Entry 6 of 7
Classification and family guidance
Quick answerClassification decisions for games distributed in Australia are published by the Australian Classification Board, and its record is the only authoritative source for a particular title. Beyond classification, the three things worth a parent's attention in this category are open chat with strangers, spending inside the game, and session length. All three have controls, and they sit in different places.
This entry is written for an adult deciding about someone else's play, usually a child's. It does not tell you whether any title is suitable, because that judgement belongs to you and because we cover one title commercially and are not a neutral party on the question. What it does is set out where the authoritative information sits, what in this category tends to matter, and which control belongs to which system.
What the Classification Board does
The Australian Classification Board makes classification decisions for films, games and certain publications distributed in Australia, and publishes those decisions along with the consumer advice that accompanies them. Its website explains what is classified, how the markings work, and how to search decisions.
Focus Network deliberately does not restate a classification for any individual game. Decisions can be revised, versions distributed in different markets can differ, and a classification quoted on a third-party site is a claim about the Board's record rather than the record itself. Looking it up takes a minute and is correct by construction.
The one rule this entry follows
Check the Board's own record for the specific title, and read the consumer advice line as well as the marking. The consumer advice is the part that describes why a decision was made, and it is usually more useful to a parent than the marking alone.
Looking up a specific title
- Go to the Classification Board's website directly rather than through a search result about the game.
- Search by the title's exact name, and note that a title may appear more than once for different platforms or versions.
- Read the consumer advice line with the marking.
- Then check the publisher's own store page for what it says about chat, purchases and online interaction, since online features are not what a classification decision is primarily about.
What this category tends to contain
Vehicle combat games depict armed conflict using real military vehicles. The depiction is generally at a distance and mechanical rather than personal: the subject is machines, damage modelling and marksmanship rather than injury to individual people at close range. That does not make the subject matter neutral, and it is a reasonable thing for a parent to have a view about independently of any classification.
Three features matter more in practice than the depiction itself, because they are ongoing rather than fixed at purchase.
- Other players
- The content of a match includes the people in it. Conduct varies, and it is not something a classification decision speaks to.
- Purchases
- The economics described in the progression entry apply to a child's account as much as an adult's, and the pressure to spend is structural rather than occasional.
- Randomised items
- Where a title sells a chance at a reward rather than the reward itself, that mechanism deserves specific consideration before a child's account has any payment method attached to it. This site does not present titles with purchasable randomised items as suitable for minors, and treats the decision as an adult's to make with the facts in front of them.
Open chat with strangers
Most titles here include text chat, and many include voice chat with a randomly assigned team. The eSafety Commissioner, Australia's online safety regulator, publishes guidance for parents and carers on online gaming, on how chat features tend to work, and on what to do about harmful contact. It also operates reporting schemes for serious online abuse.
The practical measures are ordinary. Chat can usually be limited or disabled in the game's own settings, and voice chat separately from text. Publishers provide in-game reporting and blocking, and using them takes seconds. A child should know that leaving a match costs nothing and that reporting is not tattling. Where contact continues outside the game, that is the point at which eSafety's reporting routes become the right step rather than an escalation.
Spending on a child's account
The most effective control is the simplest: no payment method stored on the account, and purchases made only with an adult present. Beyond that, both the operating system and the distribution platform usually offer purchase approval, spending limits and purchase history, and these work regardless of what the game itself offers.
If an unauthorised purchase happens anyway, it is a consumer matter and not only a technical one. The ACCC publishes guidance on consumer rights and on what to do about a problem with something you have paid for, and the platform's own refund process is the first practical step. Keep the transaction record.
Where the controls actually live
Parents commonly look for one settings screen and find nothing, because the controls are spread across four layers that do not know about each other.
| Layer | Typically controls | Cannot control |
|---|---|---|
| Operating system | Screen time, application access, purchase approval, some web filtering | What happens inside a game the child is allowed to run |
| Distribution platform | Store purchases, spending limits, library access, some communication settings | In-game chat run by the publisher's own service |
| Game account | Chat, voice, friend requests, in-game reporting and blocking | Anything on the device outside the game |
| Network | Access windows, some category filtering at the router | Conduct inside a permitted service |
Setting one layer and assuming the others follow is the usual failure. Chat settings in particular almost always belong to the game account rather than to the device.
Time, sleep and the structure of a match
One structural detail is worth knowing because it causes more friction than the content does. A match in this category has no pause and cannot be abandoned without cost, and at stricter realism levels a single match can run considerably longer than at the assisted level. "Stop now" is therefore a different request here from in a single-player game.
Two adjustments make this easier for everyone. Agree an end point measured in matches rather than minutes, and know which realism level is being played — the entry on modes and realism levels explains why the same game can mean ten minutes or forty. Where a device-level screen time limit is used, it will end a match mid-flight, which is worth expecting rather than discovering.
What to watch out for
- Classification quoted by a third party. Including by us. Check the Board's own record.
- A stored payment method. The single largest cause of unexpected spending on a child's account.
- Account trading between friends. Sharing logins breaks account security and usually the publisher's terms; the reasons are in the accounts entry.
- Assuming chat is off because the device is restricted. Those are different layers.
Talking about it usefully
The most durable control in this category is not a setting. A child who understands that a message offering free premium content is how accounts are stolen, and who knows that reporting a player is normal, is better protected than one whose account is locked down and who has been told nothing. The category rewards that conversation because it is genuinely interesting: the subject matter is engineering and history, and a parent who asks which vehicle and why will usually get a long answer.