3 posts tagged with "development"

Hey everyone!

We're thrilled to announce that the early access phase of GameVault+ has concluded, and we're officially launching it today! It's been an incredible journey from the inception of GameVault to where we are now, and we couldn't have done it without your amazing support.

GameVault+ is our way of saying thank you to our dedicated supporters while also ensuring the sustainability of our platform. For a small monthly fee, you'll gain access to premium features designed to enhance your gaming experience within GameVault. We're starting with features like animated profile pictures, custom themes, and activation of the GameVault Client API, with more exciting additions planned for the future.

But our work doesn't stop here. We're committed to refining GameVault+ based on your feedback, as well as addressing key areas of improvement in the platform. This includes exploring partnerships with reputable video game databases to enhance our data offerings and refactoring our client application for optimal performance.

And most importantly, we want you, our community, to have a say in the future direction of GameVault. That's why we're opening up the floor for feature suggestions through our Discord channel. Your input will help shape the next big updates to GameVault.

Thank you all for your support and enthusiasm. We're excited to continue this journey with you and to make gaming even more enjoyable for everyone. Stay tuned for more updates, and happy gaming!

Hey Everyone!

It feels like it's been ages since we last caught up regarding the development of GameVault (the self-hostable platform for drm-free videogames), but trust me, the silence from our end doesn't mean we've been slacking off. In fact, quite the opposite has been happening behind the scenes.

When my friend and I first launched this application, it was born out of a simple need for a solution to a problem we thought was very particular and only for ourselves. Having a steam-like platform for game files lying on my home server.

We never imagined it would resonate with others or find its own place in the market. Frankly, we thought it might end up just another forgotten repository on GitHub, gathering virtual dust with no one paying it any mind.

But boy, were we wrong. The response to our app was unexpectedly large and overwhelming. Thousands of people are using GameVault today, and it seems there's quite a demand out there for the exact product we've been building.

We’re a small indie team of two and despite juggling multiple jobs, we've poured our hearts and souls into this project during our spare times, striving to offer a self-hosted alternative to the gaming platforms out there. And while we've received some generous donations (shoutout to our two loyal monthly donors btw – you know who you are, and we're endlessly grateful!), it's clear that relying solely on sporadic tips isn't sustainable for the long term and we need financial support to maintain our services and justify our time investment towards our families.

So, it's time for a slight change. We're thrilled to announce the upcoming release of a new version of our client application, complete with an optional subscription model we're calling...

GameVault+​

What is GameVault+?​

First, to clear some of the confusion:

No, this is not some shady scammy "We're going enterprise" rugpull. The core of GameVaults upcoming features and the features you enjoyed until now will always remain free. Additionally the system is designed to be easily bypassed if you can't or dont want to afford it.

It was long planned on our board and well discussed within our community. Think of GameVault+ as our way of saying "thank you" to our supporters and to motivate them to support us regularly. To be more specific, it's us giving back some goodie-features that are not necessarily needed to use GameVault back to our supporters, while they help us keep the lights on here at Phalcode.

With GameVault+, you'll gain access to premium nice-to-have features designed to enhance your GameVault experience, all for a small monthly fee of €4,99 monthly or €49.90 anually.

Currently, these features include:

• Uploading animated profile pictures
• Applying Custom Themes
• Activation of the GameVault Client API (CLI, URI, and NamedPipe Interfaces Used for client integrations with 3rd party tools like Playnite)

But there are more to come! We will be enhancing this offering with more features, whenever we see room for it, as GameVault+ subscribers are the ones, who keep this project alive.

All details and a Q&A are on the GameVault+ page.

We'll be rolling out this new product today to our early access users first to get the product and the infrastructure around it tested, tweaking and refining it based on your feedback before making it available to everyone. It's an exciting new chapter for us, and we can't wait to have you along for the ride.

So what's next?​

We will polish the rough edges of GameVault+ and bring it to life in the next few weeks, hopefully. You will probably already see some documentation on this website for it. Keep in mind, this is all a work in progress, and we will announce the final release soon.

After that, we will need to urgently find a solution to our heavy reliance on the degrading and unmaintained RAWG Database. We are already in contact for potential partnerships with Video-Game Databases.

Finally, we will need to do some refactoring of our client application's architecture.

But stay tuned because once all of this is done, the Next Big Feature we'll be focusing on will be open for the community to decide in our #polls channel on Discord. So make sure to join "The Council" to get notified and vote on your most desired feature.

Thank you all for supporting us and looking forward to seeing you all on our next updates!

Hello everyone!

We hope you're all doing well. We wanted to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude for the flood of feature requests and bug reports that have been pouring into our issue trackers. Your enthusiasm and dedication to making GameVault even better are truly inspiring to us.

As many of you may already know, GameVault is a passion project for us, and while we are mostly convinced by your fantastic ideas, it may take some time for us to implement them. Our team meetings happen in our free time, and although we genuinely want to incorporate your suggestions into our roadmap, we are limited by the time and capacity we can dedicate to the project. Moreover, we want to ensure that the features we develop are refined, polished, and also the most desired in the users' opinions, which adds to the timeline.

We believe that collaboration with our incredible community is the key to success, and that's why we want to introduce you to our Roadmap. It displays all new issues, planned tasks we want to work on, and all the ongoing work in a well-organized Kanban Board. You can find it right here.

To ensure that GameVault's development aligns better with your needs, we kindly request your active participation. By voting on GitHub with a Thumbs Up or a Thumbs Down on new and planned issues, you can help us prioritize them effectively. We value your opinion: What features do you feel are most crucial? What aspects of the platform do you find most bothersome? What issues do you see as unnecessary or bloated? Your input will mainly shape the direction we take.

If you're eager to go the extra mile and actively contribute to shaping GameVault further, we invite you to join our Discord community and becoming a "Council Member". By becoming a "Council Member" and enabling Poll Notifications under "#Channels & Roles", you will have a direct say in the future of GameVault because you will get notifications about opinion polls we run from time to time.

We cannot stress enough how much we appreciate your involvement in our endeavor to create the ultimate gaming experience for all of you. Your passion and feedback are invaluable, and we are committed to making GameVault the best it can be, together.

Thank you for being part of this amazing journey with us!