Hey everyone,
it’s me again, one of the two developers behind GameVault, a self-hosted gaming platform similar to how Plex/Jellyfin is for your movies and series, but for your game collection. If you’ve hoarded a bunch of games over the years, this app is going to be your best friend. Think of it as your own personal Steam, hosted on your own server.
If you haven’t heard of GameVault yet, you can check it out here and get started within 5 minutes—seriously, it’s a game changer.
For those who already know GameVault, or its old name He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, we are excited to tell you we just launched a major update. I’m talking a massive overhaul—so much so, that we could’ve rebuilt the whole thing from scratch. Here’s the big news: We’re no longer relying on RAWG or Google Images for game metadata. Instead, we’ve officially partnered with IGDB/Twitch for a more reliable and extended metadata experience!
But it doesn’t stop there. We’ve also rolled out a new plugin system and a metadata framework that allows you to connect to multiple metadata providers at once. It’s never been this cool to run your own Steam-like platform right from your good ol’ 19" incher below your desk!
What’s new in this update?
- IGDB/Twitch Integration: Say goodbye to unreliable metadata scrapers. Now you can enjoy game info sourced directly from IGDB.
- Customizable Metadata: Edit and fine-tune game metadata with ease. Your changes are saved separately, so the original data stays intact.
- Plugin System: Build your own plugins for metadata or connect to as many sources as you want—unlimited flexibility!
- Parental Controls: Manage age-appropriate access for the family and children.
- Built-in Media Player: Watch game trailers and gameplay videos directly in GameVault.
- UI Overhaul: A fresh, streamlined look for the app, community, game and admin interface.
- Halloween Theme: For GameVault+ users, we’ve added a spooky Halloween skin just in time for the season!
Things to keep in mind when updating:
- GameVault Client v1.12 is now required for servers running v13 or above.
- Older clients won’t work on servers that have been updated to v13.
For a smooth update and a guide on how to use all these new features, check out the detailed migration instructions in the server changelogs. As always, if you hit any snags, feel free to reach out to us on Discord.
If you run into any issues or need help with the migration, feel free to join and open a ticket in our Discord community—we’re always happy to help!
If you want to support our pet-project and keep most upcoming features of GameVault free for everyone, consider subscribing to GameVault+ or making a one-time donation. Every little bit fuels our passion to keep building and improving!
Thanks for everything! We’re more than 800 Members on our discord now and I can’t wait to hear what you think of the latest version.
Your client is still Windows Store exclusive? That’s a hard pass from me.
Instant letdown. I’ve switched my 4 PCs to Linux.
it is not exclusive to Windows Store. We also provide Windows Releases directly on GitHub, and there are guides on running this on linux aswell.
Then why does the link to download the client lead to the MS Store instead of Github?
Because we decided its the main distribution platform. But there are multiple.
It’s open source, so you could compile it yourself if you wanted.
Looks like it’s targeting .NET 6.0 though, which ends support in less than a month. I don’t know if it’s easy to change, so it might be worth it to the devs to start work on a cross-platform and currently supported client.
Linux bootsectorlicker
That’s the sort of licking I can get behind!
I’m doing my part!
But what’s the Catch?!
😂
Any progress on the plans for a native Linux client or Web Interface? Last I checked there was only a Windows client available (although it could be ran within proton to be fair).
While Windows is no doubt the popular gaming OS ATM, I think you’ll find a much higher population of Linux users amongst the self-hosted crowd.
Your service is exactly what I want for my GOG library, so I’d love to give it a spin!
For now we gave up on it but we may look into it in the future. I’m sorry, we’re just two guys and it would mean to redevelop the entire client.
Understandable! I’ll keep an eye on the project for the future!
I might try running it in bottles and see what the experience is like.
I having one of those things… Ya’ know a picture with words…
Heroic Games Launcher could be the answer. The GameVault devs wouldn’t need to reinvent the wheel with a Linux client dealing with all the proton sand boxing. Just add to the heroic launcher.
Looks like someone has already had a similar thought too…
https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/HeroicGamesLauncher/issues/2951
I don’t have Windows on any of my gaming machines, so I can’t really use something that depends on it.
