JOB 01 · opening the bonnet
Step 1 of 5
Step 1 — What "free to play" actually costs
A game that asks for no money at the door is still a business. This step explains the four ordinary ways such a business is funded, so that when you look at a game's store you can say what it is selling instead of guessing.
What the phrase means, precisely
Free to play is a description of one thing only: the price of getting in. A free-to-play game can be downloaded, installed and played without a payment. That is the whole of the claim.
It is not a claim that nothing inside the game can be bought. It is not a claim that the version you get without paying is the same as the version somebody else has. And it is not a claim about how much of the game you will see before a purchase starts to look appealing. Those are separate questions, and this step is about asking them deliberately rather than discovering the answers later.
The reason the distinction matters is that your brain files "free" under "no decision required". A thing that costs nothing feels like a thing that cannot cost anything. Ten minutes of reading before you install replaces that feeling with a fact, and the fact is usually easy to find — publishers are generally quite open about what they sell, because selling it is the point.
Under the Australian Consumer Law, businesses must not make claims about goods or services that are misleading or deceptive, and that includes claims about price. The ACCC, the national consumer regulator, publishes general guidance on advertising and selling. That protection exists and is worth knowing about; it is not a substitute for reading the store page yourself, because most of what you want to know is disclosed rather than hidden.
The four places the money comes from
Across the category, funding falls into four broad patterns. A single game may use one, or three, or all four. Learning to name them is the whole skill of this step.
1. Appearance
Items that change how something looks and nothing else: a paint finish, a decorative part, a different shape of the same component. The seller's argument is that nobody who declines to buy is disadvantaged, because the item has no effect beyond appearance. Whether that holds depends on whether the item really is appearance-only, which the store page will usually tell you in the item description.
2. Time
Items that give you sooner what you could otherwise reach later: a multiplier on progress, a pass that releases a sequence of rewards as you play, an instant completion of something that otherwise takes hours. The underlying resource here is your own patience. These are the purchases most worth noticing, because the pressure to make them grows the longer you play rather than fading.
3. Capability
Items that change what you can do in the game — a component that performs better than the one you start with, access to a category of equipment that is otherwise closed. This is the pattern that generates the most argument among players, and the one most worth checking before you invest a weekend. The question to ask is not "can I buy power?" but "can I reach the same thing by playing, and roughly how long does that take?" The game's own help pages or community documentation usually answer it.
4. Randomised items
A purchase where you pay a known amount for an unknown item drawn from a pool. Sometimes called crates, cases or boxes. The thing you are buying is a chance, not an object. This pattern is treated differently from the other three throughout this course, and Step 5 returns to it at length, because a purchase with an uncertain outcome behaves differently from a purchase with a certain one — including in how easy it is to keep track of what you have spent.
None of these four patterns is presented here as dishonest or as something to avoid. They are simply the ways the category funds itself, and a reader who can name them is harder to surprise. What you decide to buy, if anything, is yours to decide.
Reading a game's store in five minutes
Most games show their store on the public website, before you have an account. You can therefore do this reading without installing anything. Work down these four questions in order and write the answers somewhere you will still have them tomorrow.
| Question | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Is there an in-game currency, and what does real money buy of it? | The top of the store page, usually as bundles at several price points. |
| Are prices shown in Australian dollars? | A currency selector, or the price itself. If prices are shown in another currency, your card issuer may add a conversion fee. |
| Which of the four patterns appear? | The item categories: appearance, passes, performance parts, crates. |
| Is there a subscription that renews? | Usually a separate tab, described as a membership or premium account. Note the renewal period. |
Two further details are worth a glance. First, whether the currency comes in amounts that match item prices, or in amounts that leave a remainder — a remainder is a design choice, not an accident, and it makes the second purchase easier than the first. Second, whether the store distinguishes between a currency you earn by playing and a currency you can only buy. Many games have both, with similar names.
If you want a completely free version of this exercise, do it on three games rather than one. The patterns become obvious by the third, and you have spent nothing and installed nothing.
