Issue 1
FFLANE

About

About OFFLANE

The Off-Lane of Gaming. Built by players, for players.

What this site is

OFFLANE is a free-to-play gaming media site. We cover news, reviews, guides, deals, patch notes, tier lists, and long-form editorial for the F2P games you actually play — Apex Legends, Counter-Strike 2, League of Legends, Dota 2, Valorant, Overwatch 2, Fortnite, and a dozen more. Everything is written by one editor (me) and a rotating set of AI-assisted content tools.

The site is a static exportbuilt with Next.js and deployed to Cloudflare Pages. There’s no server, no database, no Workers for page views. Every article is a pre-rendered HTML file. The build is fast and the site is free to run.

How OFFLANE makes money

OFFLANE is reader-supported. Four revenue sources, all disclosed:

  1. Affiliate links — when you click a deal link and buy a game, we may earn a commission. The programs are Steam (5% revenue share), Epic Games (5%), and Amazon Associates (1-4%). We only link to games we’d recommend anyway. The commission doesn’t change our review or recommendation.
  2. Display ads — we run a multi-network stack chosen for the gaming audience. The current priority order is Adsterra (multi-format self-serve, same-day approval), HilltopAds (gaming-specialist), Monetag (best fill in Indonesia / SEA / LATAM gaming traffic — we’re an Indonesian-built site), Coinzilla (crypto premium), and A-ADS (crypto, no-KYC fallback). Up next when traffic qualifies: Ezoic (AI-driven, $5-15 CPM for gaming) and Mediavine (premium, requires 50K sessions/month). Until any display ad network is approved, the ad slots show “house ads” promoting our own content (newsletter, deals, tier lists). Every ad slot is labeled “Sponsored” or “Promoted”.
  3. Sponsored placements — publishers can sponsor articles, deal roundups, or content sections. Every sponsored placement is clearly labeled at the top of the articlewith a “Sponsored” badge. The label is unmissable — not a footer disclosure, a top-of-article badge. We do not sell reviews or accept payment to change a verdict, score, or tier-list placement. The full disclosure is in our editorial standards. The current rate card and slot availability is at /sponsors.
  4. Newsletter sponsorship(future) — when the newsletter has enough subscribers, we’ll run one sponsored mention per week. The sponsor will never be a casino, a crypto/NFT, or a game we’ve given a negative review.

What we never do: selling reviews, paid placement of games in tier lists, commission-based editorial coverage, undisclosed affiliate links, ads that target users based on personal data, or accepting payment that influences a verdict, score, or recommendation.

Editorial standards

  • Every review includes a score (0-10) and a verdict (must-play, recommended, good, mixed, avoid). The score is the editor’s, not a composite of other outlets.
  • Every news article is dated. Articles more than 6 months old are updated or marked as “archived” rather than left to rot.
  • Every tier list includes a one-line rationale for each tier. A tier list without tier rationale is a list of opinions, not a ranking.
  • Every guide is tested. If we recommend a build, we’ve used it. If we recommend a strategy, we’ve run it.
  • Every deal link is checked for current price and validity. Dead links are removed within 24 hours of being reported.

Who writes this

I’m the editor and the only full-time writer. AI-assisted content tools help with first drafts, fact-checking, and SEO-optimized summaries, but every article is reviewed, edited, and signed off by a human before it ships.

For corrections, tips, or press inquiries, get in touch.

The technical bits

  • Stack: Next.js 16 (App Router), React 19, TypeScript 5, Tailwind CSS v4, Framer Motion.
  • CMS: None. Articles are Markdown files in content/, committed to the same Git repo as the site. Frontmatter is validated at build time.
  • Data pipeline: A scheduled GitHub Action pulls from 8+ third-party APIs (Steam, Epic, CheapShark, F2P catalog, LoL, Dota, etc.) and commits the results to data/external/. No runtime API calls.
  • Search: Pagefind, a static, build-time search index. No server, no index API costs.
  • Hosting: Cloudflare Pages free tier. Static assets only. The only Worker is the newsletter signup function (one HTTP request per signup, negligible cost).