Who publishes Idle Format, and how it is written

The publisher

Idle Format is published by Montej group and compani s.r.o., a company registered in the Czech Republic. The site is a single five-step workbook about starting a free-to-play PC game, written for readers in Australia. It is not a news outlet, not a blog, not a school, and not an official or authorised source for any game.

There is no editorial staff list on this site and no named author, because a workbook of this kind does not need one and inventing one would be dishonest. Where authorship matters, it is the Montej group and compani s.r.o. editorial team.

How the course was structured

The five steps follow the order in which decisions actually arise for someone installing a large online game for the first time. Each step was written to answer one question completely before the next step depends on it.

1. Business model first, because it is the only step that can be done with nothing installed and no account created, and because it is the step most likely to end the exercise cheaply.
2. Hardware second, because no amount of reading about terms matters if the computer cannot run the software.
3. Account and terms third, because several of its decisions — which email address, which display name, which privacy settings — can only be made before the account exists.
4. Installation fourth, because it is the first step that puts anything on your machine and it depends on the hardware figures from Step 2.
5. Spending and review last, because it is the only step that repeats, and because it depends on the budget decision taken back in Step 1.

Each step ends in a checklist for the same reason: the step is only useful if it produces something you can act on without us.

What each step relies on

The course draws on three kinds of source, and keeps them separate on purpose.

Australian public bodies, linked where they are relevant and described only by what they are. Steps 1, 3 and 5 link the Australian Classification Board for classification decisions; Steps 3 and 5 link the ACCC for the Australian Consumer Law, the eSafety Commissioner for online safety guidance and the OAIC for privacy; Steps 3 and 4 link the Australian Cyber Security Centre for account and software security, and Scamwatch for impersonation scams. We describe what these organisations do; we do not paraphrase their advice as though it were ours, and we do not claim any association with them.

The vendor's own material. Statements on this site about World of Warships come from one place: the description supplied by the affiliate network that operates its partner programme, which states that the programme pays on a single opt-in, a download, and the creation and activation of an account, and that the supported devices are desktop computers running Windows or macOS. Where a reader needs something beyond that — system requirements, shop prices, current content, classification — the course sends them to the vendor or to the relevant Australian body rather than repeating a figure we cannot verify. If the vendor has not stated something, the course says so.

General description of how this category of software works. Launchers, patches, presets, integrated graphics, randomised purchases: these are described in general terms that apply across the category. They are written as guidance, not as claims about any particular product, and they are deliberately not a walkthrough of any one publisher's interface.

The commercial relationship, stated plainly

This is the part most sites bury, so it is here in the middle of the page. World of Warships is the only product named in this course, and Montej group and compani s.r.o. has a commercial relationship with the affiliate network that promotes it. Links to its website on this site are paid affiliate links: if you create and activate an account after following one, the network pays a commission to Montej group and compani s.r.o. That commission is how this site is funded.

So the honest summary is this. The product mentioned in the course is one we are paid to link to. The course does not review it, rank it, or claim it is better than any alternative, and every procedure in it is written to apply to any large free-to-play title. What the commission buys is the existence of the site; it does not buy a recommendation, and there is none here. The Affiliate Disclosure page sets out the arrangement in full, including what does decide the content.

How often it is reviewed, and what changes

The whole course is reread at least twice a year, and sooner if one of the Australian sources it links changes materially or if the vendor's own description of the offer changes. A review checks four things: that every external link still resolves to the body it names; that nothing stated about the example product has drifted beyond what the vendor states; that Australian spelling, currency and date formats are consistent; and that the legal pages still describe what the site actually does.

The date of the last review appears in the footer of every page. Where a legal page changes, its effective date changes with it, and a material change is flagged at the top of that page for thirty days.

What this site does not do

• It collects nothing. There is no form, no newsletter, no account, no analytics and no advertising tag anywhere on it. The Privacy Policy and the Cookie Policy set out exactly what that means.
• It sets no cookies and uses no browser storage, which is why the checklists cannot remember your ticks.
• It makes no external requests: no web fonts, no hosted scripts, no embedded video. Every illustration on the site is drawn with inline SVG or CSS.
• It publishes no testimonials, no reviews, no ratings and no statistics of its own, and it does not quote anyone.
• It is not accredited training, issues nothing, and marks nothing. The Terms and Conditions say so in plainer language.

Corrections and contact

If something here is wrong, out of date, or unclear, we would rather know. Write to info@idleformat.online and say which page and which sentence. Corrections are made to the page itself rather than noted elsewhere, and the review date in the footer is updated when they are. The Contact page has the postal address and what to expect by way of a reply.