The words you will keep meeting
- Microtransaction
- A small purchase made inside a game rather than at the point of buying it. Size varies; the word describes the placement, not the amount.
- Premium currency
- An in-game currency bought with real money. Usually distinct from a currency you earn by playing, and usually not convertible back.
- Battle pass
- A paid track of rewards released over a fixed season, earned by playing. A time purchase in the sense used above.
- Cosmetic
- An item that changes appearance only. Worth verifying in the item description rather than assuming from the category name.
- Pay to win
- A criticism, not a category: the claim that money buys an advantage over other players that playing cannot match. Players disagree about where the line sits, so treat it as an opinion you should test rather than a specification.
- MMO
- Massively multiplayer online: a game where many players share a persistent world or service rather than playing alone.
The worked example: the spare-room computer
The household in this course is invented, and is used only to show the order of the checks. Two adults share a flat in Melbourne with a six-year-old desktop computer in the spare room. A teenager in the family has asked whether a particular free vehicle-combat game can go on it.
One of the adults opens the game's public website on a phone, without installing anything, and spends five minutes on the four questions above. They find an in-game currency sold in several bundles, a store with decorative parts, and a section offering packs of items. They write four lines in a notes app: currency yes, prices in a foreign currency, decorative items present, packs present.
That is the end of Step 1 for them. They have made no decision and spent nothing. What they have is four facts, which is enough to make the conversation with the teenager a conversation about facts.
What the arrangement gives you and what it takes
In your favour
- You can see the whole thing before paying anything, which a boxed purchase never allowed.
- Stopping costs nothing; there is no sunk purchase arguing that you should keep going.
- Friends can join without a price being the obstacle.
- The publisher has a reason to keep updating, because the revenue arrives over time.
Against you
- The decision to spend arrives repeatedly rather than once, so it needs a rule rather than a judgement each time.
- Small amounts are easy to lose track of, especially through an intermediate currency.
- Some progress is paced to make a purchase feel like relief.
- A game funded this way can be changed or closed, and what you bought lives inside it.
The game named in this course
One game is named here so that the exercise has something concrete to point at. Crossout is described by its publisher as a free-to-play massively multiplayer online game set in post-apocalyptic realities, in which the central element is vehicles that players build themselves. The publisher's description covers modification of a vehicle's appearance and parameters — shape and armour, armament and support systems, and decorative accessories.
It runs on desktop computers using Windows or Linux. It is not released for macOS, and the publisher's terms for this promotion state that plainly. Creating an account involves registration, confirming your email address, and then logging in to the game.
We have not tested it, we do not rate it, and we make no claim about how it plays. Anything beyond the publisher's own description is something we do not know. If you want to look at its store yourself as the exercise above suggests, the publisher's site is the place to do it.
Visit the Crossout website Paid affiliate link. If you create and confirm an account after following this link, the affiliate network that operates it pays Nullphase a commission. Your cost is unchanged, and you can finish this course without following it.
Before you move on
Step 1 asked you to replace a feeling with four written facts. If you have those four facts about one game, you are ready for Step 2, which is about your computer rather than the game.
If you could not find the answers — if the store page is only visible after an account is created, or prices are not shown before checkout — that is itself an answer, and a reasonable one to act on. A publisher that shows you the store before you commit has made your first decision easier.
Torque check — Step 1
Print this from the all-checklists page, or copy the lines into a notebook. Nothing on this site records your answers.
- Write down the exact name of the game you are considering, and the address of its official website.
- Open the store on that website without creating an account. If you cannot, note that fact.
- Record whether an in-game currency exists, and the smallest and largest bundles sold.
- Record whether prices are shown in Australian dollars, or in another currency.
- Tick which of the four patterns you can see: appearance, time, capability, randomised items.
- Note whether any subscription or membership renews automatically, and over what period.
- Note whether earned currency and purchased currency have different names.
- Write one sentence in your own words: "This game makes its money by …".
- Decide, before going further, the maximum you would spend in a year, in Australian dollars. Zero is a valid answer.
- Repeat the exercise on a second game, so you have something to compare against.