Entry 01

Online horse and stable games

A definition of the category, the parts a session is built from, and the design decisions that explain why these games ask for an account, an email address and, eventually, a payment method.

The phrase covers a narrow and fairly consistent group of games: multiplayer titles set in a shared world where the player's character rides, cares for and collects horses, and where progress is measured in quests completed, areas unlocked and animals acquired. They are not racing simulators, and they are not stable-management strategy games played against a clock. The closest accurate description is an adventure game with a riding mechanic at its centre and a social world around it.

Three properties separate this category from single-player games that happen to feature horses.

The world is persistent

The game world runs on the operator's servers continuously. A player who logs out and returns a week later finds the world where they left it, with their character, horses and items intact, because none of that is stored on the device. This is why the game needs an account: without one, there is nowhere to attach the progress to.

Other players are present

Players share the same map and can see each other, ride together and, in most titles, communicate in some form. The presence of other people is the reason chat moderation, reporting tools and age controls matter here in a way they do not for an offline game.

Content is released over time

These games are run as ongoing services rather than finished products. Quests, areas and seasonal events are added after release, which is the commercial justification for recurring payment and the reason a game's content and pricing at the time of reading may differ from any description written earlier — including this one.

How a session is structured

The sequence below holds across most titles in the category. Knowing it in advance is useful mainly because it tells a parent where in the process a decision about money or personal information is likely to appear.

1. Registration. An account is created with an email address and a password, usually along with a date of birth and a display name. The date of birth typically determines which features the account can use, including chat.
2. Activation. The operator sends an email containing a link that confirms the address is real and belongs to whoever registered. Until that link is used, the account usually cannot play. The entry on accounts covers what happens when this email does not arrive.
3. Client installation. On desktop, most titles download a game client — a program installed on the computer that connects to the servers. On mobile and tablet the equivalent arrives through the device's app store.
4. Character creation. The player chooses an appearance and a name. Names are generally public to other players, which is the first point at which a household should think about what the character is called.
5. The opening area. A tutorial region teaches riding, navigation and the quest system. It is almost always open to every account at no cost, and it is designed to be finished in a sitting or two.
6. The boundary. At the end of the opening area, most games present the distinction between what an open account can reach and what a paid account can reach. This is the point the whole free opening has been building towards, and it is where a household is asked to decide.

Horses as the progression system

In this category the horse is not decoration; it is the main unit of progress. Games typically distinguish between a starter horse available to every player and additional horses acquired through in-game currency, real-money currency, or both. Breeds, coat colours and rarities give the collection a hierarchy, and that hierarchy is what the game's economy runs on.

The practical consequence is that the horse is also the main driver of spending. A player who wants a particular horse usually has two routes to it: accumulate in-game currency through play, which takes time, or buy the premium currency, which takes money. Most titles tune the first route so that it is possible but slow. This is a design choice rather than a flaw, and it is the mechanism described in detail in the payment models entry.

Communication and the social layer

The social layer varies more than any other part of these games. Some titles run full open text chat with moderation; some restrict younger accounts to a fixed vocabulary of approved phrases; some limit communication to players who have already added each other. A household cannot assume any particular arrangement, and the only reliable way to find out is to look at the game's own safety or parental information pages and then watch a session.

Where communication exists, so does the possibility of contact a parent would not want. The eSafety Commissioner, Australia's independent regulator for online safety, publishes guidance on gaming specifically and accepts reports about serious online abuse; its material is available at esafety.gov.au. The safety entry on this site goes through the in-game and device-level controls in order.

Where Star Stable Online sits in the category

Star Stable Online is an online horse-riding adventure game and a widely known example of this category. The material published by the advertising network that promotes it states that the game runs on desktop computers (Windows, macOS and Linux), on mobile devices (Android, iOS and Windows) and on tablets, and that a player creates and activates an account in order to play. Those are the product facts this site is able to state.

Several things that a reader will reasonably want to know are not in that material and are therefore not asserted here: what the game currently costs, which specific features sit behind a paid tier, what the current system requirements are, and what the game's present classification is in Australia. All of those are published by the game's operator or, in the case of classification, by the Australian Classification Board, and all of them change. The classification entry explains how to look up the current decision for a specific title.

Visit the Star Stable Online website Paid link. If you create an account after following this link, the advertiser pays Infiniti Hub a commission; the price you pay is unaffected, and the commission did not shape the description above or the limits noted in it.

Related entries

• Accounts, sign-up and activation — what registration collects and how to keep the account recoverable.
• Payment models and in-game purchases — the economy underneath the horse collection.
• Glossary of terms — the vocabulary used across this entry, defined.