Now, if you also target Wine during unit tests as a compatible base system, I could get into that.
we don’t have any unit tests, yes shame on us. But dozens of users are running this using linux wine and for instance steam deck already, its a community effort but hey, it works. See here.
Good enough for me. Just remember to keep us in mind 👍
Just post that you think it’d be impossible to port to rust and linux. Then someone is bound to do it :P
Don’t want to pile on but the lack of a web client in favor of a Windows Store client really kills this for me. I mean, I’m not even on windows so it’s a deal breaker anyway. Would love to get this talking to Lutris somehow.
Also going to pile on a bit about your use of Discord, it is walling off information in a proprietary communication channel. Support tickets should be handled on the web so others can easily tack on if they are experiencing the same issues etc.
There are ways to run this on linux.
Sorry if there were any miscommunication: We have github and email support aswell, its just lots of people find talking in real time easier.
https://github.com/Phalcode/gamevault-app/issues https://github.com/Phalcode/gamevault-backend/issues
Gotta say, I love the idea behind this project, and it’s great you’re reaching out to this community here. I haven’t run it myself yet, but it looks great, and the feature list is massive.
Couple questions really stopping somebody like myself from setting up an instance though.
-
It’s not “just” a launcher, and it’s not quite a distribution platform. Is this mostly geared towards people playing the same game on multiple machines?
-
It seems like this is setup as a Steam replacement, but only for a DRM-Free games, so why would you (as a creator) suggest I use this instead?
-
This also seems like there’s a world in which this is set to be a decent game hosting platform. Plans?
Thanks for showing up.
- It’s for groups, mostly. Families & Friends.
- It’s not really a replacement. It is a way for you to have a steam like experience for games where you would not have one. Games lying on your server.
- No, not at all at the time, but maybe in the future
Thanks for looking into it
-
Love the idea of this project, exactly something I’m looking for. Though as others have stated, a more native way for Linux or an integration with Lutris or Heroic Launcher would truly be helpful for this project. Believe it would get a lot more traction in the selfhosting community if this became a reality.
We’ve contacted heroic regarding a collab but they never wrote back. You can do this as a fallback though.
A native linux client would be nice
We had fantasies about it but its just too much work for us two, there are community clients for linux natively in development tho.
https://github.com/Phalcode/gamevault-app/issues/284#issuecomment-1865310371
Saved for when I get my home server back up and running. This sounds way better than keeping everything on an external SSD.
feel free to join and open a ticket in our Discord community
Yeah, honestly, kinda fuck off a bit.
we do have Github aswell. it’s just most people find discord easier. Here you go, trooper:
https://github.com/Phalcode/gamevault-app/issues https://github.com/Phalcode/gamevault-backend/issues
Will it store my ROMs
it is mostly optimised for pc atm. it will save them perfectly fine and you can download and browse them using this as well, but its still on our roadmap to build in a web based emulator, native emulator support and auto-install for roms. See details here
It’s so hard to have a SMB share with one folder per game. The solution is obviously to run 4000 docker containers.
yeah browsing that 4000 game folder list sure is the same fun.
Does this run on a raspberry pi 1 or 2? I can’t remember which one I have, but I barely use it so it’d be cool to have something to use it for.
It does, it needs about 120mb of ram I think.
I’m kind of apprehensive to open up a really small projects on my home network to the outside world. Kudos for maintaining unraid as a platform though.
I might consider running it at my house but my wife is Mac I’m Linux it would only help my kids.
Could It handle mod packages for Java Minecraft or something?
That’s a terrible romcom.
“She was a Mac user, listening to The Beatles on her iPhone. He was a Linux user…probably using one of those custom modular built cell phones with an open kernal or something. This Holiday season, watch cultures clash as two different technology mindsets clash. When governments threaten to censor pornography in their state during the stressful holiday season, they turn to each other for support and, they fall in love! Courtney Cox, and Jerry Lewis star in…Different Worlds!”
I wouldn’t watch that.
Lol, That’s why I self-host so much crap. The only way I can give it to everybody is to make it a web app, or maintain three separate sets of clients.
It could handle modpacks, thats even an example on the site. You dont need to open it up to the internet, it works perfectly fine in LAN and VPN aswell.
