Hey c/selfhosted,
we’ve finally done it. After years of people asking for it, GameVault now has its very own Web UI!
For anyone who hasn’t heard of it yet: GameVault is a self-hosted gaming platform that gives you a Steam-like library experience, but for your own DRM-free games. You host it yourself, you own your data, and you can share your collection with friends and family. Basically, it’s for gamers who also love the selfhosting mindset.
This Web UI / Cross-Platform Client has been the most requested and long-awaited feature for as long as we’ve been working on GameVault. When we first built it, it was just a small project for the two of us, written with the tech we knew at the time. Over the years, especially here on Lemmy, people gave us plenty of criticism for the tech stack and the UX, because you guys love to use linux. And honestly… fair enough. We knew it wasn’t great.
The new Web UI is our way of addressing all the feedback we’ve received and setting the stage for the future. It’s not just a nicer interface. This also represents the first building block for a new cross-platform client that we’re working on.
The Web UI acts as a cross-platform core, which means that in the future we will be able to package GameVault to run both directly in the browser as well as a native application on Windows, Linux, or even mobile devices. This upcoming client will be built on the same foundation, ensuring a smoother and more unified experience whether you’re on a desktop OS or just checking your vault from your phone.
Right now, we’re planning to expand the Web UI continuously and figure out how to handle the legacy windows desktop client moving forward. The technology underneath is much cleaner now, so we finally have the freedom to iterate and improve without being stuck in the past.
Anyway, we’re really excited about this step. It feels like a true milestone for the project, and we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback. If you’re self-hosting and love gaming, give it a try, I’m curious what you think.
You can also check out a live running demo version on demo.gamevau.lt
Username: demo
Password: demodemo
It’s funny to me, that something called CrackPipe before to host your alternative obtained games now says they will not make it FOSS because they somehow have to finance their hard work.
I personally hope every “convenience feature” they think about gets cracked immediately and someone rewrites the code a little and implements it obfuscated in their financially successful product.
In the end this is just another platform that’s already promising you to enshittify along the way - posting this here should be considered an Ad and should be removed.
Small comment on the licensing… CC-by-NC-SA is not FOSS and also not very helpful for server run software like this, as people do not need to share modifications they only run on their own server. I would suggest you switch to the AGPL instead, which was specifically developed for server run software.
This. It does what you want and it’s actually a proper software license.
Yeah we know. GameVault is not intended to be FOSS.
I think you’re thinking of MIT though, the commenter was pointing out that AGPL is a license specifically made to do what you want - that people can use it in other open projects, but companies can’t use it in their for profit private software.
TIL; for people like me who just found out:
https://gamevau.lt/blog/2023/07/13
For a self-hosted app like GameVault, we believe it’s crucual to disclose the source code. We want you, our users, to have full transparency and control [?] over the software you use on your servers.
our desire to protect our code from unauthorized use and commercial exploitation. While we absolutely encourage you to copy, modify, and share our code for personal use […] we want to prevent others from profiting off our hard work by selling our software without our consent.
As a small business with just two members, we strive to provide you with a valuable product but cannot continue to do so as volunteers indefinitely.
(I’m a AGPL kind of guy, but) btw at least there are licenses specifically for software:
https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license
Copyright and the CC-BY-NC license do not regulate mere use, such as executing a program.
Ok proprably we’re at least allowed to run it (That’s not a given, e.g. iirc if someone publishes their code on github without a license, it doesn’t mean that people can fully and legally use it, except for what some Github ToS clause defines that you agreed to)
I was interested in checking it out for personal use; anyone has any experience with alternatives? (I can look them up, I’m just curious about peoples’ recommendations)
(They changed the name apparently)
https://l.opnxng.com/r/selfhosted/comments/14pdu0m/introducing_crackpipe_your_decentralized/
Embracing “alternatively obtained” games
we want to prevent others from profiting off our hard work by selling our software without our consent.
No linux support as far as I can see?
It’s a web UI. If your distribution is capable of running a browser, it will work
Ah ok good to know, i just read this from their FAQ which is why i assumed it wasn’t supported.
Is there a native client for Mac or Linux?
No, apart from emulation or community-maintained clients, there is currently no native Linux or Mac GameVault client application.
I’m using lynx browser
So what was the former name of GameVault?
Rule No. 1 of GameVault: We don’t talk about the former name of GameVault
Thanks for sharing, I’d never heard of GameVault
That’s because it was called crackpipe before
Me neither! Looks like I’m adding another service to my repertoire
Great progress on the UI, it looks really polished. Consultations.
I have a few questions:
- Do you plan to open source it? AGPL, MIT, Apache, etc.
- When do you believe there will be a linux client?
You plan to package it with Tauri2, or what is the plan? Edit: I see Tauri. Good choice 👍
Also Flathub support under Linux would be great.
Flathub = free visibility
Now this is interesting!
Closed source and paid if I remember correctly.
Edit: sorry, “source available.” Open to your eyes, but not your fork.
Wait, what? Why?
Ok, I’ll keep waiting for ROMM then.
Gameyfin exists as well
It doesn’t have a desktop client, right?
Romm integrates with Playnite on Windows. I’m waiting for the RetroDeck integration as I am on Linux.
That would be the last step missing to truly have a selfhosted Steam-like server.
