Step 1 of 5

Step 1 — What an online PC game account actually involves

Before any download, it helps to separate three things that are usually spoken of as one: the program on your computer, the account that identifies you, and the service that runs somewhere else and keeps changing. Almost every confusion a new player has comes from those three being treated as a single object.

Three things, not one

When someone says they play a large online game, they are describing an arrangement with three separate parts.

The first part is a program that lives on their computer. It is downloaded once, takes up disk space, and is updated repeatedly after that. Nothing about it is unusual: it is software, like a word processor, only much larger.

The second part is an account held by the game's publisher. It is a record on the publisher's systems with an email address attached and, usually, a display name. It exists whether or not the program is installed, and it can be created, closed, locked or forgotten independently of anything on your computer.

The third part is the service: computers run by the publisher that other players connect to at the same time you do. This is the part that makes the game "online". It is also the part that changes without asking you, because the publisher updates it on its own schedule.

Keeping the three apart answers a surprising number of beginner questions. Deleting the program does not close the account. Closing the account does not free up disk space. A game that will not start may be failing at any one of the three points.

The client: the part that sits on your computer

The program you install is usually called the client, because it is the end of the arrangement that asks the publisher's computers for things. A client for a large online game is big — tens of gigabytes is ordinary — because it carries the artwork, sound and models for everything in the game, so that only small messages need to travel over your internet connection while you play.

Two consequences follow from that size, and both of them matter more than people expect.

The first is disk space. The published figure for a download is rarely the figure the game ends up occupying. Installers often need temporary room to unpack into, and games grow over time as content is added. If a requirements list says a title needs 60 GB, treating that as "I need at least 60 GB free, and comfortably more" is the sensible reading. Step 2 shows you how to check what you actually have.

The second is your internet connection and any data allowance attached to it. A first download of several tens of gigabytes is a real quantity of data, so on a plan with a monthly cap it is worth checking the cap before starting rather than after.

A client is also the part that has to match your operating system. Software built for Windows does not run on macOS, and software built for either does not run on Linux unless the publisher has built a version for it. This is not a minor detail: the example used in this course, World of Warships, is offered for desktop computers running Windows or macOS and is not offered for Linux. If the machine you intend to use runs Linux, that particular example is not available to you, whatever else this course says.

The account: the part that identifies you

An account is the publisher's record of you. At its simplest it is an email address, a password and a display name. In practice it also accumulates a history: what you own inside the game, what you have spent, where you have signed in from, and what any moderation system has recorded about your behaviour.

Three features of game accounts catch people out.

They are regional. Many publishers run separate account systems for different parts of the world, and an account created on one of them often cannot be moved to another. Choosing the right region at the start is easier than trying to change it later.

They hold value. Once anything has been bought, or earned over many hours, the account becomes worth stealing. That is why Step 4 spends time on sign-in security.

They are governed by a contract. Creating an account means agreeing to terms you can read beforehand, and those terms set out what the publisher may do if it believes the rules have been broken. Step 3 is about reading them.

The affiliate arrangement behind this site is tied to exactly this part of the arrangement: the commission described on our funding page is paid when someone signs up through a link, downloads the game and creates and activates an account. That is worth knowing while you read, because it is the clearest example of why a disclosure matters — we are paid at the account step, not at the playing step.

Visit the World of Warships website Paid link. Pure Stanza is paid a commission if an account is created and activated after following it. Nothing on this page was shaped by that. How this site is funded.

The service: the part that keeps changing

A large online game is not finished when it is released. The publisher continues to run it, add to it, adjust it and occasionally remove parts of it. Players usually call these changes patches or updates, and the game will generally refuse to connect until your client has applied the current one.

This has three practical effects on a new player.

You cannot reliably plan a short session on the spur of the moment, because an update may need to download first. Many clients can update in the background, which is worth turning on.

Written guides go out of date. A page describing how something works may have been accurate when written and wrong six months later. This applies to this course as much as to anything else, which is why the footer carries a review date and why we point you at the vendor's own pages for anything specific.

The game can change in ways you did not choose. Something you enjoy may be adjusted. That is a normal part of this kind of game rather than a fault, but it is reasonable to know it before you invest time.

In-game currency and items

Many online games keep two kinds of currency side by side. One kind is earned by playing. The other is bought with real money, usually in bundles, and converted into things inside the game. The two look similar on screen and are deliberately presented together, so it is worth forming the habit early of asking which one a price tag refers to.

Some games also sell randomised items: a container whose contents are not known until it is opened. Whether a particular title does that is a question for its own store pages and terms. The Australian Classification Board publishes the classification decisions and consumer advice for computer games made available here, which is where to look for what a given title has been rated and why. Step 5 returns to randomised items in more detail.

What we do not do anywhere in this course is tell you what any particular title costs, what it includes, or whether it can be played without paying. We state only what the vendor states. For the example used here, the vendor's affiliate material describes a sign-up, a download and the creation and activation of an account; it does not set out pricing, and we are not going to invent any.

What it asks of your computer and your week

Two budgets are involved, and only one of them is money.

The computer budget is disk space, memory, graphics capability and a stable connection. Step 2 turns that into six numbers you can write down.

The time budget is less obvious. Sessions in team-based online games tend to be shaped by the game rather than by you: a match runs until it ends. Before starting, it is worth knowing roughly how long a single round takes in the title you are considering, because that is the smallest unit of time you can reasonably commit to. The vendor's own pages, or the game's community documentation, are where that figure comes from.

A worked example

Words you will meet

Before you move on

Step 1 checklist