A five-step course for adults in Australia who are new to PC games

Each step takes about eight to twelve minutes to read, and the whole course runs to roughly an hour if you read it in one sitting. Most people do better spreading it over a week, because every step finishes with a checklist you work through away from the screen.

The five steps, in order

1. Step 1 — What “free to play” actually means Where the money comes from in a game that costs nothing to install, and what that changes about how you read its pages.
2. Step 2 — Working out whether your computer can run it Reading a requirements table, finding your own specifications, and the one platform question that trips people up.
3. Step 3 — Accounts, email confirmation and sensible security What an account sign-up asks for, why confirmation emails exist, and how to tell a real one from a fake.
4. Step 4 — Classification ratings, spending and randomised items Where Australian classification information comes from, how in-game currencies work, and how to set a limit before you need one.
5. Step 5 — Your first fortnight, and how to leave well Settings worth changing on day one, keeping play in proportion to the rest of your week, and closing an account cleanly.

Every step stands on its own, but they are ordered for a reason: each one answers a question the next one assumes you have already settled. If you only have ten minutes, read Step 1 and do its checklist.

Who this course is for, and who it is not for

This is written for an adult in Australia who has a desktop or laptop computer, has heard that a particular game is worth a look, and has no idea what the sign-up process involves or what they are agreeing to. You might be setting something up for yourself, or alongside a teenager in the house, or you might simply dislike the feeling of clicking through screens you have not read.

It is not for people who already play PC games regularly. If you know what a graphics driver is and you have an opinion about frame rates, there is nothing here you need. It is also not technical support: we cannot fix a specific computer, and we do not know what is on yours. Nothing on this site is professional advice, and completing the course gives you no qualification, certificate or account — there is nothing to sign up for here at all.

What you will be able to do when you finish

By the end of Step 1 you will be able to read a game's own description and separate the things it states plainly from the things it implies. By the end of Step 2 you will know how to find your computer's processor, memory and graphics details and compare them against a published requirements list without guessing.

Step 3 leaves you able to create an account with a password you have not reused and to check whether a confirmation email genuinely came from the sender it claims. Step 4 leaves you able to look up how a game is classified in Australia and to decide, in advance and in dollars, what you are willing to spend. Step 5 leaves you able to set the thing up so it does not quietly take over your evenings, and to close the account if you decide it is not for you.

The checklist to do before anything else

Before you install anything at all, three things make every later step easier. First, find out what is actually inside your computer and write it down — Step 2 shows you where to look, and it takes about two minutes on Windows. Second, decide which email address you will use for game accounts, and consider keeping it separate from the address you use for banking and work. Third, agree a spending figure with yourself, even if the figure is zero.

That is the whole of the before-you-start checklist, and it is reproduced with printed boxes on the All checklists page along with the five that close each step.

A worked example we follow through the course

To keep the advice concrete, each step returns to the same hypothetical household: two adults sharing a four-year-old Windows desktop in a flat, with a fifteen-year-old who wants to try a vehicle-combat game a friend at school mentioned. They are invented for the purpose of illustration — they are not real people, we have not interviewed anyone, and they are never shown reporting a result from any product. They exist only so that abstract advice has somewhere to land.

Following them, you see what the choices look like when a computer is a few years old, when a game is shared, and when a parent would rather understand the classification system than argue about it.

What you can do without spending anything

A great deal, as it turns out. Checking your own hardware costs nothing. Looking up a classification rating costs nothing. Making a strong, unique password costs nothing. Setting a session limit, turning off automatic voice chat and reading a refund policy cost nothing. Games distributed on a free-to-play basis can be installed and played without payment, and the course never asks you to buy anything to continue.

Where Crossout appears in the course, and why

Abstract advice about “a game” is hard to act on, so the course uses one real title as its running example. Crossout is a free-to-play online multiplayer game set in a post-apocalyptic world, built around vehicles that players construct and modify themselves — shape, armour, armament, support systems and accessories. Its vendor pays a commission for completed sign-ups, which is how this site is funded, and we say so on every page where a link appears.

We chose a title in that category because it makes the generic lessons visible: account confirmation, platform limits, in-game currencies and classification all apply to it. Everything we state about it comes from what the vendor itself publishes; where the vendor does not state something, we say that instead of guessing.

How the course is written and kept current

The steps were drafted as a sequence rather than as separate articles, so that nothing in Step 4 assumes knowledge that was never introduced. General statements about Australian rules point to the body responsible for them — the Australian Classification Board, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Australian Cyber Security Centre — rather than to our own authority. Where a claim could not be sourced, it is phrased as general guidance or left out. The About page explains the method, the review schedule and the commercial relationship in detail.

Short answers to common questions

Do I have to do the steps in order? No, but Step 2 and Step 3 make more sense after Step 1.

Do you store my progress? No. The checklists print with empty boxes and this site sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. Tick them on paper.

Is this an official site for any game? No. Subtle Plane is not affiliated with, authorised by or endorsed by any game publisher, and brand names belong to their owners.

Where do I start? Step 1.