Families
Family settings, chat exposure and classification questions
Three separate questions get bundled together when a child asks to play something: what it will cost, who they will be talking to, and whether the content suits their age. They have three different answers, controlled in three different places. Handling them separately is quicker than arguing about the game as a whole.
Three questions, three sets of controls
Spending is controlled at the operating system and the payment method. Contact is controlled inside the game and, partly, at the platform. Content suitability is a judgement informed by the classification of the title and by watching some of it yourself. A parental control app set up in an afternoon does not resolve all three, and believing it has is the usual failure.
| Layer | Good for | Cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Operating system family settings | Purchase approval, app installation limits, screen time, age-rating filters on store downloads. | Reach inside a game to change chat, or stop purchases made on another device. |
| Payment method | Hard limits: no stored card, prepaid balance only, or approval required per transaction. | Distinguish a reasonable purchase from an unreasonable one. |
| In-game settings | Chat scope, friend requests, whether strangers can contact or trade, profile visibility. | Survive a vendor's redesign without being checked again. |
| Home network filtering | Blunt blocking at the router, and time-of-day rules for the household. | Apply once the device leaves the house or uses mobile data. |
| Conversation | Everything the others cannot: judgement, disclosure and knowing when something has gone wrong. | Be installed once and left alone. |
Purchase controls by platform
Menu names change between versions, so these are described by what to look for rather than by an exact path. Each one is worth setting on the day a game is installed.
- iPhone and iPad. In the device settings, use the family sharing and content restriction controls to require approval for purchases and downloads, and to set whether in-app purchases are permitted at all. Approval requests then arrive on a parent's device before anything is charged.
- Android. In the store application's settings, set authentication to be required for every purchase rather than for the first only, and use the family or supervision features to require a parent's approval for purchases and installations.
- Windows. Use the family group features in the account settings to apply spending limits, purchase approval and content filters to a child's account, and keep the child on a standard account rather than an administrator one.
- macOS. Screen time and family sharing settings carry the same purchase approval and content controls as the mobile devices, applied to the child's login.
- Any platform. Remove the saved card from the account the child uses. A prepaid balance or gift credit converts an unbounded risk into a known one.
Gaps worth closing deliberately
- A second device — a tablet, an old phone, a shared laptop — where none of the above was set.
- An adult account used by a child, which no family control applies to.
- A saved card in a browser that fills payment fields automatically on a desktop client.
- A grace period after a purchase during which further purchases need no password.
- Store credit received as a gift, which sits outside a card limit entirely.
Chat and contact with strangers
Most account-based online games include some communication: public channels, private messages, friend systems, trading, or voice. Some allow only pre-set phrases for younger accounts. What matters is knowing which of these the game in question has, and where the switch is.
Start inside the game's own settings and look for controls over who may send a private message, who may send a friend request, whether the profile is visible, and whether voice is on. Where an account was created with a true birth year, some of these may already be restricted, which is one of the practical reasons a true year is worth entering.
The eSafety Commissioner publishes guidance for parents and carers on online gaming, including how contact with strangers typically arises and what to do about unwanted contact. Where cyberbullying of a child under 18 is involved, eSafety operates a complaints scheme and can seek removal of material in serious cases; that is the escalation route when the game's own reporting tools have not resolved it.
One habit is worth more than any setting: play the first session together. Twenty minutes shows you the chat model, the storefront, and the friend system at once, and it establishes that asking a parent about something odd inside a game is normal rather than an admission.
Time, not a timer
Screen-time limits are available on every platform and are genuinely useful, with one caveat that is worth knowing in advance. Many online games have session-shaped content: a race, a dungeon, a timed event that cannot be paused. A cut-off that lands mid-session costs the child progress and guarantees an argument, and the argument is about the timer rather than about the amount played.
A limit expressed in sessions, or a warning fifteen minutes before a cut-off, avoids most of that. So does agreeing the stopping point at the start rather than announcing it at the end. Where the platform offers a warning notification before time expires, turning it on is a small change that removes a recurring conflict.
Where classification information comes from
Classification decisions for computer games in Australia are made under the national classification scheme, and the Australian Classification Board publishes classification information for titles. That is the source to check: not an age gate inside a game, not a storefront's own label, and not a figure quoted on a site like this one.
We deliberately do not state a classification for any game on this site. Classifications can change, titles are updated, and a stale figure repeated by a third party is worse than no figure at all. If classification matters to a decision in your household — and for a game with paid randomised content or open chat it reasonably might — check the Board's published information for that specific title before installation.
Classification answers one question and not the others. A title classified for general audiences may still have open chat with adults, and a paid randomised item system. Those are separate matters, handled by the controls above.
Whose account is it
A detail that causes trouble later: if the account is created with a parent's email address and a parent's payment method but used by a child, then the parent holds the account for every purpose that matters — recovery, purchases, and any complaint. That is usually the right arrangement for a younger child. What it requires is that the parent can actually reach the mailbox and the account settings, rather than having set them up once and forgotten the password.
For an older child moving to their own account, the handover is worth doing properly: their own address, their own passphrase in a password manager, multi-factor authentication switched on, and a conversation about what the account is worth to someone else. Our page on account security covers the approaches used against exactly that age group.
Questions parents ask us
Does a parental control application replace all of this?
No. Those applications are good at time limits and application blocking on a managed device. They generally cannot change settings inside a game account, and they do not apply on a device outside their control. Treat them as one layer of several.
My child entered a false birth year. Can it be fixed?
Usually, through the vendor's support channel. Most publishers will correct a date of birth on request because the correction reduces their own compliance risk. Expect to be asked for proof that you hold the account.
Is a game with in-app purchases suitable for a young child?
That is a household judgement rather than a rule, and it is easier to make once purchases are locked at the platform level, because the question becomes about content and time rather than about money.
Where do I report contact from an adult that worried me?
Report inside the game first, which is what suspends an account. For serious concerns about a child's safety, the eSafety Commissioner sets out the reporting routes, and if a child is in immediate danger the answer is the police on triple zero.