🎮 PC Game Scraper for LaunchBox

PC Game Scraper is a robust metadata and media scraping plugin for LaunchBox. It intelligently prioritizes Steam for PC game metadata and IGDB for console titles, while leveraging SteamGridDB for high-quality frontend artwork and YouTube for video trailers.

It also features advanced integration with HowLongToBeat (via FlareSolverr) to populate custom fields with game completion times.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This plugin scrapes data from third-party sources (Steam, IGDB, SteamGridDB, HowLongToBeat). Please be aware that both FlareSolverr and yt-dlp are frowned upon by some services for their respective uses. Use them responsibly and at your own discretion.

✨ Key Features

🧠 Smart Metadata Scanning

• PC Mode: Prioritizes Steam Store data, falling back to IGDB if the game isn't found on Steam.

• Console Mode: Scrapes directly from IGDB, perfect for emulated platforms.

• Gap Filling: Automatically checks IGDB to fill missing fields that Steam doesn't provide (e.g., Series, Age Rating, ESRB).

🎨 High-Quality Artwork

• Seamless Integration: Pulls Box Art, Clear Logos, and Hero Backgrounds directly from SteamGridDB.

• Image Preference Options: You choose priority—prefer high-quality SGDB art over official Steam/IGDB images whenever possible.

🎬 Video Downloader

• Automated Downloading: Grabs trailers and gameplay automatically using yt-dlp.

• Smart Fallback: Tries official Steam store videos first, then searches YouTube if none are found.

• Configurable Quality: Support for 4K, 1080p, or 720p, with custom duration limits.

⏱️ HowLongToBeat Integration

• Scrapes "Main Story", "Main + Extra", and "Completionist" times and creates dedicated Custom Fields for each.

• Smart Categorization: Creates a Length Category custom field to sort your library into five distinct buckets:

  • Quick: < 5 Hours

  • Standard: 5 - 15 Hours

  • Extended: 15 - 30 Hours

  • Long: 30 - 60 Hours

  • Massive: 60+ Hours

• Note: Requires a running instance of FlareSolverr to bypass Cloudflare protection.

🔍 Manual Search

• Includes a "Manual" mode to hand-pick games by ID or search term if automation fails.

📥 Installation

1. Navigate to your LaunchBox installation folder.

2. Open the Plugins folder.

3. Create a new folder named PCGameScraper.

4. Copy the plugin files (e.g., PCGameScraper.dll) into this new folder.

📹 For Video Support (Optional)

To enable the video downloader features, you must place the following tools inside the PCGameScraper folder you just created:

• yt-dlp.exe

• ffmpeg.exe

• (Optional) cookies.txt: If YouTube blocks your requests, place a valid Netscape-formatted cookies file here.

⚙️ Configuration & Usage

1. Select one or more games in LaunchBox.

2. Right-click and select PC Game Scraper.

3. Configure your settings in the menu:

🔑 API Keys (Recommended)

• SteamGridDB API Key: Required for high-quality box art and logos. Get one from your SGDB Profile.

• IGDB (Twitch) Keys: Required for Console mode and metadata gap filling. Get your Client ID and Secret from the Twitch Developer Console.

📡 Scan Modes

• PC Games: Best for Windows/Steam games. Checks Steam ➜ IGDB ➜ SGDB.

• Console / IGDB: Best for ROMs. Checks IGDB ➜ SGDB.

• SteamGridDB (Images Only): Skips metadata and only downloads artwork.

• Manual Selection: Prompts you to manually search for each game in the batch.

🖼️ Image Preference

• Default (Match Scan Mode):

  • PC Mode: Downloads Steam art first, uses SGDB for anything missing.

  • Console Mode: Downloads IGDB art first, uses SGDB for anything missing.

• Prioritize SteamGridDB:

  • Always checks SteamGridDB first for Boxes, Backgrounds, and Logos.

  • Only uses Steam/IGDB for Screenshots (gameplay) or if SGDB has no results.

⏳ HowLongToBeat Setup

1. Install and run FlareSolverr (via Docker or Binary).

2. Enter your local FlareSolverr URL in the plugin settings (Default: http://localhost:8191).

3. Check the box for "Enable HLTB Scraping".

Special thanks:

• srxz, for developing the original steam scraper your plugin saved me lots of time and was the major inspiration for this plugin.

• maikeru1986, for creating the vidsnap scraper which again saved me lots of time getting videos and was the major inspiration for the video download portion of the plugin (I basically ripped off your menu sorry)

• JOEVIKING245: a god among moderators and who seems to have INFINITE PATIENCE. Seriously this person needs more credit!

• 7nseccmem: for helping test the features on discord

Finally Google's Gemini which wrote the whole thing. It was a team effort I promise! If you don't believe me you go try and get Gemini to do something similar see how easy it is.