🎮 The Game Scraper for LaunchBox

The Game Scraper is a high-performance, multi-threaded metadata and media powerhouse for LaunchBox. It intelligently routes requests based on platform, performs deep "gap-filling" between APIs, and features a unique Bulk Resolution workflow to ensure no game is left behind.

⚠️ ATTENTION: If you encounter issues with YouTube video downloads, always ensure you have the most up-to-date version of yt-dlp.exe before seeking support.

🛠️ Dependencies & Requirements (Pre-Bundled)

To provide a seamless experience, everything you need is included in the plugin folder. You do not need to download external binaries unless you wish to update them manually.

Required Core Components (Included)

• yt-dlp.exe: The core engine for downloading trailers.

• ffmpeg.exe: Handles video merging and ensures files play correctly within LaunchBox.

• SteamKit2.dll: Enables high-speed, anonymous communication with the Steam network.

• aria2c.exe: Included to provide accelerated, multi-segmented download speeds for video assets.

• deno.exe: Included to help solve captchas and bypass YouTube's bot protection for age-gated or restricted content.

Recommended APIs (User-Provided)

• SteamGridDB API Key: Required for high-quality, community-voted covers, heroes, and logos.

• IGDB Client ID & Secret: Powers all console metadata and "Gap Filling" for PC titles.

• FlareSolverr: Required for HowLongToBeat integration to bypass Cloudflare security gates.

📖 How to Use

Running a scrape takes only a few clicks:

1. Select one or more games in your LaunchBox library.

2. Right-click the highlighted selection.

3. Choose The Game Scraper from the pop-up menu to open the dashboard and customize your options.

🚀 Feature Guide: How It Works & What It Can Do

🧠 General/Metadata Options

• What it can do: Automatically scans, identifies, and populates game descriptions, developers, publishers, genres, play modes, release dates and other metadata fields based on your source selection.

• How it works: In automatic mode the plugin checks your game's platform. For PC games, it scans Steam first, then automatically reaches out to a second console database to "gap-fill" hidden details that Steam lacks, like what Series a game belongs to or its official Age Rating. For Console games, it skips Steam entirely and routes straight to dedicated console databases based on the platform name. By selecting a different source you force the plugin to use it as the primary source. Select other options as you deem necessary. 

  • Better Pc Game Importer integration: If you have the Better PC Game Importer plugin it will integrate and you can select your game install folders. When you start your batch here the plugin will rename the folder, shortcuts, and update the path to match the new game title ensuring your library is in sync next time you import new game(s) in the Better PC Game Importer plugin. 

🎬 Game Trailer Downloader & Trimmer

• What it can do: Finds, trims, and downloads game trailers up to 4K quality that stream seamlessly inside LaunchBox when you highlight a game.

• How it works: You select your preferred source (Official Steam Storefront videos or a YouTube search query). For YouTube videos the plugin will automatically download the video and slice it at your exact cutoff mark (e.g., turning a 20-minute walkthrough video into a tight, 2-minute attraction preview). If your chosen resolution isn't available, it automatically scales down to the next best option. You can also select between FFMPEG and WMC. I recommend you try FFMPEG if it doesnt work or crashes Launchbox use WMC instead. Also for YouTube is the Suffix field. You may change this and the plugin will add it on to the end of the search which is always going to be the name of the game (sometimes the platform) and then your suffix. 

⏱️ Playtime Tracking (HowLongToBeat)

• What it can do: Imports real-world completion times into custom LaunchBox fields so you can filter your library by game length.

• How it works: The plugin HLTB to get the aggregated playtime for the game being scanned. It uses FlareSolverr to bypass cloudflare protections. The plugin will pull the completion times, Main Story, Main+Sides, Completionist, etc... and will create a new category the game fits in to based on the "Main Story" completion time. This allows you to create dynamic, auto updating, playlists in Launchbox that get updates when you add games. 

  • Quick: Under 5 hours

  • Standard: 5-15 hours

  • Extended: 15-30 hours

  • Long: 30-60 hours

  • Massive: Over 60 hours

• NOTE: Because there is no official API, and because we use FlareSolverr, HLTB cannot be ran with the metadata/media portions on the plugin. To do so would either get you banned or be incredibly slow. Thus it must be ran separate. 

Special thanks to 7nseccmem for extensive testing and ideas for this version. 

Coming soon... ScreenScraper source