All checklists
Every list from the five steps, gathered here so you can print one sheet and keep it beside the computer. Nothing on this page is stored, remembered or sent anywhere — the boxes are printed, not clickable, and a tick exists only on paper.
How to use these lists
These are working lists, not a test. There is no pass mark, no order you are obliged to follow and nothing that records whether you did any of it. The most useful way to treat them is as a set of questions that each have a written answer somewhere by the time you are done — on the printed sheet, in a notebook, or on the back of an envelope.
Three suggestions from the way the course is built. First, do the "before you begin" list early, because the five facts it asks for are used again in Steps 2, 3 and 4, and finding them once saves repeating yourself. Second, write answers rather than ticking. A tick records that you looked; a written figure records what you found, and a written figure is what you compare against a vendor's published requirements or a bank statement a month later. Third, when a list asks for something a vendor has not published, write "not stated" rather than leaving the line blank. A blank line reads later as something you forgot; "not stated" reads as something you checked.
The lists are deliberately short. Each is meant to be finished in one sitting, and none of them requires anything installed except the one in Step 4, which assumes you have decided to go ahead. If you read the whole course and decide not to play anything, four of the six lists can still be completed in full, and they will be just as useful the next time a game is advertised at you.
You may find it easier to do them out of order. Step 3's list — classification, currencies, limits — is the one with the most consequence attached and can be done on its own, before anything else, by anyone deciding whether a household should have this kind of game in it at all. Step 5's list is the only one that needs time to pass before it can be finished, because it asks you to compare a month of actual spending with a figure written down before the month began.
If you print this page, it prints plainly in black on white, without the site's colours or decoration, so that the boxes are usable with a pen. If you would rather copy the lists by hand into a notebook, that works just as well and tends to be remembered better.
Before you begin
- Write down which operating system this computer runs, and which version.
- Write down how much memory is installed and how much free space is on the drive the game would land on.
- Decide, in writing, the largest amount in Australian dollars you would be willing to spend on a game in a month. Zero is a complete answer.
- Decide who will be using this account: you, someone under sixteen, or both.
- Put the sheet somewhere you will see it again in a month.
Step 1 — What this kind of game is
- Write one sentence, in your own words, describing what a player of a collection RPG actually does in a five-minute session.
- Name the resource that limits how long a single session can be, and say what refills it.
- Confirm you understand that your progress is stored on the publisher's servers and requires a connection each time you play.
- Find one game's official description and mark three sentences as mechanical, atmospheric or commercial.
- Write down one thing that description does not tell you and that you would want to know before installing.
- Check that the game is published for the operating system your computer runs.
- Note whether you are reading for an adult, a person under sixteen, or both.
Step 2 — Checking your computer
- Write down your operating system and its exact version number.
- Write down the processor name as the system panel spells it.
- Write down installed memory in gigabytes.
- Write down the graphics chip name, and note whether it is integrated.
- Write down free space, today, on the drive you would install to.
- Copy the vendor's published requirements beside your own figures; mark anything unpublished as "not stated".
- Decide whether the operating system row passes. If it does not, stop and update before going further.
- Plan when the download will happen and confirm it will not exhaust a shared data allowance.
- Confirm you have installed no optimiser, booster or driver tool as part of this step.
Step 3 — Classification and in-game spending
- Search the Australian Classification Board's database for the exact title and write down the decision.
- Write down the consumer advice line, not just the marking.
- If no Australian decision appears, record that as unknown rather than substituting an overseas rating.
- Find the game's shop information and identify which currency can be bought with real money.
- Find the published odds for any randomised reward, if the publisher provides them, and read them before the first attempt.
- Write your monthly limit in Australian dollars, with today's date beside it.
- Decide whether a payment method will be stored on the account, and whether one will exist at all.
- Turn on transaction notifications in your banking app if they are available.
- Locate and read the publisher's refund policy before any purchase.
- If anyone under sixteen will play, settle the payment, classification and contact questions with the responsible adult first.
Step 4 — Registering, installing, the first hour
- Create the account with an email address you will still control in two years.
- Use a password that is used nowhere else, and record it somewhere you can retrieve it.
- Turn on a second authentication factor if one is offered.
- Choose a display name that does not identify you.
- Search the terms for "terminate", "refund" and "licence", and note anything you cannot find.
- Open the privacy notice and find who else receives your information and whether it leaves Australia.
- Confirm the download address in the browser bar is the vendor's own, reading the whole domain.
- Decline any extra software offered alongside the game.
- Check the install location against the free space you wrote down in Step 2.
- Set notifications, purchase confirmation, chat and graphics before playing further.
- Stop at one hour and write a single line about whether you want to return.
Step 5 — Time, money and stepping away
- Put a review date four weeks from your first session in a diary or calendar.
- Skip one day on purpose during the first month, and write one sentence about it afterwards.
- Decide, before any event screen is open, whether you will spend on time-limited content.
- At the review, total the month's transactions from the bank statement rather than from memory.
- Compare the total with your written limit, and write down the circumstances rather than moving the limit.
- Check what spending controls your own bank offers on your card or account.
- Read what a clan or alliance expects before joining, and leave if the expectation grows.
- Confirm the second authentication factor is still switched on.
- If stopping: remove the payment method, cancel any recurring charge, request account deletion, uninstall, and check the statement again a month later.
- If spending or play has become difficult to control, speak to your GP or a free confidential support service in your state or territory.
The course itself begins on the course index, and the About page explains how it was put together and who pays for it; the Contact page is where to send a correction.