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1y ago

Introducing Crackpipe - your decentralized, self-hosted gaming solution!

the self-hosted gaming platform for alternatively obtained games

Hey folks,

our team has worked tirelessly for a year to bring you Crackpipe, the open-source, decentralized, and liberal alternative to conventional cloud-based game platforms like Steam and Origin. We're thrilled to announce that Crackpipe is now available for everyone, and we're delighted to share it with the community as an open-source project.

With Crackpipe, you and your friends can enjoy playing and tracking games on a shared file server, free from the restrictions of traditional platforms. Embracing "alternatively obtained" games, including DRM-free titles, Crackpipe offers a flexible and open approach to gaming - think Jellyfin, but for Videogames.

Take full control of your gaming experience with Crackpipe's self-hosted approach. Explore your server's game collection, securely download, launch, and play games, and monitor your playtimes and progress - all even when the server is offline. Compare stats and play states with other users on the server for added fun.

Our server features include automatic indexing of games, metadata enrichment with RAWG API, multi-user authentication, configurable logging, health monitoring, full-text search, filters, sorting, pagination, and a fully documented API. Crackpipe's high configurability ensures it fits your specific needs.

Join us on this journey to embrace a more open, flexible, and enjoyable gaming experience for all. Try Crackpipe today and share your contributions, feedback, bug reports, and feature requests.

Link: https://crackpipe.de

You can also check out our launch at producthunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/crackpipe

UPDATE: here

140 comments

Cool idea, problematic name. Have you considered any others? There’s a ton of racist/problematic connotations in the US with this name that probably wouldn’t be well understood in DE/EU…
- Agreed. As an American, cool concept, rough name. There is no way I’m recommending a software called crackpipe at work.
  And let’s say I wanted to use it, I’m going to install this and instruct my kids how to use crackpipe? I’m sure that will go over great with little Timmy’s school when he tells his teacher and friends.
  I’d strongly consider changing it.
  
  And it's not like you can even abbreviate it since cp has its own problematic connotations when it comes to the Internet
  
  And when we are troubleshooting, we'll be searching "crackpipe _____"... I can definitely think of a few scenarios where that'll return very different results than expected.
  
  And let’s say I wanted to use it, I’m going to install this and instruct my kids how to use crackpipe?
  I mean I get your point, but if you instruct your kids how to use a tool for managing pirated games, they are probably going to see a lot harsher stuff than the word "crack pipe"..
  
  This is a tool for hosting pirated games. It's not meant to be safe for work or kids.
  I get that the name is offensive, but it doesn't really matter. They're not going to hire a marketing team and do an IPO.
  Also, the name makes sense. It's a pipe to transport cracked games.
  
  It's actually more racist to be afraid to bring up crack pipes when Breaking Bad counts as totally tame watercooler talk.
- Crack pipe isn't racist. People of all Skin tones can enjoy that sweet sweet crack.
  
  In the US specifically there’s some historical connotations back to the 80’s and how the US government fucked over black communities by flooding them with crack. I’m sure you all didn’t mean anything racist/negative with this, but wanted to flag this to y’all since you were based in the EU and likely wouldn’t have the same connotations with the term :)
  Anyways, best of luck with this! It’s a cool idea.
  
  i'll take one please
  
  Exactly. Probably the most famous crack user is the white son of the current US president.
- In the US they can change it to MethPipe
  
  HeroinNeedle
- Even without the racist connotations in the US it's a weird name.
  Obviously not as bad though
- The name is fitting because it's for cracked games, which are piped in a single programme. I don't think it needs changing.
  
  You can rationalize it all you want, at the end of the day when you say crackpipe there’s only one thing that comes to mind.
  I’m just imaging a conversation at work talking about a new game, and someone saying they haven’t picked it up yet and a colleague overhearing their co-worker say “just hit the crackpipe”.
  
  Everyone gets that. It's just that sometimes things can be clever and stupid, unwise, and an automatic NO
- Care to explain? I'm curious.
  
