A five-step course in starting your first online PC game, for readers in Australia

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

This workbook is written for an adult in Australia who has decided to try an online computer game and finds the surrounding vocabulary unhelpful. You need no previous experience; every term is defined where it first appears. It is also useful to a parent or carer who will not be playing at all, but who wants to understand what an account, an installer and an in-game purchase involve before saying yes.

It is not for you if you already run games regularly and want tuning advice or settings tables. This course stays at the level of the decisions a newcomer has to make, and it names no winners.

What you will be able to do when each step is done

After Step 1 you can read a game's own description and say, in a sentence, how the people who made it expect to be paid. After Step 2 you can open the information panel on your own computer, write down five figures, and compare them with a published requirements table instead of hoping. After Step 3 you have an account that belongs to you, with a confirmed email address and a password used nowhere else. After Step 4 you have finished a tutorial and adjusted the settings that matter most for comfort. After Step 5 you have a household rule about spending, and you know which Australian body to contact when something goes wrong.

The one checklist to do before anything else

Before Step 1, five minutes of preparation saves an hour later. None of it involves installing anything.

A worked example: one household, five evenings

The following household is a hypothetical example, written to show the order of the steps. It is not a real family, nothing here is a report of anyone's experience, and it makes no claim about how any product performed.

Imagine a share house in a regional town with a four-year-old laptop and a fixed monthly data allowance. On the first evening the residents read Step 1 and write one sentence: the game costs nothing to install, and the studio expects to earn from optional purchases later. On the second evening they follow Step 2 and write down five figures about the laptop; one sits close to the published minimum, so they note that performance may be modest and continue anyway.

The third evening is the account and the confirmation email. The fourth is the installer, the tutorial and ten minutes of settings. On the fifth they read Step 5 and agree that no money will be spent for the first month, which leaves time to decide whether the game is worth anything to them at all.

What you can do without spending anything

All five steps are free to work through. The tools they use — your operating system's own information panel, your browser's password manager, your account settings and the public pages of government bodies — cost nothing and are already on your computer or online.

Games in this category are also commonly offered at no cost to install and play, with optional purchases available afterwards. Whether a particular game works that way is a question for its own website, and Step 1 shows you where on a vendor's site that answer usually sits.

Where War Thunder appears in this course, and why

One product is named repeatedly in these pages: War Thunder, an online game published by Gaijin Entertainment. We use it as the running example because the affiliate network that operates our link describes it as an online game that is widely played, and because its sign-up path — create an account, confirm the email address, log in and start the tutorial — matches the shape of Step 3 and Step 4 exactly.

We are not connected with the people who make it: not a reseller, not a partner, not an official source. Where a question about the game is not answered by the material the network gives us, we say that the vendor does not state it rather than filling the gap.

The links to that game are paid affiliate links. Visit the War Thunder website

Paid affiliate link. GRAVELGANT s.r.o. earns a commission if you create and confirm an account after following it; this costs you nothing extra and does not change what is written here.

Official Australian help

Where a step touches money, scams, privacy or age suitability, it points at the body that actually handles the question in Australia. These are public services and none of them has any involvement with this site.

• Australian Classification Board — the national body that assigns classification ratings to games and films.
• Australian Competition and Consumer Commission — the regulator for consumer law and fair trading.
• Scamwatch — where scams can be reported and current scam types are described.
• Australian Cyber Security Centre — government guidance on securing accounts and devices.
• eSafety Commissioner — the office handling online safety, including online abuse.
• Office of the Australian Information Commissioner — privacy regulation and complaints.

How this workbook is written and kept current

The steps were drafted by the editorial team at GRAVELGANT s.r.o. in the order a beginner meets the decisions, not in the order the topics are usually taught. Each step relies on three kinds of source: the public description of the product used as an example, the published guidance of the Australian bodies linked above, and the documentation your own operating system ships with. The course is read through at least twice a year and whenever one of those bodies changes its guidance; the review date sits in every footer. The About page sets out the editorial method in full, including the commercial relationship behind the links.

Short answers to four common questions

Do I need an account on this site?

No. There is nothing to sign up for here. This site has no accounts, no forms and no newsletter, and it does not record which pages you read.

Will the checklists remember what I have ticked?

No. The boxes are printed marks, not controls. Nothing is stored in your browser, which is why the checklists page has a print button instead.

Can I do this on a phone or tablet?

You can read the course anywhere, but the game used as the running example runs on desktop and laptop computers only — Windows, macOS and Linux. A phone or tablet will not do for the playing part.

Does the commission change what the course says?

No. Commission is paid on sign-ups, never on anything we write, and the course is structured so that it still works if you ignore every link. Our Affiliate Disclosure explains what does decide the content.