Step 2 of 5

Deciding your own limits first is the cheapest protection there is. A product page is written to answer the question "why not?", and it is much easier to answer that question when you already wrote down what you need.

Why this step comes before product research

If you read a vendor's page first, your sense of what is reasonable is set by that page. A subscription figure seems normal because it was the first figure you saw; a device requirement seems necessary because it was presented as necessary. Writing your own requirements down beforehand gives you something to compare against that did not come from someone with an interest in the answer.

This is ordinary consumer practice rather than suspicion of any particular company. The ACCC, which administers the Australian Consumer Law, publishes general guidance on buying decisions and on what businesses must and must not tell you about a product. Knowing your own requirement is what makes that guidance usable.

The output of this step is a single page of paper with six lines on it. You will carry it into Step 3 and tick things off against a vendor's own words.

The device: what actually runs it

Three families of device are common in Australian homes, and they behave differently for games with shared worlds.

A desktop or laptop computer generally gives the fullest version of a game in this category, a keyboard for typing, and the easiest access to settings. An older computer may still be fine, because riding games are usually not demanding compared with large action titles — but "usually" is not a promise, and the vendor's own requirements page is what settles it.

A tablet is comfortable to hold and easy to supervise, because the screen is visible from across the room. It may run a reduced version of a game, or none at all. Battery and storage become the practical limits.

A phone is the most private device in the house, which is the thing to think about. It is also the device most likely to have a payment method already attached to it.

Write down one device. Not "whatever works" — one device, with a named owner. If a second device is acceptable later, that is a decision you can make later with more information.

The connection and the data

A shared world needs a live connection for the whole session, not just at the start. Two separate things matter: whether the connection is steady, and whether it is metered.

Steadiness matters because a dropped connection in a shared world means the session ends, sometimes losing the last few minutes of progress. If your household's connection is unreliable at particular times of day, expect frustration at those times, and say so in advance so it is not a surprise treated as the game's fault.

Metering matters if the house is on a mobile connection with a monthly allowance, which is common outside dense urban areas. Two costs sit here: the first download of the game, which can be large, and the ongoing traffic of play, which is usually much smaller. The vendor's own site is the place to find the download size. If you are on a limited plan, do the first download somewhere unmetered if you can.

Time: the limit nobody writes down

Games with shared worlds are built around things that happen at particular times: an event this weekend, a daily task that resets, friends who are online after dinner. That design is not sinister, but it does mean the game will keep offering reasons to be present, and a household with no agreed limit will negotiate the same argument repeatedly.

A workable limit names days and lengths: for example, an hour on two weeknights and two hours on one weekend day. What matters is less the number than that it was agreed before play started and written where everyone can see it. The eSafety Commissioner publishes family guidance on setting expectations about screen time and online games, which is a useful second voice when the conversation gets stuck.

Also decide what happens when the limit meets a session that cannot be paused. Agreeing in advance that an unfinished task can be abandoned, and that nothing is lost by abandoning it, removes the most common flashpoint.

Money: one number, decided in advance

Write one figure in Australian dollars: the most the household is willing to spend on this game in a year. Zero is a legitimate figure and many people in this category stay there.

Then decide three things about that figure. Who may authorise a spend against it — almost always an adult. Whether it is spent in one go or in small amounts, which matters because repeated small amounts are how a yearly budget disappears without anyone noticing. And what happens if the limit is reached in March: the honest answer is usually "nothing more until next year", and saying that out loud in advance is kinder than saying it in an argument.

If a game is sold as a subscription, note that a yearly figure and a monthly charge are the same decision in different clothes. Multiply before you agree, including any months you would keep paying while nobody is playing.

People and rules

Four household questions remain, and none is technical.

• Who holds the account and the password, and who the recovery email belongs to.
• Whether talking to people the child does not know offline is allowed, limited, or switched off where the game allows that.
• What the child should do if something in the game upsets them, and who they tell — agreed before it happens, so the answer is not "hide it".
• Whether the game is allowed to be mentioned in a purchase request at all, or whether purchases are a separate conversation on a separate day.

That last one sounds fussy and is the most useful. Separating "may I play" from "may I buy" means a request to spend is never carried along by the momentum of a request to play.

The example household in Step 2

The hypothetical household from Step 1 — two adults, one child of about eleven, one tablet, one older laptop — works through the six lines. The tablet is the obvious choice until they check: the friends all play on computers, and the household wants the screen in the shared room anyway. The older laptop becomes the nominated device, with the understanding that if a vendor's requirements rule it out, the answer is no rather than a new laptop.

Their connection is fixed and unmetered, so only the first download needs thought, and they decide to do it on a weeknight when nobody is streaming. Time is set at one hour on Wednesdays and two hours on Saturday mornings. The yearly figure is set at a modest amount, to be spent as one subscription payment rather than in small pieces, with the adult holding the payment method. Randomised purchases are ruled out entirely, a decision made in Step 1 and written down here.

Nothing has been bought, no site has been visited, and the household now has a page it can hold against any product in the category. This household is invented for the course and is not describing anyone's experience of any product.

Before you move on

Checklist for Step 2