What "free to play" actually means

What the word "free" is doing

When a PC game is described as free to play, that phrase is narrower than it sounds. It means the client — the program you install on your own computer — can be downloaded without payment, and an account can be created without payment. It does not promise that every piece of content inside the game is available without payment, and it does not promise that the experience is designed to be equally convenient whether you spend money or not.

A client, since the word has just appeared, is simply the software that runs on your machine and talks to the company's servers. In a game of this kind, the client holds the artwork, the sounds and the rules; the servers hold your account, your progress and the matches you play with other people. That split matters in later steps, because it explains why these games are large to download, why they need a working internet connection every time, and why your progress lives on someone else's computer rather than yours.

The honest way to read "free to play" is as a sentence about the front door, not the whole house. The door is open. What is inside may be partly free, partly paid, and partly a mixture in which money buys time rather than content.

The four ways a free game earns

Almost every free-to-play PC title uses some combination of four methods. Learning to spot which combination a particular game uses is the single most useful skill in this step, because it tells you in advance what your experience will be like if you decide to spend nothing at all.

1. Cosmetic sales

Items that change how something looks without changing what it does: a different paint scheme, a flag, a nameplate, a sound set. Cosmetic-only economies are the easiest to live with as a non-spender, because nothing you are missing affects the outcome of a match.

2. Convenience and time compression

The game gives everything away eventually, but slowly, and sells the ability to arrive sooner. This often appears as a premium subscription that multiplies the progress you earn per session, or as a one-off purchase that hands you something you could have earned over many evenings. A non-spender loses nothing permanent here, but spends considerably more hours to reach the same place.

3. Content sales

Discrete things you buy outright and keep: an additional vehicle, character, map pack or campaign. The line between a content sale and a convenience sale is blurry, and the question that resolves it is simple — can a non-spending player obtain this exact item by playing, and if so, roughly how long does that take?

4. Randomised purchases

You pay a fixed amount for an unknown result drawn from a pool: a container, crate, case or box whose contents are revealed after purchase. These are the most scrutinised part of the model, they are the subject of Step 5, and they are the one category where it is worth being deliberate before you spend anything at all. The eSafety Commissioner publishes guidance for families on gaming, including on in-game purchasing, which is a sensible place to read a regulator's framing rather than a marketer's.

Reading a store page for the business model

Whatever page a game sends you to — its own site, or a storefront — the business model is usually visible if you know where to look. Four places give it away.

The currency. Look for a named in-game currency with its own icon, sold in bundles at fixed prices. Two currencies, one earned by playing and one bought with real money, is the standard arrangement, and the exchange between them is almost never in the player's favour. If the page advertises a currency, methods two, three or four are in play.

The subscription. A premium account, pass or membership sold by the month is method two made explicit. Read what it multiplies. If it multiplies progress, the non-paying pace is the slower pace by design.

The item shop. If the page shows a shop at all, read three or four item listings in full. Ask of each one: does this change appearance only, or does it change capability? Can it be earned?

The containers. Anything described with a word like crate, case, container or bundle, where the page shows a list of possible contents rather than a single named item, is a randomised purchase. The presence of a published list of possible contents is itself a good sign — it means the publisher is telling you what the pool is.

The example used throughout this course is a naval game distributed for desktop Windows and macOS computers. What we have been told about it, by the affiliate network that runs its partner programme, is narrow: the programme pays on a single opt-in, a download, and the creation and activation of an account. That tells you the sign-up is free and nothing more. The shape of its shop, its currencies and its subscription are things you should read on the vendor's own pages rather than take from us.

Visit the World of Warships website

Paid affiliate link. Montej group and compani s.r.o. earns a commission if an account is created and activated through it. Nothing about this step changes if you ignore the link.

The worked example: the Brisbane flat

The hypothetical household introduced on the home page starts here. This is an invented example used to show the process; nobody in it is a real person and nobody in it is quoted about any product.

