5

Step 5 of 5

Step 5 — Living with it: time, updates, support and leaving

The first four steps end at the first session. This one covers the following months, which is where an online game differs most from anything else you install: it keeps changing, it keeps asking for disk space, and it is designed to be returned to.

Patches, and why the game keeps growing

A patch is an update to the client, delivered after installation. An actively maintained online game issues them regularly, sometimes small corrections and sometimes large additions, and they are not optional: the client and the servers must match, so a client that has not been updated usually will not connect.

Two consequences follow. The first is that the installed size from Step 2 is a starting figure rather than a settled one, and the drive that had just enough space in March may not in November. The second is that a patch arrives at the vendor's convenience rather than yours. Opening a game for half an hour and spending twenty-five minutes waiting for an update is an ordinary experience, not a fault.

The practical response is to let updates run at a time that suits you rather than at the moment you want to play. Most clients can be left open to update while you do something else, and some can be told to update automatically.

Managing the data cost of updates

Patches come out of the same monthly data allowance as the original install. If your connection is metered, or shared with people who need it for work or study, three habits keep the peace.

Run large updates outside the hours the connection is needed by others. Check whether your plan has off-peak data and use it. And if the game offers a setting to pause or schedule updates, find it once rather than being surprised each time.

Where a connection is mobile or satellite, treat every patch as a deliberate decision rather than a background event, and consider whether the game belongs on that connection at all. That is a legitimate conclusion to reach after two months of use.

Keeping it a hobby

Online games are built to be returned to. Daily rewards, seasonal passes, limited-time events and progress that resets are all design choices intended to create a reason to come back today specifically. Noticing this is not a criticism of games; it is simply reading the mechanism, in the same way Step 3 read the spending mechanism.

A few plain habits keep the balance. Decide when a session ends before it starts, by clock time rather than by reaching a goal, because goals in these games are designed to recede. Keep the game off the computer used for work during working hours if that is a struggle. And treat a missed daily reward as the cost of having a life rather than a loss; the whole point of the design is that it feels like a loss.

If play is causing real difficulty for someone — missed sleep, missed school or work, spending beyond the household limit, conflict at home — that is worth discussing with a general practitioner or a support service rather than managing with settings. This course is a reading course and is not qualified to say more than that.

Shared computers and shared households

A single computer used by several people needs two decisions that are easy early and awkward later. The first is whether each person has their own user account on the computer, which keeps game accounts, saved passwords and browsing separate. The second is whose game account is signed in by default, because a client that stays signed in is effectively open to whoever sits down next.

If a young person plays on a computer an adult also uses for banking or work, separate user accounts on the computer are worth the twenty minutes they take to set up. The eSafety Commissioner publishes guidance for families on gaming at home, including conversations about chat, contact and time, which is more useful than any technical control on its own.

When something breaks, and who to write to

Things go wrong in a predictable set of ways, and each has a correct first destination.

• The game will not start or crashes. The vendor's own support channel, with your operating system, the error text and what you were doing. This is also where the Step 2 notes earn their keep.
• A purchase did not arrive, or was not what was described. The vendor first. If that goes nowhere, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission explains the consumer guarantees that apply to goods and services supplied in Australia and what to do next.
• Another player is harassing or threatening someone. The game's in-game reporting tool, and then the eSafety Commissioner, which sets out what can be reported to it.
• You think the account has been accessed by someone else. Change the password from a device you trust, sign out of other sessions if the vendor allows it, and check the recovery email address. The Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes general advice on compromised accounts and takes reports of cybercrime.
• You received a message that was not from the vendor. Scamwatch takes reports and publishes current warnings.
• You want to know what the vendor holds about you. Start with the vendor's privacy notice; the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner explains privacy rights in Australia and how to complain.

Writing to support is more effective when it is boring. State what you did, what you expected, what the computer did instead, and the exact words of any message, and leave the adjectives out.

When the vendor is the problem

Occasionally the issue is not a fault but a decision: an account suspended, a purchase refused, a feature withdrawn. The vendor's own appeal process comes first, and the conduct rules you read in Step 1 say what it is. Keep the dates, the reference numbers and the text of what you were told.

If the matter concerns money paid in Australia or a service that was not supplied as described, the ACCC's material on consumer rights explains the avenues available, including state and territory consumer affairs bodies. If it concerns personal information, the OAIC's complaint process is the relevant one. Neither is quick, and both work better with records kept from the beginning.

Stopping, pausing and closing the account

There are three different ways of stopping and they are often confused.

Uninstalling removes the client from the computer and returns the disk space. The account continues to exist, untouched, and reinstalling later usually restores access. This is the right choice if you may come back.

Cancelling a subscription or premium period stops a recurring charge. It does not close the account and does not uninstall anything. Check the next billing date and keep the confirmation.

Closing the account is the permanent one. Most vendors allow it on request, usually by email or a form in the account settings. Expect it to be slower than creating the account was, expect anything purchased to be lost, and expect some records to be kept for a period for legal and accounting reasons, which is normal and is described in the vendor's privacy notice. If you want a copy of what is held about you, ask before you ask for closure, not after.

A review you do twice a year

Half an hour, twice a year, keeps all of this in order: check free disk space against the client's current size; confirm the recovery email address on the account is still one you read; confirm the second factor still points at a phone you still own; re-read the household spending limit and what has actually been spent; and look at the privacy and chat settings again, because defaults change when a game is redesigned.

Put it in the calendar on the same two dates you do something else administrative, and it stops being a thing to remember.

A worked example

The invented household from the homepage reaches month six. The client has grown and the laptop drive is tight again, so the half-yearly review catches it before it becomes a failed update at an inconvenient moment. The adult who owns the mailbox has changed phones, so the two-factor recovery codes are checked and the second factor is re-established on the new device. The spending limit set in Step 3 is compared against the actual receipts in the mailbox. One decision comes out of it: the premium period will not be renewed. Nothing here is a result anyone obtained, since the household is a hypothetical; it is an illustration of what a review finds.

Before you finish

You have reached the end of the course. The reasonable position now is not that you know everything about any particular game, but that you know which questions belong to the vendor, which belong to an Australian body, and which belong to your own household. That is the whole aim: the course ends, and the checking does not need it any more.

Every checklist from the five steps is gathered on one printable page: All checklists.