Integration with itch.io and GOG for Automatic Game Syncing and Updates

[MoSattler]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Currently, GameVault requires manual intervention to keep track of games purchased on platforms like itch.io and GOG. It can be tedious to ensure that all purchased games and their latest versions are downloaded and updated, especially when managing a large library across multiple platforms.

Describe the solution you'd like
I would like GameVault to directly integrate with game stores like itch.io and GOG through their respective APIs (if available). This integration would allow GameVault to:
1. Automatically detect new purchases in my linked accounts.
2. Download the latest available versions of games to a predefined library location.
3. Periodically check for updates to installed games and download them automatically or notify the user.

This feature would streamline game management by ensuring my library is always up-to-date without manual effort.

Describe alternatives you've considered
• Manually checking each platform for new purchases and updates, which is time-consuming and error-prone.
• Using third-party download managers or scripts, but these often require technical expertise and are not integrated into GameVault.

Additional context
• A UI component to display connected accounts and synchronization status would be helpful.
• This feature would make GameVault a one-stop solution for managing digital game libraries, making it significantly more convenient for users.

Does it align with main main focus on self-hosting?
This would align perfectly with the self-hosting focus of GameVault, as it allows users to maintain full control over their library while automating the tedious process of keeping games updated.

Right now, I’m hesitant to download and store newer games on my self-hosted server because they become outdated so quickly. As a result, I primarily use GameVault for older games where updates are unlikely or unnecessary. Having a feature that ensures my library is always up-to-date would make it much more practical to use GameVault for my entire collection, including newer titles.

[Alfagun74]

How do you think this aligns with our main focus on self-hosting?

Would you envision this as a purely client-side feature, where each client links their personal accounts with no server involvement?

Or would you rather prefer, for example, having the server automatically download the games to its disk via one linked account and make them available to all clients on the server?

[MoSattler]

I would prefer the server to automatically download games to its disk via a linked account. This would align perfectly with the self-hosting focus of GameVault, as it allows users to maintain full control over their library while automating the tedious process of keeping games updated.

Right now, I’m hesitant to download and store newer games on my self-hosted server because they become outdated so quickly. As a result, I primarily use GameVault for older games where updates are unlikely or unnecessary. Having a feature that ensures my library is always up-to-date would make it much more practical to use GameVault for my entire collection, including newer titles.

[ChaosTherum]

I would like to second that this fits very well with self-hosting. At least for myself a big part of self-hosting is also the archival aspect of it. You can see a similar feature in another self-hosted app called Audiobookshelf. It is primarily for self-hosting of audiobooks, but it also supports pulling down podcasts to your server, and then self-hosting them as part of your library. Sure I could use any podcast client on my phone, or just download them with a media player and sync them. But this also goes towards archiving them, so that if the original gets pulled I still have a copy. You could see this feature the same but for stuff like gog, or itch.io, etc. A great example of one that would have been great to grab quickly and have an archive of was the Release copy of Doom Eternal. I don't know if it was available on GOG but I'm just using the example. The first version of it was released with zero DRM and was pretty quickly withdrawn. It would have been nice to have a system in place polling for updates to have been able to grab something like that. Of course like I said bad example but I think it conveys the idea. Stuff like potential positive bugs in certain games you would want, or stuff like that. Things that devs may pull.

[Alfagun74]

As usual, we will need some time to think this through in our free time. Technically, you could develop this feature as a Gamevault backend plugin on your own today. So, if things aren't progressing quickly here, feel free to go ahead and do it.

https://gamevau.lt/docs/server-docs/plugins/#how-to-develop-gamevault-plugins