Setting up and activating a game account, step by step
Registration takes about four minutes. Activation is where the delay happens, and almost always for a reason you can find yourself. This page covers both, plus the four account settings worth changing on the first day rather than after something goes wrong.
Quick answer
Register with a personal email address you will still control in five years. Use a long passphrase stored in a password manager. Activate from the email, checking the promotions and junk folders if nothing appears within ten minutes. Turn on multi-factor authentication before you play, choose a nickname that is not your real name, and resist creating a second account when the first one seems slow.
What "single opt-in" registration means
Free-to-play games generally use one of two registration models. In a single opt-in flow, you submit an email address and a password, the account exists immediately, and an activation link confirms the address afterwards. In a double opt-in flow, nothing exists until the link is clicked. The title covered on this site uses the single opt-in model: the account is created and then activated, and those are two events rather than one.
The practical consequence is worth understanding. If you register and never click the activation link, an account with your email address on it still exists, usually in a restricted state. That is why registering "just to look" twice, with two addresses, leaves two accounts behind — and why the fix for a missing activation email is to recover the first account rather than to make a second.
Choosing the email address deliberately
The email address is the account. Password resets, security notices and any dispute about ownership all run through it, so the question is not which address is convenient today but which one you will still be able to open in five years.
Three addresses are poor choices. A workplace address disappears when the job does. An address from an internet provider disappears when the plan is changed. A shared family address makes it impossible to establish who controls the account. A personal address at a mainstream provider, with multi-factor authentication already enabled on the mailbox itself, is the straightforward answer. Guidance on securing the mailbox is published by the Australian Cyber Security Centre at cyber.gov.au.
When the activation email does not arrive
This is the single most common stall in the process, and it is nearly always one of five things. Work through them in order; each takes under a minute.
- Wait ten minutes. Activation mail is queued, and queues are slower at peak times. Resending immediately usually produces two messages, and the older link may then be the invalid one.
- Check the promotions, updates and junk folders. Automated mail from a game publisher is routinely filed away from the inbox, particularly by webmail providers that sort mail into tabs.
- Search the mailbox for the publisher's name rather than scrolling. A filter you created years ago may be moving the message somewhere you have forgotten.
- Check the address for a typo by attempting a password reset on it. If the reset mail also fails to arrive, the address on the account is probably not the address you think it is.
- Use the publisher's own support channel. Not a search result, not a forum post offering to help, and never a "support" account that contacts you first. Support links are inside the vendor's site.
What to watch out for during activation
An activation link arrives from the publisher's domain and asks you to confirm an email address. It does not ask for a password, a payment card, a phone verification code, or a copy of an identity document. A message that asks for any of those is a phishing attempt regardless of how well it is made, and it can be reported to Scamwatch at scamwatch.gov.au. Reaching the publisher by typing its address into the browser yourself, instead of following a link, removes the entire class of problem.
The four settings worth changing on day one
| Setting | What to do | Why now rather than later |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-factor authentication | Enable it, preferably with an authenticator app rather than SMS | It is the single change that most reduces the chance of losing the account, and it is hard to add after a compromise |
| Nickname or display name | Choose something unrelated to your real name, school, workplace or suburb | Display names are visible to strangers in every match, and many games charge to change one |
| Password | A long passphrase, unique to this account, stored in a password manager | Reused passwords are the most common way game accounts are taken over |
| Communication and chat settings | Review who can message or invite you before the first session | Defaults are usually open, and adjusting them later means doing it after the first unwanted message |
On display names and chat, the eSafety Commissioner is the Australian regulator for online safety and publishes material on online gaming and on reporting serious online abuse. Its reporting schemes are the appropriate route when in-game behaviour goes beyond what the game's own reporting tools can deal with.
Worked example: a stalled activation, resolved
A reader in Brisbane registers on a Saturday evening and sees nothing in the inbox after five minutes. They press "resend" three times, then create a second account with a different address, which activates immediately.
What went wrong. The first activation email had arrived, filed under the promotions tab. The three resends invalidated the earlier links, so the last one was the only working link — and it was also in the promotions tab. The second account is now a duplicate, which matters because game publishers commonly treat multiple accounts per person as a terms breach, and because progress on one does not transfer to the other.
What the ordered procedure would have produced. Ten minutes of patience, one folder check, one working link, one account. The remedy after the fact is to stop using the duplicate and to contact the publisher's support to have it closed, rather than quietly keeping both.
Where the link on this site goes
Registration happens on the vendor's own pages, not here. Kinetrixa has no account system, no form and no field of any kind, so there is nothing to submit on this site.
Visit the World of Tanks sign-up page
Paid link. An advertising network pays Kinetrixa a commission if a reader follows this link and then creates and activates an account. The account is free either way, the commission is paid by the network rather than by you, and it has no bearing on the procedure described above.
The checklist
- Email address chosen — personal, long-lived, and itself protected with multi-factor authentication.
- Passphrase generated and stored in a password manager, unique to this account.
- Registration submitted once, with the address read back before submitting.
- Ten minutes allowed before pressing resend, and the promotions and junk folders checked.
- Activation completed from a link on the publisher's own domain.
- Multi-factor authentication enabled on the game account before the first session.
- Display name and chat settings reviewed, with no real-world details in the name.
- No second account created while the first one is being sorted out.
Common questions
Can I change the email address on the account later?
Usually yes, through account settings, and usually with confirmation sent to both the old and the new address. That is one more reason to register with an address you can still open: changing away from a mailbox you have lost is considerably harder than changing away from one you still control.
Is a phone number required?
That depends on the publisher and is stated during registration. Where a number is optional, treat it as optional. Where it is used for multi-factor authentication, an authenticator app is generally the better option if the publisher offers one, because it does not depend on your number staying the same.
Does activating an account cost anything?
Account creation and activation for the title covered here are free, according to the programme listing. Spending is a separate decision made inside the game's own store, which is the subject of the costs page.
What to read next
- Account safety — what to do if credentials are exposed, and where each kind of problem is reported in Australia.
- Desktop readiness — the checks that belong before this page, not after it.
- Classification and households — if the account is for someone under 18.