Spending
In-game spending, currencies and randomised items
The purchase screen inside a game is a designed object. Prices sit in a currency the game invented, packs are sized so a balance is rarely spent exactly, and the moment the storefront appears is chosen to coincide with enthusiasm. None of that is unlawful, and all of it is easier to handle once you can name the parts.
Quick answer
Convert every in-game price back into AUD before deciding. Set a household figure per month and put a platform-level purchase lock behind it. Treat randomised purchases as a separate category with its own rule, because the amount spent is not the amount decided. If spending has stopped feeling voluntary, free financial counselling is available on the National Debt Helpline.
Why games use their own currency
A premium currency does three things for the vendor at once. It breaks the link between a purchase and a dollar figure, so the decision is made in units whose value the player has to convert mentally. It allows prices to be changed without changing a storefront price in any national currency. And it creates leftovers: when packs are sold in round numbers and items are priced in numbers that do not divide evenly into them, a residue is left behind that is only useful for buying another pack.
None of this is a trick in the legal sense. It is a pricing structure, disclosed in the storefront, and it is used by most of the industry. The countermeasure is equally simple: before any purchase, convert the item's cost back into Australian dollars and decide on that figure. If a household does nothing else on this page, that habit removes most of the regret.
The shapes a purchase takes
| Type | What you receive | The part that catches people |
|---|---|---|
| Currency pack | A quantity of the game's own currency, spendable in its shop. | Pack sizes and item prices rarely align, so a balance is left over by design. |
| Subscription | Recurring access to areas, features, faster progression or a monthly currency allowance. | It renews on a date nobody remembers, and cancellation may end access to things already earned. |
| Season or battle pass | A track of rewards unlocked by playing during a limited period. | The value depends on playing enough to finish it. Unfinished tracks usually expire. |
| Starter or value bundle | A fixed set of items sold together, often once per account. | A comparison against a notional full price that exists only in the storefront. |
| Randomised item | An item drawn at random from a pool, bought individually or in multiples. | The amount spent to obtain a particular result is unknown before you start. |
| Direct purchase | A named item bought for a stated price. | The clearest of the six, and the easiest to budget for. |
A worked example in AUD
The figures below are illustrative and are not taken from any particular game. They show the arithmetic, which is the part that transfers.
The leftover effect
A game sells its currency in packs of 500, 1,200 and 2,600 units. A cosmetic item costs 700 units. The 500 pack is not enough; the 1,200 pack leaves 500 behind. Buying two items costs 1,400 units, which means the 1,200 pack plus another 500 pack, leaving 300 stranded. After three items, the player has bought 2,600 units' worth of packs, spent 2,100, and holds 500 units that buy nothing on their own.
If those packs are priced at $7.49, $14.99 and $29.99 in AUD, the three items have cost roughly $45 rather than the $30 a straight conversion would suggest, and the account still holds a balance that exists to encourage a fourth purchase. The structure is visible the moment you write it down, and invisible if you do not.
Randomised items and what Australian rules say
A randomised purchase — variously a box, crate, chest, capsule or draw — returns an item chosen from a pool rather than one you selected. The distinguishing feature is not the randomness but the unknown total: the amount required to obtain a specific outcome is not known when the first purchase is made, and it is not bounded unless the game publishes a limit.
Australian classification arrangements take paid randomised content into account when computer games are classified, and simulated gambling is treated as a separate and more serious matter again. The current rules, and the classification applying to a particular title, are published by the Australian Classification Board, which is where that question should be settled rather than from a figure quoted second-hand. We do not state a classification for any game on this site, because the Board's record is the authoritative one and it can change.
What to watch out for with randomised purchases
- Odds that are not published anywhere in the game or on the vendor's site.
- A “pity” or guarantee threshold expressed in draws rather than in money, which obscures the dollar figure required to reach it.
- Multi-draw discounts that make a larger spend the default option on the screen.
- Randomised purchases available on a child's account without a purchase lock in place.
- Any arrangement where the item received can be traded or sold outside the game, which changes the character of the purchase considerably.
Controls that work regardless of the game
Controls inside a game are set by the vendor and can change with an update. Controls at the platform or payment level are yours, and they hold across every game on the device.
- Require a password, PIN or biometric confirmation for every purchase in the device's app store settings, rather than the default grace period after the first purchase.
- Remove stored card details from the account a child uses, and use prepaid credit for that account instead if purchases are to be permitted at all.
- Turn on family purchase approval where the platform offers it, so a request arrives on a parent's device before anything is charged.
- Set a monthly figure in AUD out loud, in the household, before the first purchase rather than after a surprise.
- Check the statement monthly for recurring charges from games that are no longer played. Subscriptions outlive interest routinely.
The steps for each operating system are on our page about family settings and purchase locks.
When a charge was not authorised
A charge made by a child without permission, a subscription that continued after cancellation, or a purchase that did not deliver what it described are three different problems with the same first step: put the complaint to the vendor in writing, with the transaction identifier, the date and the amount, and ask for a specific outcome. Keep the correspondence.
If the vendor does not resolve it, the payment provider is the next stop. Card schemes have chargeback processes with time limits, and the bank will ask what the vendor said, which is why the written record matters. Beyond that, digital content bought in Australia carries consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law; the ACCC publishes what those guarantees cover and how to pursue them, and we set out the practical sequence on our page about rights over digital purchases.
When spending stops feeling like a choice
Purchase systems in games are designed to be engaging, and for a minority of players that engagement becomes something harder to step away from. The signs are ordinary ones: spending more than intended and repeatedly, hiding the amounts, or feeling relief rather than pleasure at a purchase.
Help exists and it is free. The National Debt Helpline provides free, independent financial counselling across Australia. Gambling Help Online offers free counselling and support at any hour for anyone concerned about gambling or gambling-like spending, including on behalf of someone else. Neither service charges, and neither requires the problem to have reached a particular size before it is worth contacting them.