Part S-04 · Course file SM-FTP-5

Step 4 — Classification, spending and randomised items

Step 4 of 5

This is the step where Australia's own rules matter most, and where a household with anyone under eighteen in it has decisions to make that a single adult does not. It covers the national classification system, what spending looks like once you are inside a free game, and the specific question of items sold by chance rather than by name.

The Australian classification system

Australia classifies computer games under its own national scheme, separately from the ratings you may have seen on American or European packaging. The body responsible is the Australian Classification Board, and its decisions, along with a searchable database of classified titles, are published at classification.gov.au.

We are deliberately not reproducing the categories, the consumer advice lines or the rules about which classifications are restricted. Those are set out on the Board's own site, they are the authoritative version, and a summary written elsewhere is a summary that can quietly go out of date. The habit this course recommends is to look the title up there yourself, which takes about a minute, and to read the consumer advice that accompanies the classification rather than only the letters.

Two practical notes. First, the classification applies to the game as classified; online multiplayer content is generated by other players and is not itself classified, which is worth remembering before assuming that a classification covers everything a person will encounter. Second, a title that is free does not escape classification — the scheme is about content, not price.

For the wider question of what children and young people meet online, and what a household can do about it, the eSafety Commissioner is Australia's regulator and publishes material specifically on gaming at esafety.gov.au, including how to make a report.

What spending looks like inside a free game

In a game you buy once, the spending happens at the shop and then stops. In a free-to-play game it happens inside, at moments the designers choose, and it is presented as part of the experience rather than as a transaction. That is not a trick; it is the model working as intended. But it means the decision to spend arrives when you are already enjoying yourself, which is not the easiest moment to think clearly about money.

The counter-measure is simply to decide beforehand. A household that has agreed a figure — fifty dollars a year, twenty dollars a month, nothing at all — has made the decision in the kitchen rather than at the end of a match, and the figure does the work. Writing it down is not excessive; it means nobody has to remember what was agreed.

Crossout's publisher describes a game built around vehicles that players construct and modify, with shape, armour, armament, support systems and appearance all able to be changed. Where a publisher does not state the prices or the structure of its store, we do not guess at them, and you should read them on the publisher's own pages, in Australian dollars, before deciding anything.

Why in-game currency makes prices harder to read

Many games ask you to buy a quantity of their own currency first, then spend that currency on items. Three things follow from this arrangement, and all three are worth noticing.

The amounts rarely divide evenly. Packs are often sold in sizes that do not match item prices, so a purchase leaves a remainder that is only useful for buying more currency. Second, once the money has become tokens, it stops feeling like money; this is well understood and it is part of why the arrangement exists. Third, converting back is usually impossible — the currency is spendable only inside that game.

The reading habit that helps: before buying a currency pack, work out the Australian dollar price of the specific item you actually want, including whatever remainder you will be left holding. If that number is comfortable, proceed. If working it out is difficult, treat the difficulty itself as information.

Randomised items, and who should not be buying them

Some games sell a chance rather than a thing: you pay, and you receive one item from a set, chosen at random. The structure resembles gambling in the ways that matter psychologically — a stake, an uncertain outcome, a presentation built around the moment of reveal — and it is treated as a serious question by regulators and parliaments in several countries, Australia included.

This course takes one position on it, and it is not a position about whether adults should buy them. It is that randomised purchases, and anything that simulates gambling, are not suitable for minors, and a household should treat them as an adults-only part of the game. That means the payment method is not available to a child, the account's purchase settings are configured by an adult, and the topic is discussed rather than assumed.

If you want the regulators' own material, the eSafety Commissioner covers gaming and family settings at esafety.gov.au, the Australian Classification Board publishes consumer advice including advice about in-game purchases at classification.gov.au, and the ACCC's guidance on consumer rights in digital products is at accc.gov.au. We do not quote figures about how common these purchases are, because we have not measured it and figures repeated without a source are worth nothing.

Four ways to pay, compared

Whichever you choose, keep the receipts. Digital purchases generate an email receipt; a folder with those in it is the entire difference between a straightforward conversation with a seller and an argument from memory.

Your rights if something goes wrong

Digital products sold to consumers in Australia come with consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law. In general terms, they must match their description and be fit for the purpose they are sold for, and a seller cannot remove those guarantees with a term in its own agreement. The ACCC explains how the guarantees work, including for digital products and online purchases, at accc.gov.au.

What that means in practice for a game purchase is best answered by the ACCC rather than by us; the detail depends on what was bought, from whom, and what went wrong. The sensible order is the same as for any purchase: contact the seller first with the receipt, in writing, and keep what they say. If that does not resolve it, the ACCC's site explains where a complaint goes next, and your state or territory fair trading office handles many consumer matters directly.

Before you move on

You should have looked the title up in the Australian classification database and read its consumer advice. You should have a figure, agreed with anyone else who shares the budget, including the possibility that the figure is zero. You should know which payment arrangement the household is using and why, and you should have decided where randomised purchases sit in your house.

Step 5 is the last one, and it is the least technical: the settings worth changing before the first session, what to do about other players, and how to decide calmly whether the game stays installed.