A five-step course on starting your first online PC game

This course is written for readers in Australia who have never installed a large online game on a desktop or laptop computer and would like to understand what they are agreeing to before they begin. Reading all five steps takes about an hour, and each one ends with a checklist you can work through at your own pace.

How this site is paid for. Plain Method carries paid affiliate links. One product is mentioned by name in this course — War Thunder, a vehicle-combat game published by Gaijin Entertainment — and the links to it earn LUKREX s.r.o. a commission if you sign up after following one. You pay nothing extra, and you can finish every step of this course without following any link at all.

The commission does not decide what the steps say. The full disclosure explains what does.

The five steps

Step 1 — What these games are and what an account involves. The shape of a large online multiplayer game, the words you will meet, and the three separate things you sign up to.
Step 2 — Working out whether your computer can run one. How to read a requirements list, where to find your own specifications, and what to do when the numbers are close.
Step 3 — Classification, age ratings and money inside the game. How Australian classification works, where to look a title up, and how purchasable items are usually structured.
Step 4 — Making an account, confirming it and finishing the tutorial. A general procedure for registration, email confirmation, the first launch and the built-in tutorial.
Step 5 — Settling in: updates, costs, time and getting help. What changes after the first week, how to keep the download under control, and where to complain if something goes wrong.

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

It is for an adult in Australia who owns a desktop or laptop computer, has a reasonable internet connection, and is curious about the kind of large online game that friends or family already play. It is also for a parent or carer who has been asked to set one up and wants to understand the classification and spending side before saying yes.

It is not for someone who already plays these games regularly. If you know what a graphics driver is, what a game client does, and how a launcher patches itself, you will find the pace slow. Nothing here is hidden knowledge — it is the ordinary knowledge that experienced players stopped noticing years ago.

It is also not technical support. We cannot see your computer, and we do not ask you to tell us anything about it. The checklists are written so that you can answer each line yourself, write the answer on paper, and carry it to the next step.

What you will be able to do by the end

After Step 1 you will be able to read a game's own description and separate the three things being offered: a piece of software, an online service, and an account that outlives both. After Step 2 you will be able to find your computer's processor, memory, graphics hardware and free disk space without installing anything, and compare them to a published requirements list.

After Step 3 you will be able to look up a title's Australian classification, recognise the common shapes that paid items take inside a game, and decide in advance what spending, if any, is acceptable in your household. After Step 4 you will be able to register an account, confirm it by email, and work through a first tutorial without guessing which prompts matter.

After Step 5 you will know what a patch is, why the download keeps growing, how to work out the real running cost in Australian dollars, and which Australian body to approach if a purchase or an account goes wrong.

The one checklist to do before anything else

Before you read a single requirements list, spend ten minutes on the facts about your own situation. They decide everything that follows, and they do not change between games.

Before you start the course

Write down which computer you intend to use, and whether it runs Windows, macOS or Linux.
Write down roughly how much free disk space it has today.
Write down whether your internet plan has a data allowance, and how much of it is left this month.
Write down whether anyone under 18 will use the account, and who is responsible for it.
Decide on a monthly amount in Australian dollars that you are willing to spend on this, including zero.
Set aside a notepad or a plain text file for the answers to the later checklists.

A worked example you can follow through the steps

To keep the advice concrete, the course follows one hypothetical household through every step. It is an invented example used for teaching, not a real family, and it is not a report of anyone's results.

The example household

Two adults and one fourteen-year-old share a five-year-old Windows laptop and a desktop computer bought second-hand. The internet plan is unlimited but the connection is shared in the evening. One adult has been asked by the teenager for a vehicle-combat game that a school friend plays, and does not know whether the computers can run it, whether the title is suitable, or what it will cost over a year.

Each step shows what that household writes on its checklist and why. Their answers are not yours — the point is to show the shape of a sensible answer, so you can produce your own.

What this course costs you

Nothing. There is no sign-up, no account, no email list and no certificate. The checklists do not remember what you tick, because the site stores nothing in your browser. You can print the whole set from the checklists page and never visit again.

The steps themselves also ask you to spend nothing. Every check in Step 2 uses a tool already built into your operating system. The classification lookup in Step 3 is a public register. The procedures in Step 4 and Step 5 describe things the software does for you once you have an account.

Where the named product appears, and why

War Thunder is mentioned in Step 1 as an example of the kind of title this course is about, in Step 3 when the discussion turns to looking a specific title up in the classification register, and in Step 4 as the example of a registration-then-tutorial flow. It appears because the publisher of this site has a commercial relationship with it, and that is stated every time.

What the course says about it is limited to what its vendor states: it is an online multiplayer vehicle-combat game created and published by Gaijin Entertainment, playable with planes, helicopters, tanks and ships, on desktop computers running Windows, macOS or Linux. Anything we cannot source to the vendor, including price, we leave out and tell you to check on the vendor's own site. The steps are written so that they work identically if you choose a different title.

Official Australian sources used in the steps

Where a step needs an authority rather than an opinion, it links to one. The Australian Classification Board classifies films, computer games and certain publications for sale and hire in Australia. The eSafety Commissioner is the national regulator for online safety. Scamwatch, run by the National Anti-Scam Centre, collects reports about scams.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission administers the Australian Consumer Law. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner oversees privacy. The Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes general security guidance for individuals and organisations. Each step links the one that is relevant to it and describes only what that body does.

How this course is written and kept current

The five steps were drafted as one piece, so that terms are introduced once and reused. Each general claim is either linked to a primary source or written as guidance rather than fact. Claims about the named product come from the vendor's own description and nowhere else.

The whole course is reviewed on a fixed schedule and after any change to Australian classification or consumer rules that affects what a step says. The review date is printed in the footer of every page. The method is set out in full on the About page, including the commercial relationship behind the product that is named.

Short answers to four common questions

Do I have to read the steps in order?

The order is the point. Each step assumes you have read the one before it, and the later checklists reuse answers you wrote down earlier. If you only have time for one, read Step 2, because an unsuitable computer is the problem that wastes the most time.

Do I need to buy anything to finish the course?

No. Every checklist can be completed with the computer you already own, a browser and a notepad. The course mentions one product, War Thunder, and the link to it is a paid affiliate link, but nothing in the five steps depends on you clicking it.

Is this course suitable for a parent setting up a game for a child?

Yes, and Step 3 is written with that reader in mind. It covers how classification works in Australia, how to find a title's rating through the Australian Classification Board, and what to look at before a child can spend money inside a game.

How long does the whole course take?

Reading the five steps takes about an hour. Working through the checklists properly, including the checks on your own computer, usually adds another hour or two spread over a few sittings.