What these games charge for, in AUD

Where the revenue comes from

No page on this site states the price of any specific title, and none states whether a specific title charges for a specific thing. What follows describes how this category of game is generally built, so that a reader can recognise the mechanics on whichever publisher's store page they end up reading.

Time compression

A premium account, a booster or an experience multiplier raises the rate at which progress accumulates. Nothing becomes reachable that was not reachable before; it simply arrives sooner. The honest way to price this is per hour saved, which is a calculation the store page will never do for you.

Direct acquisition

A vehicle, a piece of equipment or a currency bundle bought outright, bypassing the progression that would otherwise yield it. The question worth asking is whether the item is merely earlier or genuinely stronger, because the second changes the game for everyone in the match and the first does not.

Appearance

Cosmetic items that alter how something looks without altering how it performs. The cleanest category commercially, because the price is the whole of the cost and nothing is hidden behind it.

Randomised bundles

A purchase whose contents are determined after payment. This is the category that warrants the most caution, and it is treated separately below and on the classification page.

The currency layer, and what it is for

Almost every game in this category puts at least one in-game currency between the player's money and the item being bought. Real money buys gold, credits, coins or similar; the currency then buys the item. Sometimes there are two currencies, one purchasable and one earned, priced against each other at a rate the publisher sets.

The layer serves a commercial purpose, and it is not a secret one. It breaks the connection between a price and a value the player can judge, it encourages purchases in bundles larger than the item requires, and it leaves a residue that is only usable inside the same store. A player who wants to know what something costs has to do two conversions: bundle price to currency unit, then currency unit to item.

The practical defence is to do that arithmetic once, in Australian dollars, before the first purchase. Divide the bundle price by the units it contains, multiply by the units the item needs, and compare the result to what you would pay for a finished game. It is a thirty-second exercise that makes every later decision in that store easier.

This table describes mechanics that recur across the genre. It is not a statement about any particular title's store, which is on that publisher's own site.

Randomised items deserve their own decision

A purchase with unknown contents is a different kind of transaction from a purchase with known contents, and treating the two the same is how spending gets away from people. The structural features are worth naming: the outcome is variable, the reward schedule is irregular, and the residue of a disappointing outcome is usually currency that can only be spent on another attempt.

Australian classification requirements addressing games with paid randomised content have been amended in recent years, and the current position is published by the classification authorities at classification.gov.au. A reader deciding on behalf of a household should read that source directly. For an adult deciding for themselves, the useful discipline is a number set in advance, in AUD, before opening the store.

Paying in Australian dollars

Game stores in this genre are operated internationally, and a price shown to an Australian player may be converted from another currency at the point of sale. Two consequences follow. The first is that the amount that reaches your statement can differ from the amount displayed, because a card issuer may apply its own conversion or a foreign transaction fee. The second is that prices can move with the exchange rate without the publisher changing anything.

Check your statement against the displayed price on the first purchase from any store. If the two differ consistently, the difference is your card issuer's, not the publisher's, and it is worth knowing before it multiplies across a year.

Your rights on a digital purchase

Consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law apply to digital products and digital services supplied to consumers in Australia, and they operate independently of whatever a publisher's own terms say about refunds. A business cannot contract out of them. The ACCC sets out what the guarantees require and how to pursue a remedy at accc.gov.au, which is the source to rely on rather than a summary on any commercial site, including this one.

Practical steps that make a claim straightforward if one becomes necessary:

1. Keep the receipt or confirmation message for every purchase, including in-game currency purchases. Publishers generally email one.
2. Raise the problem with the publisher's support first, in writing, describing what was purchased, what was delivered and what the store page said.
3. Note the dates. A timeline is what turns a disagreement into a claim.
4. If the matter is unresolved, the ACCC's site explains the avenues available, including state and territory consumer protection agencies.

A budget that works

• Decide an annual figure in AUD before the first purchase, not after the tenth.
• Prefer one larger deliberate purchase to several small ones; the small ones are the ones that disappear from memory.
• Never store a payment method on the account, particularly on a shared one.
• Keep every receipt in one place for the duration of a consumer guarantee claim.
• Treat randomised purchases as spending, not as investment, and set the limit separately.
• Re-read the store page after an update; contents and prices change with patches.