Method
The nine checks every entry has to answer
Nine questions decide what an entry in this roundup contains. They are grouped by when a player would actually ask them: before installing anything, while signing up, and once the novelty has worn off. Each check names the document its answer must come from.
The checks exist because the questions that matter to a player and the questions that marketing answers are mostly different questions. A description will explain a game's setting and its vehicles at length and say nothing about what happens when a password is lost. Fixing the list of questions in advance, and publishing it, removes the temptation to ask only the flattering ones.
A check marked unanswered means the designated source was read and did not address the question. It is not an accusation, and it does not mean the answer is bad. It means a reader who cares about that question has to go and ask it themselves — usually of the vendor's support team, before spending anything. Unanswered checks are published rather than quietly dropped, because the pattern of what goes undocumented in this category is itself useful information.
Before you install anything
1. Platform
The question: which desktop operating systems is the title distributed for, and are all of them equally supported?
This is first because it is the only check that can make every other one irrelevant. A game distributed for Windows may run on macOS or Linux through a compatibility layer, may run poorly, or may be blocked outright by anti-cheat software. Household hardware in Australia is mixed, and a reader on a laptop bought for study can waste an evening before discovering the answer.
Source: the vendor's own system requirements or download page, or the platform listing supplied through the advertising network.
2. Cost model
The question: is there a price to begin with, and what can be bought inside the game afterwards?
Two games can present identically and cost wildly different amounts over a year. The relevant details are whether there is an upfront purchase, whether there is a subscription, whether progression items can be bought, and whether any purchasable item contains randomised contents. This site never states a price it has not read on the vendor's own page, and never describes a title as free unless the vendor says so without conditions.
Source: the vendor's store or pricing page. If nothing is stated there, the entry records that nothing is stated.
3. Classification
The question: is there an Australian classification decision recorded for this title?
Classification in Australia is decided by an Australian body, not by a studio's own age advice and not by a rating shown on an overseas storefront. The Australian Classification Board publishes its decisions, and its site is the place to check a specific title. This site does not state a classification for any game, because the correct answer is whatever the Board's record says on the day you look.
Source: the national classification database. See the classification guide for how to search it.
While you are signing up
4. Account
The question: what does registering actually involve, in order?
Sign-up flows in this category usually require an email address, a password and a confirmation step, and sometimes a separate launcher account on top of the game account. Knowing the sequence in advance prevents the most common failure, which is a reader who believes they have registered when they have only started to.
Source: the registration flow as the vendor documents it. The joining guide walks through the general shape.
5. Data
The question: what does the vendor say it collects, and where does that information go?
A game account is a commercial relationship, and the vendor's privacy policy is the document that describes it. The points worth locating are what is collected beyond the obvious, whether information is shared with advertising partners, and which countries it may be transferred to. Australian readers have rights under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) in relation to entities the Act covers; the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner explains those rights and receives complaints.
Source: the vendor's published privacy policy, read rather than summarised.
6. Connection
The question: which server regions are offered, and is one of them near Australia?
Distance is a physical constraint. A player in Perth connecting to a server on the other side of the world experiences delay that no amount of hardware fixes, and in a shooter that delay is the difference between a fair match and a frustrating one. Some titles publish their regions; some do not; some select automatically without telling the player which region was chosen.
Source: the vendor's published region or server information.
Once the novelty has worn off
7. Recovery
The question: what happens when a player loses access to the account?
This is the check most often skipped and most often regretted. The things worth knowing are whether recovery depends on the original email address, whether a second factor can lock a player out permanently if a phone is lost, and how long the process takes. A recovery process that exists only as a web form with no stated response time is worth knowing about before it is needed rather than during.
Source: the vendor's support documentation.
8. Contact
The question: is there a published route to a human being for a billing, safety or account problem?
The presence of a genuine support channel is one of the few reliable signals about how a service treats people after the sale. For an Australian reader this also matters practically: if a dispute reaches the point of a consumer complaint, the record of what was asked and when is what the complaint is built on.
Source: the vendor's support or contact page.
9. Our position
The question: does this publisher earn money from the title, and under what terms?
This check applies to Vertex Space rather than to the game, and it is answered on every page that carries a paid link as well as on the disclosure page. The answer for Enlisted is yes: an advertising network pays a commission for a completed registration. The answer for every other title in the category is no, because no other arrangement exists.
Source: the advertising network's own terms, restated in full rather than described vaguely.
The checks are more useful as a personal tool than as a published list. Before installing any online game, open the vendor's site in one tab and work down the nine questions. Three of them — cost model, recovery and data — take about ten minutes to answer and prevent most of the problems that later turn into complaints. If the vendor's own site cannot answer them, that is an answer as well.
Why there is no score at the end
A score would require weighting the nine checks against one another, and any weighting is a preference dressed as a measurement. A player who shares a household computer cares most about classification and spending; a competitive player cares most about connection; a reader who has been locked out of an account before cares about nothing but recovery. Publishing the checks unweighted lets each reader apply their own priorities, which is the honest arrangement and also the only one this publisher has the evidence to support.