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.
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?
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.
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 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…)
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.
I really liked the concept of this and had high expectation, but I just tried this out following their documentation and not a fan so I’ll have to pass / find a better alternative if one exists.
The docker-compose.yml given seems to cause the containers to be lacking permissions to save images and even the DB: logs show images can’t be created/saved, restarting the container wipes the DB. No files created at all on the mounted volumes paths. The volume for game files works great though so that’s confusing. I can probably troubleshoot that but this is the first container I’ve ever had such an issue with so I won’t bother particularly due to the next points:
On the app itself I was pretty disappointed that it doesn’t at the very least extract the files for you, and won’t even skip all the manual junk for direct play games that I took the time to name properly with (DP) on the archive files. The reason given is there may be too many manual steps/variations for installation but direct plays don’t need any of that.
Given the manual steps required I’ll stick to copy/pasting the files off my server to my local games folder, the games themselves being added to steam if I really need to go that far with them.
I was hoping it would be fixing my having to manually add games to steam after manually copying the files over to a PC and have a nice catalogue for them. But it just seems like it generates more work than it saves.
Regarding permission issues, it’s crucial to note that the Container utilizes User 1000 (for Docker Security Reasons). Therefore, ensure that you change the ownership of your directories to user 1000…
Your dissatisfaction will vanish once this release is available.
I’ll just hope it accepts an environment variable for user/group ID because on my server 1000 is not the appropriate user to have permissions to these files. Will find out next time I give it a try.
Didn’t steam have a feature to add non-steam games to your library? Ofcourse it didn’t support all the steam features + it would allow steam gather data about “less-than-legal” copies of games associated with users 🤷
My dumb ass kid brain put all my “alternatively sourced” games to it thinking I was cool
You can add literally anything, and all Steam does is launch the executable you specify. And maybe take screenshots if you use the overlay.
Valve could actually look through the games people have added and do some sort of major crackdown, but for better or worse they seem to have left this alone. Still, though, I’d consider it a vulnerability, and I also recommend against using Steam because Steam is basically DRM. (Yes, this varies by game and can be argued over. But it still definitely tries to lock you into using it, one way or another.)
Nope. I remember i had added deus ex human revolution & assassins creed 2. I would open steam to open up uplay to open up the game. 14 year old me thought I was a “hacker”
I assume Crackpipe was a wordplay on being an alternative to Steam but the connotations that come with it… not surprised the dev changed the project’s name
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
It seems similar to Gameyfin, but with a more client-server focused orientation. I’ll check it out.
There’s also a Lemmy Community !phalcode@lemmy.world
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.
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.
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.
Looks like there is no Linux client with automatic Proton support. Pass. Thanks for sharing, though.
For storage, is it possible to put all this on a rented server in the cloud or will that cause legal problems?
Legality will depend on the country your in.
But assuming your traffic to/from the server is encrypted, your probably okay.
the only thing that can cause legal problems is if you distribute pirated or illegal videogames with this. the app itself is not illegal.
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.
I’m having a very hard time understanding what this does for me that lutris doesn’t already.
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.
Yes, that was the point of my comment. I’m glad we all ended up on the same page here.
I really liked the concept of this and had high expectation, but I just tried this out following their documentation and not a fan so I’ll have to pass / find a better alternative if one exists.
The docker-compose.yml given seems to cause the containers to be lacking permissions to save images and even the DB: logs show images can’t be created/saved, restarting the container wipes the DB. No files created at all on the mounted volumes paths. The volume for game files works great though so that’s confusing. I can probably troubleshoot that but this is the first container I’ve ever had such an issue with so I won’t bother particularly due to the next points:
On the app itself I was pretty disappointed that it doesn’t at the very least extract the files for you, and won’t even skip all the manual junk for direct play games that I took the time to name properly with (DP) on the archive files. The reason given is there may be too many manual steps/variations for installation but direct plays don’t need any of that.
Given the manual steps required I’ll stick to copy/pasting the files off my server to my local games folder, the games themselves being added to steam if I really need to go that far with them.
Yeah thats what im saying, im not really sure what problem this program is fixing.
I was hoping it would be fixing my having to manually add games to steam after manually copying the files over to a PC and have a nice catalogue for them. But it just seems like it generates more work than it saves.
There’s a Discord server (https://discord.gg/NEdNen2dSu) where you can join for any support you need.
Regarding permission issues, it’s crucial to note that the Container utilizes User 1000 (for Docker Security Reasons). Therefore, ensure that you change the ownership of your directories to user 1000…
Your dissatisfaction will vanish once this release is available.
I’ll just hope it accepts an environment variable for user/group ID because on my server 1000 is not the appropriate user to have permissions to these files. Will find out next time I give it a try.
You can use the user directive in your compose
Didn’t steam have a feature to add non-steam games to your library? Ofcourse it didn’t support all the steam features + it would allow steam gather data about “less-than-legal” copies of games associated with users 🤷
My dumb ass kid brain put all my “alternatively sourced” games to it thinking I was cool
You can add literally anything, and all Steam does is launch the executable you specify. And maybe take screenshots if you use the overlay.
Valve could actually look through the games people have added and do some sort of major crackdown, but for better or worse they seem to have left this alone. Still, though, I’d consider it a vulnerability, and I also recommend against using Steam because Steam is basically DRM. (Yes, this varies by game and can be argued over. But it still definitely tries to lock you into using it, one way or another.)
Absolutely
Did you get banned or anything?
replied to wrong comment, oops
(The comment previously posted here is now at https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/1259716 )
I doubt it? I added the HL2 leak to my library lol
Nope. I remember i had added deus ex human revolution & assassins creed 2. I would open steam to open up uplay to open up the game. 14 year old me thought I was a “hacker”
I’ve seen it recently, when it was still known as crackpipe.
Unfortunately it’s not (yet?) available on Linux/Docker.
When it becomes so, I’ll want another look at it.
I assume Crackpipe was a wordplay on being an alternative to Steam but the connotations that come with it… not surprised the dev changed the project’s name
What do you mean? I am running the backend on docker and using this approach to run the client on my linux laptop myself
… well, then I misunderstood something rather completely
I’ll need another look. Thanks!
Was it the client you were looking at? Would make sense it isn’t supported on *nix/docker ATM
This is awesome. If only my upload speed wasn’t trash.