How to set up and choose games safely
Most games and devices today let people connect to the internet. Whether your child plays games with others or alone, they may have the option to access online features that let them talk to other people, see ads or buy things with real money.
That’s why it’s important to set up and choose games in a way that supports the safest possible online experience from the start.
On this page:
Before your child starts playing
Click or tap on the + icons to learn more about each step.
Choose a device with safety in mind
Different devices (such as tablets, phones and gaming consoles) each have their own set of safety features. For example, mobile devices like phones and tablets might be more portable, but often come with more risky features like camera access. They may also make it harder to play together as a family.
Set up accounts together
Sit with your child when creating an account so you can choose safe settings from the start.
Help them pick usernames and profile pictures that don’t reveal personal information that identifies them (such as their real name, date of birth, address, phone number, school name or identifiable photos).
Make sure to use your child’s real age at set up, and to give each child their own account rather than a shared one. This will help match the safety settings to their needs.
Many features in games may be automatically adjusted to match the age of the child. For example, risky online features may already be turned off or limited for younger ages.
Install security software
Install up-to-date security software on all devices. This will help to protect against viruses and malware (programs that can damage your device).
Set up parental controls
Parental controls (sometimes called family controls) are tools that can help children stay safer while they are online. They can block harmful websites and videos, limit who can talk to your child, and limit how long your child can be online.
Most phones, tablets, game consoles and major online gaming platforms have parental controls, but they work differently depending on the device or platform you use.
Parental controls for gaming usually let you:
- limit the games available to be played or purchased
- stop your child from buying things in games
- limit or block contact with people you don’t know
- set time limits for gaming.
To use parental controls effectively:
- Talk with your child about which parental controls you plan to use and why, ask them if they have any questions.
- Turn them on for every device or console your child uses for gaming.
- Check the platforms they use to download or play games (such as Steam or Epic Games), as these usually include their own parental control settings.
- Review the parental control options for gaming platforms where user-created games can be made and played by other users – like Roblox, Fortnite or Minecraft – as they often have extra settings.
More information about family or parental controls can be found on the device or console website, such as Nintendo, PlayStation, Apple, and Google (Android). Microsoft Xbox has a tailored safety guide for families. Roblox has also committed to making accounts for users aged under 16 private by default and introducing tools to prevent adult users from contacting under 16s without parental consent.
You can also check out The eSafety Guide for insights into many different popular games and platforms.
Remember: no parental control tool is 100% effective. Helping your child build good online safety habits is just as important. While parental controls are intended to protect your children, they can lead to over-surveillance and mistrust if misused – especially as young people grow and need more space to develop their independence. Overly strict or secretive monitoring may affect their confidence, relationships and sense of autonomy over time.
Tips for managing parental controls:
- Go slow – Start with parental controls and safety settings that are right for your child’s age and developmental stage. These can be adjusted as they grow.
- Take small steps – Find the next appropriate step that offers the most benefit with the least risk. For example, if your child wants to play online with friends from school, you could review their friends list together and limit the communication settings to ‘friends only’.
- Teach your child about user controls – If you reduce or remove parental controls, make sure your child knows how to use the tools available to manage their own safety. These vary across games and platforms, but often include controls to turn off chat, mute people, restrict contact and report people to the platform.
Set up user controls
These are settings that are available within the game or platform that allow the player to control certain features. These can be adjusted by the user at any time. User controls can vary from game to game but may include:
- Filtering content – like inappropriate language (including in voice chat) or inappropriate content.
- Friend requests – preventing unknown people from adding you as a friend.
- Communication with others – such as turning off chat or limiting it to friends.
- Visibility of personal information – for example, hiding your date of birth.
- Visibility of platform activity – some platforms like Steam or Discord have the option to share your activity with other people, like what games you’re playing and for how long. This information could be public and seen by friends, other connections or people you don’t know – depending on a user’s privacy settings. You can help your child decide how comfortable they are with sharing their activity and adjust privacy settings together.
- Sharing with others – such as limiting, blocking or disabling the sharing capacity (for example, if the user controls allow for disabling of ‘gift’ requests from other players.
- Gift sharing can be a risk because it can sometimes be used to build trust or influence between players, including people your child may not know personally. Turning off or limiting this feature can help reduce the risk of unwanted contact or feeling pressured to give something in return. Find out more in our page about playing with others.
Finding the balance between parental controls and user controls
As your child gets older, you can help them learn to manage their own safety settings. The right balance depends on your child’s maturity, experience and familiarity with online platforms.
Making rules together for gaming at home
Setting clear rules together for gaming makes it easier to keep your child safe online. eSafety has a resource called a family tech agreement, which is a set of rules about how devices, like smartphones, tablets, computers, TVs and gaming consoles are used in your home.
Here are some things you may want to include about gaming:
Where games will be played
This will influence your ability to monitor or support their gameplay.
Recommended: For younger children, gaming should happen in shared spaces of the home, rather than their bedroom or other private spaces.
When games can be played
This may include time of day, what might need to be done first (such as homework or chores), whether an adult must be present, and places where there might be limits (such as at school).
Recommended: Avoid playing in the hour before sleep or having access to the device during the night when they should be sleeping.
What parental controls you will use
Talk about the controls you will use and why. Parental controls can make it easier for children to follow the family tech agreement by automatically applying some of the rules – for example, blocking games at bedtime. For each agreement, think about how a parental control can help. For example, if your child agrees not to communicate with people they don’t know personally, you can set communication to ‘friends only’ or restrict messaging features.
Recommended: Use parental controls to make sure games are age-appropriate, prevent or limit in-game spending, and manage communication. For children, communication should be with people you know and trust (such as offline friends, family members or people you both know). Private messaging should be supervised or restricted, depending on your child’s age and maturity too.
