Step 5

Step 5 of 5

Updates, spending limits and where to get help

The first four steps get you playing. This one is about the year afterwards: keeping the install healthy without thinking about it, keeping spending to a figure you chose rather than one that crept up, and knowing which Australian body to contact for which kind of problem.

Why an online game is never finished

A game you buy on a disc is the same next year. An online game is not. The publisher adds content, fixes faults, changes the balance between weapons or vehicles, runs seasonal events and occasionally rebuilds large parts of the thing. Because the client on your computer has to match the servers, updates are not optional: when the server moves, the client must follow or it will not connect.

Three consequences follow for an ordinary household. Updates use data, sometimes a lot of it. The install grows over time, so the free space that was comfortable at the start may not be in a year. And the system requirements published at launch describe the game as it was then. None of this is a problem; it is the shape of the category, and planning for it is easier than being surprised by it.

A monthly routine that takes ten minutes

1. Start the client once, deliberately, when the connection is free. Letting a large update run on a Tuesday morning is pleasanter than discovering it on a Friday night.
2. Look at the free space on the drive. If it is under about ten per cent of the disk, clear something. A nearly full drive makes the whole computer slower, not just the game.
3. Check the data used this month against your plan's allowance, if it has one.
4. Glance at the account's purchase history. Five seconds, once a month, is the whole of spending control.
5. Check that your operating system and graphics driver updates are installed. Graphics driver updates in particular often address problems in specific games.
6. Confirm two-factor authentication is still enabled and that the recovery email address is still one you can read.

That is the whole routine. Put it in a calendar on the first Saturday of the month if you are the sort of person for whom that works, and ignore this paragraph if you are not.

When it starts running worse

A game that ran smoothly and now does not has a short list of ordinary explanations, and it is worth going through them in order before concluding anything about your computer.

The game changed. A large update may have added more demanding content. The publisher's own patch notes are the place to check.

The drive filled up. This is the commonest cause of a general slowdown and the easiest to fix.

Something else is running. A browser with forty tabs, a video call or a backup running in the background all compete for the same memory.

The machine is hot. On a laptop in an Australian summer, a game that was fine in July may be slower in January for purely physical reasons. Clear vents and a hard surface help.

The connection changed. More people on the household connection, or a change at the provider, affects an online game more than it affects streaming, because games care about steadiness rather than raw speed.

Keeping spending to the figure you chose

In Step 3 you chose a monthly figure, possibly zero. Keeping to it is mostly a matter of structure rather than willpower, and the structural measures are dull and effective.

Keep the payment method off the account. A purchase that requires fetching a card from another room is a purchase you decide on rather than drift into. Where purchases are to be allowed, prepaid credit bought deliberately is better than a stored card, because the limit is enforced by the method itself.

Watch for the two patterns that make in-game stores work: converting money into an intermediate currency, so that the real cost is one step removed; and limited-time offers, which turn a decision into a deadline. Knowing both exist is most of the defence. Neither is dishonest in itself, but both make a $12 decision feel like a 600-coin decision.

Check the statement, not the memory. Once a month, look at the purchase history in the account and at the card or prepaid balance. A household with a young player should do this together rather than as a surveillance exercise; the point is an honest shared number.

Randomised paid items deserve the firmest line, for the reasons given in Step 3. If a young person in your household plays a game that sells them, decide the position explicitly and revisit it, rather than letting it be settled by whatever happens.

When a purchase goes wrong

Digital purchases made by consumers in Australia come with consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law, and these are not removed by a term in a publisher's agreement. The ACCC publishes what those guarantees cover and what to do when a product is not as described, including the steps to take with the seller first.

Practically: ask the publisher or store first, in writing, and keep the receipt email and a note of what the store page said at the time. If the purchase was made by a child on an adult's card without permission, say so plainly when you ask — many publishers have a process for it, and the ACCC's guidance covers the position if they do not.

This is general information about where to look, not advice about your particular purchase.

Other players, chat and harassment

Online games are social, and most of that is pleasant. The part that is not has an Australian answer.

Within the game, every major publisher provides muting, blocking and reporting. These are usually in the same settings area you looked at in Step 4, and using them early is better than enduring something for a month first.

Beyond the game, the eSafety Commissioner is the Australian regulator for online safety and accepts complaints, including about serious cyberbullying of a child and image-based abuse. Its site explains what it can act on and what information to collect first — which is the practical reason to take screenshots at the time rather than afterwards.

Who to contact about what

Stopping, deleting and moving on

Leaving a game is a step most guides omit, and it is as much a part of knowing what you are doing as starting.

Uninstalling the client frees the disk space and changes nothing about the account, which continues to exist. That is usually what you want if you might come back.

Closing the account is separate, and is requested through the publisher's account settings or support. Expect it to be slower than creating one, and expect anything purchased to go with it. Read what the agreement said about this in Step 3 before you ask.

Requesting deletion of your personal information is separate again, and is a privacy matter rather than an account matter. The publisher's privacy policy names the address to write to. If a publisher subject to Australian privacy law does not respond, the OAIC explains how to complain.

If the publisher closes the service entirely — which happens to online games — the client stops working and the account goes with it. The agreement's termination clause is where this is set out, which is why Step 3 asked you to find it.

A year, in outline

Glossary of the terms used in this course

Client

The program on your own computer that draws the game and talks to the servers.

Launcher

A separate program that downloads, updates and starts the client.

Double opt-in

A sign-up that is not complete until you act on a confirmation message sent to your email address.

Two-factor authentication

Logging in with something in addition to a password, usually a short code.

Integrated graphics

A graphics chip built into the main processor, sharing the computer's memory.

Dedicated graphics

A separate graphics chip with memory of its own.

Latency

The delay between your computer and the game's server, measured in milliseconds.

Consumer advice

The short phrases published alongside an Australian classification describing the content behind it.

Randomised item

A purchase that gives a chance at an uncertain reward rather than a known one.

A worked example

Six months on, the hypothetical Adelaide household has a routine that takes less time than making tea. The teenager starts the client on a Saturday morning so the update runs while everyone is out. The free-space check has caused one clear-out and one conversation about whether a second game will fit. The data allowance has been tight twice, both times in a month with a large seasonal update.

Twelve dollars has been spent, once, deliberately, with prepaid credit, after a discussion. Nobody has been scammed, because nobody follows links in unexpected emails any more. That is what the end of this course looks like in practice: not expertise, just a household that knows what it is doing.

Finishing the course

There is no certificate, no badge and no score, because this is a workbook rather than a qualification. What you have is the five checklists, gathered on the All checklists page in a form that prints cleanly. For a second game later, start again at Step 2 — the five numbers about your computer are already written down.