12 mo. ago • 95%

GameVault Update - What's happened 4 months after initial release

Hey fellow self-hosters!

It's u/Alfagun74 from GameVault, the self-hosted platform for organizing and sharing your servers DRM-free games collection. We've come a long way since our initial release, and I'm thrilled to share what's been happening with GameVault since then.

From "Crackpipe" to GameVault

If you've been with us since the start, you might remember our initial quirky name, "Crackpipe." Well, we had a good laugh, but as we grew, we decided to go for something more fitting – GameVault! It's your personal gaming treasure trove, and the name says it all.

What's GameVault?

For the uninitiated, GameVault is like having your own Steam for game files lying on your server. It's a self-hosted, source-available gaming platform. Bring your DRM-free game files, and GameVault organizes them, enriches them with metadata, and gives you a user-friendly interface to manage and play your games. It's all about enjoying your favorite titles with friends.

What's happened since initial release?

Since our initial release four months ago, we've been hard at work, reaching version 9 on the backend and 1.7 on the frontend.

Here's a reel of the exciting big features we've added:

Auto Extraction and Installation of Videogames
Uninstalling Games through GameVault
Uploading Images directly to your GameVault
Support for a metric ton of archive formats
Crash Reports
Database Backups & Restorations
Bandwidth Control
Random Game Finder

What's on the Horizon?

We've been listening to your feedback, and here's what was asked for the most:

Right now we're knee-deep in redesigning the Library, the heart of our application. Big changes are on the way, waving goodbye to the installations tab and bringing in a sleeker UI for Library, Game View, and Game Settings. More on and a sneak-peek is coming to our blog soon.

Join the GameVault Community!

If you haven't already, come join our vibrant community on Discord. You can influence the direction of GameVault and participate in exclusive polls over there.

Spread the Word and Stay Tuned!

Help us promote GameVault among fellow self-hosters. Your efforts could inspire a bored developer to join and contribute to our project!

Let's make gaming personal again with GameVault!

26 comments

This is pretty cool, I remember when you guys released it under the name crackpipe. For the record I really liked the name.

What's the reason you chose to use a CC license? Why not any established open source license? Even Creative Commons themselves recommend using the GPL instead of CC for software.

18
- You have a great sense of humor sir. Well.. first of all im not a lawyer and i really liked the simple terms and conditions of the CC License compared to the usual ones for code. The terms literally fit in a 160x20px image. Also our product is not open-source by definition. That link is an interesting blog-post i made about that topic. You should definitely check it out, if you're interested. I hope this clears this up a bit.
  
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  I also find it absolutely hilarious that you were considering monetising a product named Crackpipe. Not sure how successful you'd be at that.
  
  11
  
  Thanks for linking the blog post. I may not agree with the conclusion you've come to, but I think you've done a good job at laying your arguments.
  
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  Have you looked at things like Photoprism that have an open source free base product and then a modified license covering the subscription features?
  
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A game changer for me would be to have it setup to connect to one or more GOG accounts and pull files with like a checkbox interface and let it automatically download updates. That way the server kind of acts like a local cache.

6
Very interesting project! However, I can't help shake the feeling that whilst you pitch it as a platform for sharing DRM-free games, it will get used for sharing games against the licenses and wishes of publishers. I don't really care about the publishers, but do you not think there is a great risk that once your app gets enough attention, it will draw their ire and force you to shut down? Perhaps not directly, but e.g., removing you from the windows store etc.

6
- There's nothing illegal about GameVault. It's a tool. It can be used correctly for its intended purpose or misused by others. Banning it would be like banning cars because some people use them as weapons instead of for transportation. So no, I don't fear any trouble at all. After all, platforms like Plex/Jellyfin, which are basically GameVault for Movies and TV Series, are doing totally fine and are well-established in the general public already.
  
  13
I just got a NAS and downloaded all my GOG and Humble games into it. Didn't even occur to me that something like this existed. I'm going to have to give it a try soon, since it sounds like Linux through Wine is supported.

6
Does this still require you to get the Windows App from the Windows Store? Thats the main reason I ditched.

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- Good News
  
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  The Linux install method link on that page leads to a page not found
  
  6
Still think you should have kept the original name for the lulz

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