Step 5 of 5

Spending, randomised items and classification

This is the step that decides whether a free game stays free for you. It covers how in-game currency hides the Australian dollar price, what randomised purchases are, and where classification information for Australia is published. Reading time is about twenty minutes.

Why in-game currency exists

Most games of this kind do not sell items for dollars. They sell a token — coins, crowns, credits, whatever the game calls it — and the items are priced in tokens. There are practical reasons for this, including the awkwardness of charging very small amounts to a card, but there is also an effect worth naming: a price in tokens does not feel like money.

The effect is strengthened by two common arrangements. Tokens are usually sold in bundles that do not divide evenly into the item prices, so a purchase leaves a remainder that is useless on its own and mildly annoying until it is topped up. And the bundles are usually priced so that larger ones look better value, which moves the decision from “do I want this item” to “which bundle”.

None of this is deceptive in itself, and none of it is unusual outside games either. But it does mean that the only way to know what you are spending is to do the conversion yourself, in Australian dollars, before you buy anything.

Working the real price out in Australian dollars

1. Find the smallest token bundle and its price in Australian dollars. Check that the price shown is in AUD and whether GST is included in the figure displayed.
2. Divide the price by the number of tokens to get the dollar value of one token. Write it down; you will not do this arithmetic a second time.
3. Pick three items you would actually want and multiply their token prices by that figure. Now you have three real prices.
4. Check whether those items can be earned through play, and if so, roughly how long that takes. Your own first sessions are the best evidence; publisher figures and community estimates are both interested parties in different ways.
5. Compare the result against your yearly limit from Step 1. If three items you merely quite like would consume the limit, that is the useful finding, and it is better found now than in March.

Prices are set by the publisher and change. Currency conversion also moves, so a price that was one figure last year may be another this year. Do the arithmetic against what is on screen today rather than against a number from a forum.

Randomised purchases, described plainly

A randomised purchase is one where you pay for a chance at something rather than for the thing itself. You buy a container; its contents are determined when it is opened; what you receive may be the thing you wanted or may not be. Games present these with a great deal of ceremony, because the moment of opening is the product.

Three plain observations, without alarm.

First, the expected value is not knowable by the buyer unless the publisher publishes the probabilities. Some publishers do publish them; where they do, the figures are usually in a support page rather than in the purchase screen, and they are worth finding before buying rather than after.

Second, the structure resembles a wager in its mechanics — stake, random outcome, variable reward — even where no money can be won back and no gambling law is engaged. That resemblance is why these purchases attract attention from regulators and from parents, and it is a reasonable thing to take seriously in your own household regardless of how the law classifies it.

Third, the usual advice to buy the item directly rather than the container, where both options exist, is sound: a known price for a known thing is a different transaction from an unknown price for a chance at it.

This course does not claim to know whether any particular game uses randomised purchases, including the example game: its vendor does not state this in the description this site relies on. If it matters to you — and if there is a young person in the house, it should — look for it in the game's own store before anyone spends anything.

Shared computers and people under 18

If the computer is shared, or if a young person will use the account, two practical measures do most of the work. Do not leave payment details stored in the account or in the platform the game is bought through, so that a purchase requires a deliberate act by whoever holds the card. And set up separate user accounts on the computer itself rather than everyone using one, which separates games, files and saved passwords.

Randomised purchases and simulated-gambling features should not be presented to a child as an ordinary part of play, and no part of this course suggests otherwise. The eSafety Commissioner publishes material for parents and carers on games and online experiences, including how to talk about in-game spending, and it is written for people who do not play games themselves.

Classification in Australia

Computer games made available in Australia are classified under the National Classification Scheme, and the classifications are published by the Australian Classification Board. The Board's site carries the classification for a given title together with consumer advice — the short phrases describing why a title received the classification it did.

Two points about using it. The classification applies to a title as classified, and a game that updates continuously may have been classified at a particular version. And the consumer advice is often more informative than the classification letter itself, because it names what is actually in the game.

This course does not state a classification for any title, including the example game, and does not state an age at which any particular game is suitable. Those are matters for the Board's published record and for your own judgement about your household, and the Board's site is the place to read them rather than a summary here.

Visit the Crossout websitePaid affiliate link. Blank Index is paid a commission if an account is created and confirmed after following it. Checking the Classification Board's record is a separate step that costs nothing and is worth doing first.

Your position as a consumer

Digital products and services supplied to consumers in Australia come with consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law, and those guarantees cannot be excluded by a term in a contract. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission explains what the guarantees cover and how to pursue a problem, including for purchases from overseas sellers, where enforcement is harder in practice even where the law applies.

Practically: keep the receipts and confirmation emails for anything you buy inside a game, in a folder you can find. Note the date and the amount in Australian dollars. If something you paid for does not work or is removed, a record of what you bought and when is the difference between a complaint and a recollection.

If a problem involves unauthorised charges rather than a faulty product, the card issuer or payment provider is usually the faster route, and Scamwatch is where to report the pattern if deception was involved.

Setting a limit you will actually keep

A limit written down before you were interested in anything is worth more than a limit set in the moment, which is why Step 1 asked for one. Three things make a limit hold.

Make it annual, not monthly. A monthly limit resets eleven more times and invites you to use it. An annual figure is a number you can check against.

Make spending slow. Do not store the card. Give yourself a fixed delay — a day is plenty — between deciding to buy something and buying it. Almost everything that is worth buying is still worth buying tomorrow, and the design of these stores is aimed precisely at the difference.

Write down what you spent, the same day. Not to feel guilty about it, but because a year's purchases in a game are individually small and collectively invisible unless they are written somewhere.

The example household, at Step 5

Checklist 5 — the last one