  Here’s a wiki article about the incident they are talking about. Basically it’s believed that in order to get money to arm rebels in Nicaragua the CIA assisted with importing cocaine to the US and specifically primarily black neighborhoods fueling the crack epidemic.
  
  They tried. It's just your standard case of everything is racist
- Check the Edit :)
  
  Much better name!! Nice job responding constructively to feedback, wish more devs had the same level of grace with these types of situations. Wishing you all the best of success with this project!
- It's just a name. You don't have to be mad. Not everything is gentrified to US, and there are other issues in the world significantly bigger than "racism".

I'm not going to talk with my friends about using something called crackpipe. Might be cool software, but I can't take it seriously. This would be like if Plex called themselves bootlegpimp.
- Completely agree, having a memorable name is important but that doesn't mean the name should be a joke.
- Still less embarrassing than recommending GIMP.
  
  I can see your point but in my native language nobody has heard of gimp compared to crackpipe
- Gonna contribute to the project just to keep the name as is

Terrible name. Call it something like Gamepipe instead.

I for one will not be using this to introduce my kids to gore simulators where you can see chunks of peoples' heads blown off at your own hands, because it's called crack pipe, and that is where I draw the line
- I just think it's a dumb name is all

As others have said, cool concept, awful name.
Bad name aside Windows only client support is a big letdown and makes the application useless to me.
- My favourite part is 100% the name never change it

Cool software.
Even as someone sympathetic to 'privateers' though...you gotta have more plausible deniability bro, workshop that name lmao

While Crackpipe can be used with cracked games, it does not encourage or condone piracy.
This is so fucking hilarious to me. Your logo is a pirate, and your app name is "crack"pipe (which is dumb for many reasons), and you use 'alternatively sourced' in the language instead of just talking about DRM-free games.
Cool software, but if you don't want to get shut down you certainly should reconsider your approach.
- reconsider your approach.
  Start with the fucking name. Yikes.

If you guys want this to take off in the US (and probably Canada too) you gotta rethink the name. If it doesn't come off as vaguely racist it will come off as edgy for edgy's sake. Low-brow and amateurish. Otherwise, it looks cool. Best of luck to you.
- How tf is this racist?
  
  Due to racist propaganda in the US during the 80s and 90s. Crack cocaine was portrayed in the media as a "black" drug, and many of the news stories about crack were specifically about it's effects on black communities.
  While the name isn't inherently racist, in and of itself, it does still carry some racial connotations behind it. Maybe it's different these days for zoomers, but growing up during the "crack epidemic", as it was called, and seeing the way it was covered in the news, I can understand why some people are resistant to the name.
  
  I didnt say it was racist. I said it could come off (i.e. perceived) as racist. Mainly due to cracks stereotypical association with poor African Americans. But I think you knew that.

I love the chutzpah of it.
Creative commons isn't a licence designed for code though, consider using the AGPL instead.

For god sakes, change the damn name.
- How about buttcrack? Jk that would be terrible. CriticalPoint would keep the two letter combo and be a dig at steam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_point_(thermodynamics)
  
  CP is the second reason the name is terrible. “Let me connect to your CP server” is going to get so many people onto so many lists, unless they specify CP == CrackPipe.
  There are just some names and abbreviations you do not use. And this is both of those.

So it's like game streaming with Geforce Game Streaming and Moonlight?
But like others already said: Reconsider that name...
- I thought so too, but it isn't - it's a server that hosts your pirated games and a client that downloads from the server and installs them. It's like Steam or Epic games, but for pirated games.
- This looks more like Steam where users actually download and install the games.