The teenager has asked for a naval game. The adult who pays the bills sits down with a cup of tea and the game's own website, and spends fifteen minutes doing exactly what this step describes. They find a currency sold in bundles. They find a premium account offered by the month. They find a shop with items that are mostly cosmetic and some that are not. They find containers with published contents lists.

They write four lines in a notebook: free to install; sells a monthly premium; sells a currency; sells randomised containers. That is the whole of Step 1 for them. They have not downloaded anything, they have not created anything, and they now know that if nobody in the flat spends money, the game will still work and will simply progress more slowly. That is enough information to decide whether to continue to Step 2.

Where the pressure usually sits

Free-to-play design is often discussed as though it were a trick played on the player. That framing is not very useful. It is more accurate, and more practical, to say that the model moves the decision point. In a game you buy once, you decide at the shop counter, once, with full information. In a free-to-play game you decide many times, in small amounts, usually while you are already enjoying yourself and usually without seeing a running total.

The practical consequence is that the useful protection is not willpower, it is arithmetic done in advance. Step 5 covers how to set a figure before you start and how to check it afterwards. For now, the only thing worth noticing is the structure: many small decisions, taken while absorbed, with the total invisible unless you go looking for it.

A second place pressure appears is time rather than money. Many of these games run limited-period events, with rewards available only during a window. If an event is running when you install, a reasonable approach is to ignore it entirely for the first fortnight. The game will still be there afterwards, and so will a different event.

What the Australian Consumer Law has to say

Australia's consumer protections apply to digital products as well as physical ones. The Australian Consumer Law is administered by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which publishes guidance on consumer guarantees and on misleading or deceptive conduct. Two general points follow from that, and both are worth carrying into Step 3.

First, claims a seller makes about a product have to be accurate. A game that is advertised as free to play and then requires payment before any play is possible would be making a claim that does not match the product. Second, consumer guarantees apply to goods and services bought in Australia, including digital ones, and they cannot be removed by a term in an agreement. What any individual situation entitles you to is a question for the ACCC's own material rather than for this course, which is why Step 3 links there again rather than summarising it.

Games sold or distributed in Australia also sit within the national classification scheme. The Australian Classification Board publishes classification decisions and a searchable database, and it is the right source for a particular title's rating and the consumer advice attached to it. This course does not state any game's classification, because the Board's database is the authority on that and it is the place to check.

Six words you will keep meeting

Client

The program installed on your own computer that runs the game and communicates with the publisher's servers.

Patch

An update to the client, downloaded automatically or on launch, which changes or adds content and fixes faults. Large games patch often.

Premium account

A time-limited subscription that usually multiplies the in-game rewards you earn per match. It is a convenience purchase in the sense used above.

Soft and hard currency

Soft currency is earned by playing. Hard currency is bought with real money. Most shops price the desirable things in hard currency.

Container

A randomised purchase: a fixed price for an unknown item drawn from a stated pool. Step 5 deals with these in detail.

Grind

The repeated play required to earn something without paying for it. A game's grind length is the clearest measure of how hard it is pushing you towards method two.

Step 1 checklist

Work through this with the game's own website open and nothing installed. It takes about fifteen minutes, and the output is four or five lines in a notebook.

1. Open the official website of the game you are considering, reached by typing the address or by a link you trust rather than a search advertisement.
2. Find and note the stated cost to download the client and to create an account.
3. Find the shop or store section. Note whether there is a named in-game currency sold for money.
4. Note whether a premium account, pass or subscription is sold, and what it states that it multiplies or grants.
5. Read three item listings in full and write beside each one: appearance only, or capability.
6. Note whether randomised containers are sold, and whether a list of possible contents is published.
7. Write one sentence describing how this game makes its money, in your own words.
8. Decide, before going further, what you would be willing to spend per month if the answer turned out to be "nothing" — including if that figure is zero.
9. Check the title in the Australian Classification Board database if a person under 18 will be playing.
10. Stop here if the business model as you have described it is one you do not want to be part of. That is a complete and valid outcome for Step 1.

All five checklists, formatted to print.