Step 1 — What "free to play" actually costs

Unit 01-1
What the phrase means at the door

"Free to play" is a business arrangement, not a promise. It means the publisher does not charge you to download the game or to make an account. That is the whole of the claim. It says nothing about what happens on day three hundred, and it is not a statement that no money will ever change hands.

This matters because the arrangement changes how you should read everything else. A game you buy once for a fixed price has already taken its money; the publisher's remaining interest is that you enjoy it enough to buy the next one. A game that takes nothing at the door has to earn its revenue from the people who stay. That is not sinister, and it is how a great deal of software works now, but it does mean the game is designed with purchases somewhere in view.

So the useful question is never "is it free?" The useful question is "where is the money, how much of it is optional, and what is the most this could reasonably cost me in a year?" The rest of this step answers that in general terms, so the answer travels to any game in the category rather than just one.

Unit 01-2
The four places a charge appears

Across games of this kind, charges turn up in four recognisable shapes. Not every game has all four, and the names differ from publisher to publisher, but the shapes are stable enough to use as a checklist.

One: appearance-only items

These change how something looks and nothing else — a paint scheme, a badge, a name tag, a sound. They are the least consequential category, because declining them costs you nothing but the look. Their risk is purely budgetary: they are usually cheap individually, which is what makes them add up without being noticed.

Two: time

Many games sell something that makes progress faster: a multiplier on points earned, a pass that accelerates a season, a shortcut past a grind. You are buying time rather than capability. Whether that is worth money is a genuinely personal question — somebody with four hours a week and somebody with twenty will answer it differently — but it is worth naming it as time, because "I am paying $15 to skip about six hours" is a decision you can actually weigh.

Three: capability

Some games sell items that affect how you perform. This is the category to look at hardest, because it determines whether money buys an advantage over other players. Publishers vary enormously here and many are explicit about where they stand. Before you register, find the game's own statement about it; if there is no statement, treat that silence as information.

Four: recurring charges

A subscription, a premium account, a season pass that renews. The distinguishing feature is not the amount but the repetition: a $9 monthly charge is $108 a year, and it keeps going until somebody cancels it. Recurring charges are also the ones most likely to be forgotten, because after the second month nobody reads the statement line.

Unit 01-3
Randomised items, and why Australia treats them carefully

Some games sell a container whose contents are randomised — you pay a known amount and receive an unknown item from a pool. Whatever a particular game calls these, they are worth identifying before you spend, because the price you pay is certain and the thing you receive is not.

In Australia, computer games sold or hired must be classified, and the Australian Classification Board is the body that does it. Its website, classification.gov.au, is where to look up how a particular game has been classified and what the classification markings mean. Check it there rather than accepting a figure from a forum or from us; classifications change and we are not the source of record.

For a household with children, this is the single most useful thing in step 1. Purchasable randomised items are not something to set up for a child and walk away from. If a young person in your home will be playing, read the eSafety Commissioner's material on gaming, and keep the purchasing control on an adult's account. Step 5 comes back to this with a practical household arrangement.

Unit 01-4
Turning all of that into one yearly number

People budget badly for games because they think in individual purchases. A $7 item does not feel like a decision. Twelve of them is $84, which does feel like one.

The fix is to set the yearly figure first, before you have anything you want to buy, and to set it in Australian dollars. Pick a number you would be comfortable telling another adult in the household. For many people that number is zero, and zero works perfectly well in this category — a free-to-join game that cannot be played at all without spending is not really free to join, and you would discover that in the first week and leave.

Three practical habits make the number stick. First, write it where you will see it: a line in a notes app, the same place you keep other subscriptions. Second, put recurring charges on the calendar as a reminder a week before each renewal, so cancelling stays a live option. Third, check the payment method itself — if the computer is shared, know whose card is saved and whether it needs a code each time.

One more thing belongs in the yearly figure: hardware. If the game will not run on your current computer, the honest total includes whatever you would spend to change that. Step 2 is entirely about finding out whether that applies to you, and it is better to know before you are attached to the game.

Unit 01-5
The worked example household

The hypothetical household from the homepage — two adults, one five-year-old desktop, a niece at weekends — sits down with a sheet of paper. They have no game in mind yet. They are only trying to decide what they are willing to spend.

They write $0 for the first three months, deliberately, so the decision to spend anything is a second decision made later with evidence. Then they write a ceiling of $120 for the remainder of the year, with a rule that any recurring charge must be agreed by both of them and entered in the shared calendar. They note that the niece does not have access to the payment method on that computer. Finally they write "hardware: unknown, see step 2" rather than pretending it is zero.

That sheet takes twenty minutes and it is the whole of step 1 for them. No product has been chosen, nothing has been installed, and nothing has been claimed about how any game performed, because this household is an illustration rather than a report.

Unit 01-6
Step 1 specification

Unit 01-7
Words used in this step

Free to play

A model in which the game costs nothing to download or register for, and the publisher's revenue comes from optional purchases made later.

In-game currency

A token bought with real money and spent inside the game. It exists partly to make the real cost of an item harder to feel.

Cosmetic item

Something that changes appearance only and has no effect on how the game plays.

Premium account

A recurring paid tier, usually offering faster progress or extra conveniences.

Randomised item

A purchase with a fixed price and an uncertain reward drawn from a pool.

Unit 01-8
Where the example game sits

World of Tanks is the example this course uses: an online multiplayer game in which players take part in team battles against other players, played on a desktop computer. We are describing a product, not speaking for its publisher, and we have no commercial information about its pricing to give you. What its affiliate programme publishes is that a commission is paid when somebody creates and activates an account — that is the arrangement behind the link below, and it is the only fact about the programme we state.

What it costs to play, which of the four shapes above apply to it and what its position is on purchases that affect capability are all questions the vendor's own site answers and this one does not. Take the four headings from this step with you and look for each one there.

Visit the World of Tanks website

Paid link. If you follow it and then create and activate an account, Haubergson Invest s.r.o. is paid a commission by the affiliate network that operates the link. Following it costs you nothing, and step 1 works just as well if you do not.

Unit 01-9
Checklist for step 1

• Write one figure: the most, in Australian dollars, you are prepared to spend on this game in the next twelve months.
• Write a second figure for the first three months. It is allowed to be zero.
• List any recurring charge the game offers, and multiply each monthly price by twelve so you see the annual version.
• Decide now whether recurring charges are permitted at all in your household.
• Find the game's own statement on whether purchases affect performance against other players. If there is none, note that.
• Identify whether the game sells randomised items, and if children use the computer, decide who controls purchasing.
• Look the game up on classification.gov.au and note its Australian classification.
• Check which payment method is saved on the computer you will play on, and whether it asks for confirmation each time.
• Add a line to your figure for hardware, marked "unknown until step 2".
• Put the sheet somewhere you will see it again in three months.