I thought it was satire at first 😂

I'd be interested if there's any plans for a Linux client
- Same here. My current method is a self hosted website on my home network which showcases all available games, followed by a bash script download that will automatically generate the yml file for Lutris to fully install any of my 200+ games.
  Whilst this is currently the best way I've found for my setup this app seems like the perfect thing to potentially swap to, if Linux was supported.
- There are no plans for a native linux client right now, but there is an awesome community-driven approach to run it on linxu in our docs here

cool stuff but what about packaging the games? only transfering files is most of the time not enough and games need registry stuff and what not and on games that need a setup.exe to be run, is that unattended like on steam or do users need to click "next, next, finish"?
- Nah, you can often move around games on external drives from computer to computer just fine and they'll typically work.
  
  Often, sure. But not guaranteed.

Lol, gonna be honest, it would be pretty hard telling my friends about this awesome thing I learned about called Crackpipe.
That said, it's not really something I could do anyway. My ISP doesn't let me host servers, and they're the only ISP in my area without disgustingly draconian data limits.
- Could you not use something like Tailscale to access it remotely?
  
  Damn, a good point. I already use ZeroTier for this kind of stuff, I don't know why I never thought of that.

I've always wanted something like that, very cool!
Any plans to incorporate customizable cloud saves? I'm envisioning listing files and registry keys, maybe fetch a starting point off PCGW to give users an idea of what to expect and whatnot.
Linux client support would be great too, the Steam Deck could make great use of this.

dude why would you name it that
- It was designed to work with "alternatively obtained" games such as DRM-free games. While Crackpipe can be used with cracked games, it does not encourage or condone piracy.
  People, come on.
  First of all the name, the logo of a pirate, using the terminology "alternatively obtained" - this is clearly for sharing cracked/pirated games. Any plausible deniability is out the window. Especially with using copyrighted game box arts in the screenshots.
  If you changed the language to be something like:
  It's designed to assist with sharing games with friends by providing a mechanism for downloading and managing game installations. Please review your game's licenses to ensure this is an acceptable use before sharing.
  Then you'd be able to say "this is meant for sharing freeware/shareware easily and making it a social experience."
  Also change the name and logo, and get those copyrighted box arts out of the screenshots and just use art from open source games SuperTaxKart, OpenRA, etc. (Technically those may be copyrighted, depends on each game, but at least you're not dealing with fucking Sony by showing a Spider-Man game).
  
  Maybe if he tagged on the line "....for novelty purposes only" ? ;)

Would’ve been a hundred times funnier to call it crackpot.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong since I'm not familiar with all this, but would I be able to "upload and share" a game that I bought from GoG since GoG games are DRM free?
- Yes. Just keep in mind that will likely break licensing for virtually any game you’ve legally purchased.

Whoooaa. Slow down there, Charlie.!

Is this like a sonarr/radarr for games?
- gamerr
  
  Would have been a better name

A product's name should reflect what it does, not what you were smoking when you came up with the idea.

on crack of rock please. is.. is that enough?

This seems cool, but damn I wish there was something like this for Steam games or something. That's the biggest thing I miss from Sony's ecosystem, and Steam's "Family Share" is pretty bad in comparison.

Who named this lol? That's a TERRIBLR name

I love the idea. I think the UI can use improvement.

Cool concept but the UI and icon designs are the turn-off for me. After I saw the screenshots and it was immediately no.
And I'm actually fine with the name, and I kinda see how it makes sense since its a pipe to your cracks (assuming pirated games...)

This looks nice!

Lead baloon and all that.

I'm not trying out anything with that type of name. I suggest changing it.

A bit useless if it only supports a legacy OS that doesn't run games very well.
- Which OS are you referring to?
- Apart from the fact that Windows is still the number one gaming OS… sure.
- Windows 10 was always good for me for games, did you have problems with it?

Oh dear...
First that name. Oh my word. Just no.
Second, pretty much directly encouraging piracy. Just... That's also a hard no.
Sorry, while the technological concept is interesting for games that don't have a restrictive license, between a lack of forethought regarding the name and the outright condonment of piracy, I'm gonna have to stay away. If these issues are readdressed in the future, it my be worth re-examining

140 comments