A five-step course for Australians who have never played a free-to-play PC game
This course is for readers in Australia who keep hearing about games that cost nothing to start, and who want to understand how they work before trying one. It explains the category, not any single title.
Reading the whole course takes about an hour and a half, and you can stop after any step without losing the thread. Each step ends in a checklist you can print and work through at your own pace, on your own computer, in your own time.
How this course is paid for. Some steps name real games as examples. One of them, Crossout, is linked with a paid affiliate link: if you register an account through that link, the affiliate network that operates the link pays Meljaro s. r. o. a commission. You pay nothing extra, and you can read every word here without clicking it.
Commission does not decide what the steps say, which products are named, or in what order. The funding page sets out the whole arrangement.
The five steps
- Step 1 — What "free to play" actually means
Where the money comes from when the download costs nothing. - Step 2 — Checking your computer before you commit
How to read a system requirements list and find your own specifications. - Step 3 — Classification, content and in-game spending
Australian classification, randomised item purchases, and who in the household decides. - Step 4 — Registering, confirming an email address and signing in
The three things almost every game account asks of you, and how to do them safely. - Step 5 — Settling in: time, money, and getting help
Keeping a new hobby in proportion once the novelty wears off.
Who this course is for, and who it is not for
It is written for an adult in Australia who uses a desktop or laptop computer for ordinary things and who has never installed a game that other people play at the same time. You do not need to know what a graphics card is or what a frame rate is; every term is defined the first time it is used.
It is not for you if you already play PC games regularly. Nothing here will be new to you. It is also not technical support: if a specific game will not start on your specific machine, the game's own support channel is the right place, not a general course.
Finally, it is not a shopping guide. The course names a small number of real games so the ideas have something to attach to, and it says plainly where a commercial relationship exists. If you finish the course having installed nothing at all, the course has still done its job.
What you will be able to do after each step
After Step 1 you will be able to explain, in your own words, how a game that charges nothing to download pays its staff — and why that business model shapes the way the game is designed.
After Step 2 you will be able to open your own computer's system information, write down four numbers, and compare them with any game's published requirements without guessing.
After Step 3 you will be able to look up a game's Australian classification, recognise a randomised item purchase when you see one, and decide in advance what spending, if any, is acceptable in your household.
After Step 4 you will be able to register an account, confirm an email address and sign in for the first time, having chosen a password and a mailbox that suit an account you may keep for years.
After Step 5 you will be able to set your own limits on time and money, find the right place to complain when something goes wrong, and recognise the point at which a hobby stops being enjoyable.
The one checklist to do before anything else
Everything in this course assumes you know what you are working with. Before Step 1, take five minutes:
Before you start the course
- Write down which operating system your computer runs — Windows, macOS or a Linux distribution — and which version.
- Write down whether the computer is a desktop or a laptop, and roughly how old it is.
- Note whether you have the administrator password for that computer. Installing anything requires it.
- Note whose computer it is. If it belongs to an employer or a school, their rules decide what may be installed, not this course.
- Decide which email address you would use for a hobby account, and whether it is the same one you use for banking. Step 4 returns to this.
Keep that note beside you. Steps 2 and 4 both ask for it.
A worked example you can follow through the course
To keep the steps concrete, the course follows one hypothetical household — an invented example, not a real family, not a customer, and not a source of any claim about any product. A couple in a suburb of Adelaide share a five-year-old Windows desktop in the spare room. Their teenager has asked whether a free vehicle-combat game can be installed on it.
What you can do for nothing
A fair amount. Reading the course costs nothing, checking your own system specifications costs nothing, and looking up a classification decision on the national register costs nothing. Creating an account on a free-to-play game and playing it costs nothing, by definition of the category — Step 1 explains what that definition does and does not cover.
The costs that exist in this category are optional purchases inside the game, electricity, and your time. Step 3 and Step 5 treat the first and third of those seriously, because they are the two that catch people out.
Where Crossout appears in this course, and why
Crossout is a free-to-play online game in which the vehicles are built by the players themselves, set in a post-apocalyptic world. The vendor describes thousands of ways to modify a machine: its shape, its armour, its weapons, its support systems and its decorative parts. It runs on Windows and Linux desktop computers; the vendor's listing for this offer states no Mac version.
It appears in this course as a worked example of a category — a game with a vehicle-building layer on top of the combat, which makes it a useful case for discussing system requirements in Step 2 and account registration in Step 4. Links to it are paid affiliate links, marked every time they appear. It is named because it fits the explanation, and the explanation came first.
Official Australian help
Where a step touches something a government body handles, the step links that body and describes what it does. The Australian Classification Board publishes classification decisions for games sold or distributed here. The eSafety Commissioner handles online safety, including reporting serious online harm. Scamwatch, run by the National Anti-Scam Centre, collects reports about scams. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission administers the Australian Consumer Law. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner oversees privacy. The Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes general security guidance for individuals.
How this course is written and kept current
It is written by the editorial team at Meljaro s. r. o. There is no named author, no instructor and no enrolment of any kind. The course is reviewed twice a year and after any change to a source it links. About describes the method in full, including the commercial relationship behind one of the products named.
Short answers to four common questions
Do I have to do the steps in order?
No, but Step 2 assumes Step 1 and Step 4 assumes Step 3. If you read only one, read Step 3.
Does this site keep track of which checklists I have done?
No. The checkboxes are printed shapes, not controls; the site sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. Print the page and use a pen.
Do I need to create an account here?
There is no account, no sign-up and no mailing list on this site. Nothing on it asks you to type anything.
Is a free-to-play game suitable for a child?
That depends on the individual game's classification and on your household. Step 3 explains how to look up the classification and what to consider.