All checklists, on one page
Every checklist from the five steps, gathered here so you can print the lot and work through them beside the keyboard. The boxes are printed marks, not controls: this page does not remember anything, because nothing is stored in your browser at all.
How to use these
The checklists are meant to be worked through at the computer rather than read in an armchair. Each one belongs to a step, and each step explains why its items are there; if a line seems arbitrary, the step it came from will say what goes wrong when it is skipped. The links beside each heading take you back.
Work through them in order the first time. The sequence is not decorative: Step 2's note of your machine's specifications is the thing Step 5 tells you to keep, and Step 3's choice of email address is what makes Step 4's household decisions possible. Out of order, several items will look like they belong to someone else's situation.
After the first time, the pattern changes. For a second or third game you will usually need only the Step 2 list, which takes two minutes once your specifications are written down, and a glance at Step 4, because classification and spending are decisions per title rather than per household. Steps 1, 3 and 5 are mostly one-off learning.
Not every line applies to every reader. Someone playing alone on their own laptop can ignore the shared-computer items; a household with a young person will find them the most useful part. Cross out what does not apply rather than feeling you have failed to complete something — this is a workbook, not a test, and there is nothing to submit, no score and nobody checking.
Printing is the intended use. The print layout drops the menu, the colour and the buttons, and keeps each checklist on as few pages as it can. Printed, the five lists come to a small number of pages that sit well beside a keyboard. Several of the items ask you to write something down — the operating system, the processor, the graphics card, the agreed monthly figure in AUD — and the paper copy is a sensible place to write them.
One honest note about pace. Nobody needs to do all of this in one evening, and nothing expires. A reasonable rhythm is one step per sitting, with the checklist done immediately afterwards while the reasoning is fresh. If you reach Step 4 and decide the whole thing is not for your household, you have used the course correctly and can stop there.
Step 1 — What "free-to-play" actually means
- Say out loud, in one sentence, where a free-to-play game's money comes from.
- Pick any online game and find its shop or store page on the publisher's own website.
- Sort five things on that page into appearance, time, access or capability.
- Write down one thing the publisher's description does not tell you that you would want to know.
- Decide, before you install anything, roughly how many hours a week you are willing to give this.
- Note whether the computer you intend to use is shared with anyone else.
- Check whether your internet connection has a data limit, and if so, how much is left this month.
Step 2 — Will your computer run it
- Identify the operating system on the computer you will actually use, including its version.
- Confirm the game's vendor supports that operating system. If it does not, stop here for that title.
- Write down the processor name exactly as the computer reports it.
- Write down the installed memory in gigabytes.
- Write down the graphics card name and its reported memory.
- Check free disk space and leave room for the client plus future updates.
- Open the requirements list on the vendor's own site, not a third-party copy.
- Compare your note line by line against the minimum column.
- Check your internet plan's remaining data allowance for the month.
- Pick a time for the download that does not compete with anyone else in the house.
- Keep the note somewhere you will find it next time.
Step 3 — Accounts, email and what you hand over
- Choose the email address for the account and confirm you will still control it in a few years.
- Decide who else can read that address, and whether that is what you want.
- Choose a password you have not used for anything else, favouring length over symbols.
- Turn on two-factor authentication if the publisher offers it, and store any recovery codes outside the account.
- Reach the publisher's site directly rather than through a link in a message.
- Read what the registration form asks for beyond email and password.
- Decide deliberately about marketing email rather than accepting the default.
- Open the confirmation message and follow its link; check the spam folder if it has not arrived.
- Sign in once immediately afterwards to confirm the account works.
- Note the login name and registered address somewhere you will find them.
- Skim the publisher's privacy policy for what is collected, who receives it, where it is stored and how to ask for a copy.
- On a shared computer, agree who holds account recovery before anyone plays.
Step 4 — Ratings, spending and randomised items
- Search the Australian Classification Board's site for the exact title.
- Read the consumer advice lines, not only the classification category.
- Read the publisher's own description of the game's content alongside it.
- Find the game's chat, voice and messaging settings and decide what will be switched off.
- Find the game's reporting and blocking tools before the first session.
- Work out whether the game uses a bought currency, and how its bundles are sized.
- Agree a monthly figure in AUD, and consider making it zero for the first month.
- Say that figure out loud to everyone who uses the computer.
- Decide that randomised items are out of scope for any young person in the household.
- Keep payment details off any account a young person uses.
- Check whether your operating system or store offers purchase approval controls.
- Keep confirmation emails for anything you do buy.
Step 5 — Your first sessions
- Set aside the first evening for installation and updates rather than play.
- Obtain the client only from the publisher's own site or a store you already use.
- Open the options screen before the tutorial.
- Set visual quality low or medium to begin with, and raise it later if all is well.
- Set the volume before the first loud moment.
- Decide what chat, voice and messaging are allowed to do.
- Find the reporting and blocking tools and remember where they are.
- Play several rounds with the default equipment before customising anything.
- Expect to lose early, and draw no conclusions from it.
- Decide a finishing time before each session starts.
- At the end of week one, ask whether you looked forward to coming back.
- Revisit the spending figure from Step 4 once, at the end of week two.
- If you stop, decide whether you also want the account record removed, and find out how to ask.
The short list, for a second or third game
- Operating system supported by this vendor?
- Specifications note compared against this title's minimum column?
- Enough free disk space, plus room for updates?
- Classification and consumer advice looked up for this exact title?
- Chat and messaging settings decided before the first session?
- Spending figure for this title agreed, in AUD, before installing?
Course content last reviewed 9 October 2026. Some links in the course are paid affiliate links, explained on the Affiliate Disclosure page. There are none on this page. Corrections are welcome via the Contact page.