Calm Trait · beginners' workbook

Step 4 of 5

Classification, spending and younger players

This is the step about money and about who is sitting at the keyboard. It covers how games are classified in Australia, how purchases inside a game work, what randomised items are, and the controls a household can set before anybody plays rather than after.

How classification works in Australia

Computer games offered in Australia are subject to the national classification scheme, the same scheme that covers films. Classification decisions and the categories used are published by the Australian Classification Board, and the authoritative explanation of what each category means and which games have received which decision is on the Classification Board's own website, which includes a searchable database of decisions.

Two things about that are worth holding onto rather than guessing at. First, a classification is a decision about content, made under published criteria, not a recommendation and not a guarantee that a particular child will cope with a particular game. Second, the categories carry different legal weight: some are advisory and some restrict who a game may be sold or shown to. Because the detail matters and we will not paraphrase it inaccurately, this course points you at the Board's own material rather than reproducing thresholds here.

Alongside classification, consumer advice lines — short phrases describing the content that drove the decision — often tell a parent more than the category letter does. They appear with the decision in the database.

Looking a game up before you install it

The practical routine takes two minutes and is worth doing before the download rather than after.

1. Open the Classification Board's website and use its search.
2. Enter the exact title of the game, as written on the publisher's page.
3. Read the classification and, more usefully, the consumer advice attached to it.
4. If no decision appears, note that. An absent result is not evidence that a game is mild; it means you have not found a decision and should look at the publisher's own content description instead.
5. Write the result on the same sheet you used in Step 2.

The eSafety Commissioner also publishes material aimed at parents and carers about online games specifically, including conversations worth having before a child starts playing: the eSafety Commissioner's site is the place for that.

How a game that costs nothing takes money

A free-to-play game earns from what it sells after you are inside. The mechanisms are few, and recognising them is most of the defence.

Direct purchase. You pay an amount in Australian dollars for a named thing. This is the clearest arrangement, because you can see the price and the item at once.

Premium currency. You buy points or coins with real money, then spend the points inside the game. The second step hides the first: once converted, a price of 850 coins no longer feels like money. Bundles are usually sized so that you cannot buy exactly what you need, leaving a remainder that encourages another purchase.

Subscription or pass. A recurring charge, often monthly, for extra content or faster progress. Recurring charges deserve a diary note, because the thing about them is that they continue.

Randomised items. You pay for a chance at something rather than for the thing itself. This has its own section below.

None of these is dishonest in itself, and all of them are legal to offer. Under the Australian Consumer Law, how they are presented still has to not be misleading, and the ACCC is the body that enforces that. Your protection as a buyer is partly the law and partly the limit you set before you start.

Randomised items, in plain terms

A randomised purchase gives you a chance at an item rather than the item. You pay a known amount for an unknown result. The structure resembles a lottery, and that resemblance is why these features attract regular public debate and regulatory attention in Australia and elsewhere.

Three practical observations, kept to what can be said without inventing numbers. The cost of obtaining a specific desired item through a randomised mechanism is unknown in advance and can be far higher than the cost of a single purchase. Some publishers publish the probabilities and some do not; where they are published, they are worth reading. And a mechanism that pays out unpredictably is more compelling than one that pays out predictably, which is the design reason it exists.

Two household rules follow. Set the monthly limit before you encounter the mechanism, not after. And treat these features as unsuitable for children and young people: a paid randomised reward is not a children's feature, whatever the surrounding game looks like. If a younger person in the house plays, the spending controls below matter more than any other part of this step.

Setting a limit that actually holds

A number written on paper is a start. These make it hold.

• Do not store a card. Saved payment details remove the pause between wanting and buying. Entering the card each time restores the pause.
• Use the platform's own spending controls where the storefront or operating system provides them. Most offer limits or purchase confirmation settings in the account section.
• Prefer a prepaid or gift balance if you want a hard ceiling. When it is gone, it is gone, and nothing escalates.
• Check the statement monthly. Recurring charges are easy to forget, and small amounts are easy to miss one at a time.
• Turn on purchase notifications from your bank if it offers them, so a charge is visible the day it happens.

Households where younger people play

If a computer is shared with people under 18, a few arrangements are worth making once rather than arguing about repeatedly.

Give the younger person their own user account on the computer, rather than sharing yours. That keeps your saved cards, your browser sessions and your email out of reach without any further effort. Set the game account's date of birth honestly, because the age-related restrictions a publisher applies depend on it. Use the parental or family controls the storefront or operating system provides, which usually cover purchases, playtime and who can contact the account. And look at the game's own privacy and chat settings, because voice and text chat with strangers is a separate decision from whether the game itself is suitable.

The conversation matters as much as the settings. The eSafety Commissioner publishes guidance for parents and carers on gaming, including what to do when something goes wrong, and it is written for people who do not play games themselves.

Paying or not paying: the honest trade-offs

Neither column is the right answer. The wrong answer is not having chosen a column before you start.

The worked example

Our hypothetical household sets a limit of zero Australian dollars for the first month, on the grounds that they do not yet know whether they will keep playing. They do not store a card on the account. Because a 14-year-old visits at weekends, they create a separate user account on the laptop for that purpose and turn on the storefront's purchase confirmation setting.

They also look the game up in the Classification Board database, read the consumer advice attached to the decision, and decide on that basis whether the weekend visitor plays it at all. Having made that decision in advance and written it down, nobody has to improvise an answer on a Saturday afternoon.

Before you move on

You should now have a classification result for your game, a written monthly limit in Australian dollars, and — if anybody under 18 uses this computer — a separate user account and the storefront's controls set. None of that takes more than half an hour, and all of it is far easier before the game is installed than after.

Step 4 checklist

1. Search the Classification Board database for the exact game title and write down the result.
2. Read the consumer advice attached to the decision, not only the category.
3. Write your monthly spending limit in Australian dollars, even if it is zero.
4. Decide whether a payment card will be stored on the account. Prefer not.
5. Find the storefront or publisher's spending controls and set them.
6. Turn on bank purchase notifications if your bank offers them.
7. If anyone under 18 uses this computer, give them their own user account.
8. Set the game's chat and contact settings before the first session rather than during it.
9. Note the date you will check the bank statement, and put it in a calendar.
10. Write down your position on randomised items before you meet one.

— end of step four — limits set — proceed —