Family tech agreements can help keep shared rules consistent, especially when children move between households or are supported by different carers.
Every family is different, and it’s not always easy for one parent or carer to manage online safety alone.
A shared agreement can make things clearer and easier for everyone.
You can also find more advice about how to know if your child is ready to join online games on our page about understanding online gaming features.
Build smart gaming habits together
Help your child build the skills they need to stay safe online. This includes:
- Understanding what they can and can’t share. Make sure your child understands what information should not be shared online, such as their full name, location or places they regularly go, like sport or hanging out with friends.
- Knowing when to get help. If you are letting your child play online with others, let them know that someone asking for lots of personal or private information is a warning sign that something might not be safe. Encourage them to come to you or another trusted adult if this happens, or if anything online makes them feel unsure or uncomfortable.
For more tailored information for children and young people on helping build skills around safe sharing and protecting personal information, visit eSafety’s section for Kids and Young People. The eSafety Guide also provides guidance for families on how to protect your child’s privacy on specific games and platforms.
Choosing which games are right for your child
Before your child starts a new game, it’s worth taking a few minutes to check if it’s right for them. With so many games available, it can feel overwhelming – so knowing the main things to look for can help.
What to look for when choosing a game for your child
Is it age appropriate? Use the Australian classifications website to check if the game has any content not suitable for your child’s age (like violence, adult language or sexual themes). You can also use parental controls to help your child avoid downloading games with inappropriate content, as well as making sure any download requests are sent to you for approval first.
What are the features of the game? Use review websites like Common Sense Media to read about the positive and negative features of a game. Be careful with free games – these often include ads, hidden costs and features that may make it difficult to stop playing.
What are the benefits for my child? Games offer many opportunities to learn and build new skills, even if they’re not ‘educational’ games. Ask your child about their gaming or watch them play to understand what benefits they get.
- Are there social benefits? (Do they play with other people?)
- Are there emotional benefits? (Is it fun or relaxing? Does it help them let off energy or regulate their emotions?)
- Does it help to build skills? (Does it require planning, strategy or problem solving?)
- Does it help them express or feel good about themselves? (Can they be creative? Are they proud of their accomplishments?)
Is it safe to play? If the game has online features, check that you can use safety settings or parental controls to manage them.
Signs a game may not be suitable
Use of ‘sticky’ or ‘tricky’ features – All games are designed to keep us playing, but some make it very difficult to make good decisions around play amount and purchases.
- Sticky features are designed to keep your child playing longer, for example, some games give you a prize for logging in each day, which makes you want to come back regularly.
- Tricky features influence children to make decisions they didn’t plan on making, such as in-game purchases or engaging with incentives like loot boxes that generate new items and are difficult to resist.
If the game doesn’t have much learning or play – This is common in free games. These types of games can feel like you are doing the same thing over and over, and often require a lot of repetitive tapping but not a lot of focus – they rely more on their addictive design, rather than actual play.
If the game makes it hard to play unless you pay – These games are often frustrating and progress is slow. They normally give the player a lot at the start and then make them wait for key items unless they pay or ‘grind’ (spend a lot of time on repetitive in-game tasks). The game might try to pressure players into making decisions they feel they have to act upon quickly, for example with time-limited offers.
- Recommended: Before choosing a game, it’s helpful to check reviews or guides that explain how purchases work and whether they affect gameplay.
If the game feels hard to put down – It’s normal to want to keep playing when something is fun, however some games are designed to make it difficult to stop. They may lack clear stopping points, use wait times to encourage the player to keep coming back, or create a sense of pressure to keep playing so they don’t miss out on something. If your child finds it hard to stop, even though they want to or need to, this is a sign they need to talk to you or a trusted adult about the game and how it’s making them feel.
Remember: You can also look up gameplay videos online to see what a game is really like. You can do this by searching the game's name followed by the word ‘gameplay’ (for example, ‘Minecraft gameplay’).
These videos can show you what the game looks like and how it works. Even watching 5 to 10 minutes can give you a feel for the game’s style and content, which help you decide if it’s right for your child before they start playing.
How to discuss game choices with your child
It’s a good idea to choose games together with your child, so you both have a say in the decision. Here are some ideas on how to do this:
- Look at the game together before deciding. You could say something like, ‘Before we decide, let’s look at reviews and watch some gameplay together.’ With younger children, you might want to ask something like, ‘How about we start playing when I can be there to watch?’ Talk about the benefits and the potential risks.
- Set rules before playing. Ask, ‘Is there anything in this game that might not be safe? Can we make some rules together on using the game to help with that?’ (This might include turning off graphic or disturbing content, switching off voice chat, adjusting privacy settings or choosing not playing online.)
- Wait before buying. You might say something like, ‘I’m happy with this for now, but let’s come back again in a week and see if we’re still happy with this choice.’
- Review the game regularly. Sometimes we find out later that a game might not be the right choice. Games change can change over time, or your child might start playing in new ways, which can affect their experience.
- Recommended: Review more regularly for younger children, especially when playing new games or when using new parts or features of a game (such as a weekly check).
- Talk about what content is OK and not OK. Explain why certain things might not be suitable right now, knowing this can change as they grow.
Writing down how you will choose games can be helpful – you can use your family tech agreement to record these shared rules and decisions.
How to get help if something goes wrong
Gaming platforms have a responsibility to ensure every player’s safety. If your child is experiencing online harm while they play, there are steps you can take to deal with the situation.
Find out how you can help your child if something goes wrong online, including how to make a report to the platform or to eSafety.
Last updated: 08/12/2025
