Arr guys,
Recently, I came across an app called GameVault on r/selfhosted and wanted to share it here. It’s like a customized Steam-like platform for games stored on your seedbox or fileserver you can run yourself on your server.
You and your family can then use the Windows app to download them, track your playtime and so on. The idea is pretty neat and like Jellyfin/Kodi but for videogames.
The developers cannot officially promote piracy, so they have a scary disclaimer on their page, but the app works perfectly fine and everything is formulated “tounge in cheek”-ish.
Personally, I have about 25 “alternatively obtained” games on my seedbox-server by now, and it’s working fine for me and my kids.
If you have basic Linux-server knowledge, setting it up is not difficult. For complete beginners, there’s a guide on their website: https://gamevau.lt/docs/intro
Side note: I’m definitely not the dev, and my username is just an anagram for that by coincidence.
Looks like there is no Linux client with automatic Proton support. Pass. Thanks for sharing, though.
It seems similar to Gameyfin, but with a more client-server focused orientation. I’ll check it out.
As a guy who has a lot of experience with old emulated Nintendo games and things like that, I keep a bunch of ROMs on a cloud storage service for backup. But all those files add up and eat storage space. For a service like this, do you just have the installers themselves stored for easy installing/uninstalling? How big are those files, for storage purposes? I have a lot of PC games, but, you know, I don’t like paying for all of them. Are you able to have tons of “alternative” Steam games or does storage space run out quick?
This program is used to transfer your games from your own server, to your computer. So you can store as many games as you can afford to.
Maybe this is the use case I’m not understanding. Do many people have servers that they just keep software they’re not using on? I mean this makes sense with movies and maybe music, but I feel like I’ve never heard of this with games and such.
I keep a few on my nas that i like going back too, fo4, sims, gta5, stuff like that. but navigating to a network share has never been an issue.
Plex for games. That’s how I’m reading this. The advantage to me being that when I have a LAN party I can say “Grab Quake 3 from this URL” instead of “grab Quake 3 from this network folder”. Not a huge thing. But it might help not over sharing.
I think you’ve got cooler friends than I do.
This is a fun idea, but that is a whole lot of work when i can just drag and drop a folder to achieve the same result.
It’s not the same. You will have no idea how long you’ve played that game you can’t browse, sort and share your games etc.
Yes i can, i use playnite.
I use twitter. So, let me piss on mastadon. I use reddit. So, let me piss on lemmy. /s.
Seriously, stop pissing on alternatives just because they don’t work for you. More choice, is generally a good thing (with the exception of streaming services…)
you gotta chill, man. Its not required that i like your idea. If it works for you, thats great
Its not asking anyone to like anything or not- but, from the above comments- I gather-
I use “Service A”, so, “Service B” is useless to me. The impression was a negative bias towards this service/product, because you already have something that works for you.
