Step 3 of 5

Classification, cost and the terms you are accepting

Your six numbers from Step 2 answer whether a game will run. They say nothing about whether it suits the people in your household, what it will cost across a year, or what you are agreeing to when you create an account. This step covers the three questions a requirements list cannot answer, and it is the one worth doing slowly.

Finding the Australian classification

Computer games distributed in Australia are classified under the national classification scheme, and the classification comes with consumer advice — a short line describing why a game received its rating, such as the kind of violence or language it contains. Both pieces are published by the Australian Classification Board, which maintains a searchable public database.

This course does not reproduce rating categories or any age threshold, and you should be sceptical of any site that quotes them from memory, including about a game it is paid to promote. Search the Board's own database for the exact title, read the rating and the consumer advice together, and treat that as the answer. The consumer advice usually tells you more than the letter does, because it names the specific content rather than summarising it.

If you are deciding on behalf of a child or a young person, the classification is a starting point rather than the whole decision. The eSafety Commissioner, Australia's online safety regulator, publishes guidance for parents and carers on gaming, including on chat features and on contact with strangers, which classification does not cover.

Randomised purchases and why they are flagged

Some games sell items whose contents are decided at random when you open them. You pay a known amount and receive an unknown result, and obtaining one particular item may take an unpredictable number of purchases. Games may also contain features that simulate gambling without real money changing hands.

These features are specifically addressed in the Australian classification arrangements, and the Classification Board's published decision for a title is the authoritative place to see what has been found. We do not state here whether any particular game contains them. What this course does say plainly is that a purchase with a randomised outcome is never suitable to present to a child as ordinary shopping, and that if a household includes minors, this is the single feature most worth checking before installation rather than after.

If you want to understand the mechanics in neutral terms before you look at any title: the cost of a specific outcome is not knowable in advance, which is exactly what makes a monthly ceiling, set in writing before you start, more useful than an intention to be careful.

Working out the cost structure

On a well-made product page the cost information is in three places, and it is worth checking all three because they are often written by different people. The headline price, if there is one, sits near the download or purchase control. The detail — whether there are optional purchases, subscriptions or expansions — is usually further down the same page or in a section about the game's content. The binding version is in the terms of sale, which is a link in the footer.

About the one game named in this course we state only what the vendor states. The description supplied through the affiliate network says that it is a battle collection role-playing game with dungeons, clan boss fights and a fully voiced campaign across twelve locations, that it is offered for desktop computers, and that the affiliate programme pays when a reader registers on the landing page, installs the game and starts the tutorial. It does not state a price or a purchase model, so we do not. You would find that on the vendor's own page.

Visit the Raid: Shadow Legends website Paid affiliate link. The publisher of Clear Volume is paid a commission by the affiliate network if you register and begin playing through it. Your price is the same as it would be without the link, and this step is complete whether or not you use it.

Reading the account terms without reading all of them

Nobody reads a full terms of service document, and pretending otherwise is not useful advice. What is useful is knowing which four sections to find, because they are where the surprises live. Use your browser's find function rather than scrolling.

The licence point surprises people most often. In most connected games you are not buying a copy in the way you would buy a book; you are being permitted to use a service, and items bought inside it generally exist only while that service does. That is normal and legal, and it is also a reason to treat in-game purchases as entertainment spending rather than as acquiring property.

Your position under Australian consumer law

Buying digital goods or services in Australia comes with consumer guarantees that a seller's own terms cannot remove. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission administers the Australian Consumer Law and publishes plain-language guidance on what those guarantees cover, including digital products and online purchases, and on what remedies apply when something is not as described.

Two general points are worth carrying with you. A term in a contract saying "no refunds under any circumstances" does not override a consumer guarantee. And claims made in advertising about what a product does are themselves regulated, so a description that turns out to be false is a matter for the regulator rather than only a disappointment. For the specifics of any individual situation, the ACCC's own pages are the source; this is a course, not legal advice.

The household conversation

If the computer is shared, three things are worth settling out loud before anything is installed. Who may use the account, and under whose email address. Whether in-game purchases are permitted at all, and if so, from whose money. And what happens to the arrangement if someone else needs the computer for work at the same time.

These are not dramatic questions, and the conversation takes five minutes. It is included in the course because the common failure is not a dispute about rules but the discovery that no rules were ever agreed, usually at the point where a charge appears on a shared card.