example, Step 3