All checklists, in one printable place
The five checklists from the course, in order, with printed boxes. Nothing on this page is interactive and nothing you tick is remembered — the boxes exist to be filled in with a pen.
How to use these
Print the page, or read it on screen with a notebook beside you. The five lists follow the course, and each is written to be worked through in a single sitting of ten to twenty minutes.
Use them out of order if that suits your situation. A household that already has an account running can start at the Step 4 list, treat it as an audit of what was set up in a hurry, and then move to Step 5. A household still deciding can get most of the benefit from the first three lists alone, and stop there if the answer turns out to be no.
Two habits make the lists worth more than the paper. The first is writing answers rather than only ticking: a tick next to "I have written one yearly figure" is worth nothing without the figure. Keep one page with the actual answers — the device, the times, the dollar figure, the account email, the renewal date — and let the checklists be the prompts that fill it.
The second is dating the page. A household review in six months is much easier when you can see what you decided and when. Pair that with a calendar reminder a week before any renewal date and you have covered the two failures that cost ordinary households the most: a subscription nobody noticed, and a setting nobody checked.
Blank lines are fine. An unanswered item is a question to take to the vendor's own pages or support, and a precise question gets a better answer than a general one. Items marked "not stated" are findings too — they tell you how much of the picture the vendor is willing to put in writing, which is useful information when you decide how much to commit.
These lists are general guidance for this category, not advice about any particular product, and nothing in them is a legal requirement. If a step does not apply to your household, cross it out. The course itself explains the reasoning behind each item, and each list below links back to the step it came from.
Before you look at any product
- Write down which device the game would run on, and who else uses that device.
- Write down who would own the account: an adult, or a child with an adult supervising.
- Write down the maximum amount, in Australian dollars, the household is willing to spend in a year.
- Check whether a payment method is already saved on that device.
- Agree on when play happens: which days, and for how long.
- Read Step 1 before searching for a product name.
Step 1 — Understanding the category
- I can explain, in one sentence, what an online riding game is.
- I know the difference between the client on the device and the company's server.
- I know what "free-to-play", "subscription" and "in-game currency" mean.
- I have asked which specific game is being requested, and on which device the child's friends play it.
- I have found out whether conversation happens inside the game or in a separate app.
- I have decided, provisionally, whether an adult or a child will hold the account.
- I have noted my household's position on randomised purchases.
- I have bookmarked the Australian Classification Board database and the eSafety Commissioner's family guidance.
- I have written down one question to carry into Step 2.
Step 2 — Your requirements, written before you shop
- I have named one device, and the person who owns it.
- I know whether our connection is metered, and where the first large download will happen.
- I have agreed play times by day and length, and what happens when a session cannot be paused.
- I have written one yearly figure in Australian dollars, including zero if that is the answer.
- I have decided who may authorise a spend, and that purchases are a separate conversation from play.
- I have decided who holds the account, the password and the recovery email.
- I have decided our position on in-game chat with strangers.
- I have decided our position on randomised purchases.
- I have agreed with the child what to do, and who to tell, if something upsets them.
- I have marked any line I could not fill in, to answer in Step 3.
Step 3 — Reading before signing
- I reached the vendor's site directly, not through a forum or video link.
- I listed the legal and support pages linked from the footer.
- I noted the date on the terms document, or wrote "undated".
- I searched the terms for subscription, renew, cancel, refund, age, parent, suspend and terminate.
- I searched the privacy page for child, age, delete and third part.
- I wrote down what is actually sold: access, permanent items, currency, randomised items, or a mixture.
- I have the six answers, with "not stated" written where the vendor says nothing.
- I converted the cost into one yearly figure in Australian dollars.
- I checked the title in the Australian Classification Board database.
- I compared the vendor's yearly figure with the figure I set in Step 2.
- I have not created an account yet.
Step 4 — Set-up day
- The account uses an adult's email address and a password not used elsewhere.
- Extra verification is on, where the vendor offers it.
- Marketing email is declined or switched off in the settings.
- Chat and visibility settings match our Step 2 decision.
- No payment method is stored that we did not intend to store.
- The device requires a password or fingerprint for every purchase.
- The game is installed on the one nominated device, from the vendor's site or an official app store.
- We sat through the first twenty minutes together and found the block and report buttons.
- We confirmed the settings survived a restart of the game.
- The one-page record is written: account email, password location, renewal date, cancellation method, statement name, set-up date.
- A calendar reminder is set a week before any renewal.
Step 5 — The months after set-up
- I read vendor announcements myself rather than second-hand summaries.
- I save a copy of any announcement that changes something we paid for.
- Spending requests are answered against the written household rule, on a named day each month.
- I convert any currency bundle back into Australian dollars before deciding.
- I know the statement name and check unfamiliar charges against the purchase history first.
- Unresolved billing problems go to the vendor in writing, with the reply kept.
- The player knows where the block and report buttons are and who to tell.
- I know that serious online harm can be reported to the eSafety Commissioner as well as in the game.
- Two review dates are in the household calendar.
- If we stop: cancel first, confirm on the next statement, then decide dormant or closed.
- Any deletion request is made in writing and the reply is kept.