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What a free online game account actually is

Most of the trouble beginners have with online games is not about playing badly. It is about not knowing which of three separate things has gone wrong. This step separates them.

The three pieces

When somebody says they have "got a game", they are usually describing three things at once that are easier to think about separately.

There is a client — a program that sits on your hard drive and draws the pictures on your screen. There is an account — a record on the publisher's computers that remembers who you are, what you own and what you have done. And there is an email address — the piece that links the first two together and that you will need if anything ever goes wrong.

The client: a program on your computer

The client is the part you can see in your file manager. It is a folder of files, often very large, that your computer runs the way it runs a word processor. Its job is to draw the game, read your keyboard and mouse, and talk to the publisher's servers over the internet.

Two things follow from that, and they are worth holding on to.

First, the client is replaceable. If it becomes corrupted, if an update half-finishes, if you buy a new computer, you can delete it and install it again. Nothing you have earned in the game lives in that folder, because it lives on the publisher's servers instead. Beginners often resist reinstalling because it feels like starting over. It usually is not.

Second, the client is the part with system requirements. When a publisher says a game needs a certain processor or a certain amount of memory, it is talking about the machine running the client. That is the whole subject of Step 2, so there is nothing to work out yet.

Clients for large online games are commonly tens of gigabytes, and they grow as the game is updated. If you are on a plan with a monthly data allowance, the first install is the big cost and later updates are smaller but constant. Write the number down when you see it, and compare it with what your plan has left.

The account: a record on someone else's computer

The account is a row in the publisher's database. It holds your display name, your settings, the items or progress attached to you, and — if you ever spend money — a record of what you bought.

The single most useful idea in this whole course is this: you do not own the account, you have access to it. The publisher operates it under a set of terms you agree to when you register. Those terms generally say what happens if you break the rules, what happens if the service closes, and what rights you have over anything you have bought. Step 3 is about reading them.

This is not a reason for alarm, and nothing about it is unusual — a streaming subscription or a webmail account works the same way. It is simply the reason that the way you protect a game account is the same way you protect any other online account: a password used nowhere else, and a second factor if one is offered. The Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes general guidance on passwords and multi-factor authentication at cyber.gov.au, and it applies here without modification.

One practical consequence: because the account lives on the publisher's servers, you can usually log in from a different computer and find everything where you left it. That also means anyone else who learns your password can do the same, from anywhere. Game accounts with items attached to them are traded, which is why account theft in this category is worth taking seriously even though no money sits in the account directly.

The email address: the thing that proves the account is yours

When you register, the publisher almost always sends a message to the address you gave and asks you to click a link in it. That step is called confirming or verifying the address, and it is doing two jobs at once.

It proves to the publisher that the address exists and that you can read it. And it gives you the only reliable way back in if you forget your password, because the reset link goes to that address.

Some registrations are described as double opt-in. In plain terms, that means two things have to happen before the account counts as real: you fill in the form, and then you act on the message that arrives. Nothing is complete until the second part is done. If you have ever registered for something and found later that it does not exist, an unopened confirmation message is the usual explanation.

Choose the address carefully, because changing it later is more awkward than choosing well now:

• Use an address you alone control. A shared household address means anyone with the password can reset the game account.
• Do not use a work or school address. If you leave, you lose the recovery path.
• Make sure you can actually read it on the computer you are sitting at, or on your phone beside you. Confirmation links sometimes expire.
• Check the junk or spam folder before deciding that nothing arrived. Confirmation messages land there regularly.

Be wary of the reverse situation: a message that arrives claiming your game account needs re-confirming, out of the blue, with a link. Messages of that shape are a common scam pattern, and the ACCC collects reports of them at scamwatch.gov.au. The safe habit is to ignore the link and go to the publisher's site yourself.

Launchers, stores and why there may be two accounts

Many games are distributed through a launcher or a store — a separate program that downloads, patches and starts the game. A launcher may come from the game's own publisher, or from a general store that sells many publishers' games.

Where a store is involved, you may end up with two accounts: one with the store and one with the publisher. They are not the same thing, they may use different passwords, and support for one cannot usually fix the other. Knowing which is which saves a frustrating hour later.

Some games are distributed directly from the publisher's own website without a store in the middle. In that case there is one account, which is simpler. Either way, the test is the same: when you are asked to log in, look at the name on the window and ask yourself which of the two it belongs to.

Because this course has to apply to whatever game you choose, it describes these screens in general terms rather than walking you through any one publisher's interface. The wording differs between games; the shape does not.

What "free to play" usually means

A great many large online games are distributed without an up-front purchase price. The business model is to earn money inside the game instead — cosmetic items, faster progress, extra content, or season passes. This is a general pattern in the category, not a statement about any particular title.

Two things follow. First, "no purchase price" and "no money involved" are different claims, and only the first is usually true. Second, the only way to know what a specific game sells is to check that specific game, which is the work of Step 3.

Where this course names a particular game, it repeats only what that game's vendor or the network promoting it actually states. Enlisted, the game mentioned in Steps 3 and 4, is described by the network as a new game set in the atmosphere of the Second World War, published for desktop computers — Mac, Windows and Linux. The vendor does not state a price, a system requirement or an Australian classification in the material available to us, so this course does not state one either.

A worked example

The hypothetical Adelaide household from the homepage starts here. The fifteen-year-old says the game is free, so there is nothing to discuss. One of the adults, having read this step, asks three questions instead: how big is the download against our data allowance, whose email address is the account going to hang off, and what does the game sell once we are inside it?

The first question gets an answer from the game's own download page. The second gets decided deliberately — the parent's address, so password resets land somewhere accountable, with the teenager holding the password. The third is deferred to Step 3, which is the right place for it. No product has been judged, and nothing has been installed yet. That is a reasonable place to be at the end of a first evening.

Before you move on

You should now be able to say, without looking back, that the client is on your computer and replaceable, the account is on the publisher's servers and is accessed rather than owned, and the email address is what connects them and what rescues you. If a friend tells you they "lost everything when they reinstalled", you should now be mildly suspicious of the claim.

Step 2 is the only part of the course that involves looking up numbers, and it is more straightforward than it sounds.