I want to play all the different games and watch videos on Nick.com. I need an account. How do I sign up for a Nick account?
For a really popular site aimed at kids, it’s surprising that Nick.com isn’t easier to figure out, but sure enough, if you check out the home page, there’s no “sign up” button. Even more surprising in this day and age — and with the COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) laws — there’s no spot that asks for your age or for your parent’s email address to confirm you can sign up at all if you’re under 13.
By contrast, sites like Club Penguin and Animal Jam are careful to make sure that children signing up do so with the knowledge of their parents. But… you asked how to do it, not whether they have it set up properly!
So let’s have a look. First off, here’s what the home page looks like:
It’s certainly cheery and festive!
But where’s the “I want to sign up” link?
Turns out that there isn’t one. Which is weird. But click on “Sign In” on the top right and, well, check it out:
Don’t get distracted by SpongeBob! Look on the lower left.
“Sign up”.
That’s what ya want. Click on Sign Up on the lower left and now you can see how to get a new account:
To start, choose your gender, then enter a username.
What should you have as your username? Once you move into the box it’ll tell you more:
Understand what it’s saying? If your name is Mary Smith, then “mary” or “smith” should not appear in your username, nor should your street name, city, or the name of your school. Actually, your first name might be okay, but the less personal, the better.
And then there’s the challenge of finding something unique! It took me a while to find a username that wasn’t already in use, I’ll tell you, so be creative!
Don’t be discouraged if you get this error:
Eventually you’ll figure one out and be good to go.
Click on “Next” and you’ll see that they ask for more info:
Once you have a username set, pick a password too, and again be ready for it to be complainy about options, at least if you’re used to using digits, upper and lower case, etc. Nick.com tells you that it doesn’t like passwords, but it’s not very clear about what it does like.
Then there’s the password hint. There are a couple of different questions you can pick from, I suggest you use the one that’s the hardest for people to guess or find out if they’re trying to pretend that they’re you!
Ready? “Submit”.
I’ve hidden a few things to protect my own account — you don’t really need my password, do you? 🙂 — but you’ll see the same basic thing and you probably want to save this screen or write down the info somewhere secure so your friends (or little sister!) doesn’t steal it and log in as you.
Click “Finish” and you can start playing games like the popular Battle for New York:
Have fun on Nick.com and remember one more thing: when you’re done watching videos and playing games, make sure you log out!
This is easily done on the top right of the screen:
Now you know. Have fun and enjoy!
Thank you for helping me log in!
i dont see it
I looked through the tutorial and my nick app doesn’t look anything like that. There’s no sign in button at the top of mine.