Step 2 of 5

Working out what you actually need

A request for a game usually arrives as a name and nothing else. This step turns that name into a page of notes you can hold a decision against, covering the five things that decide whether a game will work in your house.

Who is actually playing

Start here, because every other answer changes depending on it. Write down the name and age of each person who will use this game, and mark which of them will hold the account.

If the player is an adult, the account is theirs and the rest of this step is largely about money and hardware. If the player is a child, two further questions appear. The first is whose name the account is in — in most households an adult creates and controls it, because the adult is the one who can cancel a payment, reset a password or close the account. The second is age: many publishers set a minimum age for holding an account, and some require a parent or guardian to create accounts for younger players. The publisher's terms of service state their rule, and Step 3 shows you where to find it.

Write down, too, whether this is a solo activity or a shared one. A game the whole household plays together has a different time footprint and a different argument profile from one person playing alone after school.

The device you really have

The device that matters is the one actually in the house, not the one you might buy. Note for each candidate device: what it is, roughly how old it is, which operating system it runs, and how much free storage it has.

Publishers state their requirements on their own support pages, usually as a minimum specification and a recommended one. Minimum means the game will start; recommended means it will run comfortably. If your device sits at or below the minimum, expect a poor experience rather than no experience, and treat that as a reason to test before paying anything.

Three practical points save a lot of disappointment:

1. Storage runs out before anything else does. Online games grow with each update. A game that installs at twenty gigabytes may need noticeably more a year later. Check free space now and leave headroom.
2. A phone, a tablet and a computer are three different products. The same title on different devices can have different controls, different features and sometimes different purchase arrangements. If the household has a preference, check that the preferred device is genuinely supported.
3. Laptops get hot and slow down. An older laptop that handles documents comfortably may struggle for an hour of continuous graphics. This is normal behaviour, not a fault.

The connection, honestly measured

Online games need a connection that is steady more than one that is fast. A video stream can buffer ahead; a live game cannot, so a connection that drops briefly every few minutes is more disruptive than one that is merely slow.

You do not need measuring tools to form a view. If video calls in your house are usually fine, a game will usually be fine. If calls stutter and freeze, expect the game to do the same. Note whether the device will be on a cable or wireless, and if wireless, whether it will be in the same room as the router or at the other end of the house.

Write down your data arrangement as well. If the household is on a plan with a monthly data allowance, the initial download of a game client is the large event — many are tens of gigabytes — and updates follow at intervals. Playing itself usually consumes far less than streaming video. If the only connection is a mobile hotspot with a cap, the install is the thing to plan around.

Time, before it becomes an argument

Decide the time allowance now, while nobody is mid-game and nothing is at stake. It is far easier to agree on five hours a week in a calm kitchen than to negotiate it at nine o'clock on a Tuesday.

Two features of online games make time harder to manage than it is with single-player games, and both are worth naming out loud to whoever will be playing:

• You often cannot pause. The world keeps running, and leaving mid-activity can mean losing whatever was in progress. "Five more minutes" is sometimes a genuine request rather than a stalling tactic. Agreeing to stop at a natural break rather than on a timer removes a lot of friction.
• Many games reward turning up daily. Daily bonuses and limited-time events are designed to bring players back, and they work. If the household wants to play three days a week rather than seven, say so early, because the game will apply gentle pressure in the other direction.

Write the agreed allowance down with the rest of your notes. The eSafety Commissioner publishes guidance for families on setting expectations around screen time and online activity, which is worth reading if the conversation is likely to be difficult: esafety.gov.au.

A monthly number in Australian dollars

Set one number: the most you are prepared to see leave the household account for this game in a month, in AUD. Not a range, not "it depends" — one number. Everything in Step 3 is then a comparison against it.

When you set that number, remember what it has to cover:

• Any purchase price or subscription.
• Any in-game currency anyone is likely to buy.
• The cost of a second account if more than one person in the house wants to play at once, which is common and frequently overlooked.

Also decide how purchases will be paid for. A card stored in a games account is convenient and makes spending invisible. Prepaid cards or gift cards cap the damage by design and are a common approach in households with children. There is no single right answer, but there is a wrong one: nobody having decided.

Using the page you have written

With your notes finished, you can now read a game's own pages for a purpose rather than browsing them. You are looking for the points where the game's requirements and your page disagree. A disagreement is not automatically a reason to stop — it is a reason to decide knowingly.

This is also the point where a concrete example helps. Throughout the rest of this course, one named title is used to show where to look: Star Stable Online. The only thing this site can tell you about it is what has been stated to us — that it runs an affiliate programme paying commission on sign-up, first play and purchases. Everything else, including what it costs, what device it suits and whether it matches your notes, has to come from the publisher's own pages. Visit the Star Stable Online website and read it against the page you have just written.

The link above is a paid affiliate link: INAKA s.r.o. earns a commission if you sign up after following it, at no extra cost to you.

Do the same with any other title under consideration. The method is the thing being taught here, and it is deliberately title-neutral: the same five headings work for any online game, including ones nobody pays us to mention.

Step 2 checklist