FAQ

🗄️ Database

Blame the stores for their inconsistent naming schemes. When multiple games are bundled together, they have to be mapped to IGDB entries manually. We're prioritizing the most popular titles based on automatic reports, but you should always double-check what comes through.

The IGDB data might be incomplete. Our database is powered by the IGDB API, a community-driven project now owned by Twitch. Anyone can help fill in the gaps by contributing directly to IGDB.com - the data flows here automatically. Inconsistencies with what's on there should be rare, so please let us know if you spot any! 👀

The available data is a bit noisy. Franchise information is manually updated by regular users on IGDB.com, and games sometimes belong to dozens of different franchises just because they feature crossover content from events. The resulting web of relationships isn't easy to filter and rank properly.

Maybe? Every platform stores data differently, but if they allow exporting your account data in a structured format, our Import from Text feature might work. Creating a proper bridge with other databases (Backloggd, HowLongToBeat, IsThereAnyDeal, etc.) required custom work, but if there's a specific site you think GamesGraph is still missing, drop a comment and let us know.

🎮 Console Support

Unfortunately not. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have never published official APIs that provide console sign-in plus your list of owned titles, and everything available today is based on reverse-engineering of restricted endpoints (which isn't just fragile, but also violates their respective terms of service).

It's a design choice: to keep the database lean, GamesGraph is focused on tracking what you can actually play today on modern hardware. This includes most PC games and titles from the last two generations of consoles, thanks to backwards-compatibility. We have tools to override platform support, so if you're aware of ports that make older games playable, please send a link and we'll add them.

IsThereAnyDeal focuses on PC, and there just isn't an alternative API that supports consoles. Showing Steam prices is still useful to get a general idea of how much games cost, but since console pricing varies wildly between regions and retailers, we don't have a good solution at the moment.

🤖 Discovery Queue

Not exactly the kind you're familiar with. We use a standard matrix factorization model from Microsoft's ML.NET library that looks at how you reviewed games compared to everyone else, then generates numeric vectors (your "taste profile") and uses what could be described as smart algebra (the "algorithm") to calculate compatibility scores. All these cool things existed decades before ChatGPT and image generators.

Ratings are kind of the whole point. Your reviews, specifically how much they differ from our predictions, are what shape your taste profile which is the foundation of the entire sorting and recommendation system. If you only care about tracking games in generic lists, you can technically just remove them... though there are probably better sites for that.

Doesn't really matter! Machine learning vectors adapt to any scale you gravitate toward, so you're free to assign ratings however you like - as long as you're consistent over time. Everyone starts from their favorites, but for better results you should make sure that you're also including what truly disappointed you.

Not Sure is more flexible. Both options send the game to your /skipped page, where you can revisit titles sorted by ML score. Since Not Sure entries can be reset separately, you can refresh your discovery queue without reintroducing games you've more permanently dismissed with Not Interested. It's a handy way to keep tabs on titles you're curious about, without adding them to the wishlist.

No, only your ratings do. Dismissing a game only means you don't want to see it again, and we can't tell whether that's because its genre or visuals put you off, or because you've already played another edition of it. Treating it as a dislike would backfire: you'd stop being shown titles carrying exactly the tags you were after, until all that's left is boring safe picks.

No, and for good reason! It's a noisy and misleading metric: you might have thousands of hours in an MMO you've rage-uninstalled in 2018, and just a few in a perfectly-paced indie experience that you absolutely loved. By relying strictly on your explicit reviews, your taste profile vectors always reflect your actual opinions and don't fall into the same trap Steam's discovery queue often does.

Nope! It's just a convenient social feature that lets you view their reviews and send or receive direct recommendations. So don't worry, adding that one weird friend who always disagrees with you won't mess up your results.

❌ Missing Features

It's mostly about keeping things simple. The interface is already packed with features, so adding dropdowns and buttons to set and update ownership per platform would make things even more cluttered for most users. If you need more control, try using custom sections which support batch editing.

Out of scope, for now. Tracking achievements across thousands of games and users would put a significant burden on the Steam Web API, which has a very strict request rate limit. We need to reserve those requests for more critical operations, like syncing collections with minimal delay even during traffic spikes.

ProtonDB handles this perfectly. When you select Linux as a platform, you get direct links to ProtonDB pages which are the most reliable source for Steam Deck compatibility. Those user ratings and comments tell you exactly how well a game runs on the Deck, what settings work best, and whether you need special tweaks. The official 'Deck Verified' labels are, unfortunately, wildly misleading.

Sony doesn't like web crawlers. Unlike Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus doesn't expose a usable API, and the third-party trackers that do have the data don't allow this kind of reuse. Between that and the three tiers, regional variations, and monthly turnover, it's a lot of upkeep for a niche feature. We do surface the monthly free games, just not the full Extra and Premium catalogs.

It's not our data to use. Technically, pulling it with some GitHub library or scraping the site directly would be easy. But HowLongToBeat is a registered trademark of IGN Entertainment, and their site explicitly forbids reproducing any part of its content without permission. Since they don't offer a public API or an integration path, there's nothing we can do at the moment.

Again, not our data to use. Just like with HowLongToBeat, Metacritic doesn't provide a public API, and scraping their site falls into a legal and ethical grey area we want to avoid. As for OpenCritic, they require $600/year which is just insanity.

It's a delicate balance. Each currency needs its own set of price checks, and the games database is massive. We can't send thousands of extra requests every hour, so adding more currencies to the rotation would significantly slow down updates for the 7 we currently support. The linked IsThereAnyDeal.com pages will still show prices in your local currency.

🤔 Miscellaneous

The alternatives invite lazy ratings. On a five-star or 1-to-10 scale, almost everyone drifts to the top and an 8/10 quietly becomes the new "just okay", while the bottom half goes basically unused except for protest reviews. Words like Mediocre and Excellent break that reflex, and reserving Amazing or Loved for what you truly treasure hands the recommender an unusually strong signal.

Through external means. To keep things safe and spam-free, we don't currently support in-site messaging. That said, if someone has filled out Discord or Reddit info on their profile, you're welcome to reach out there. And if you both follow each other, their Steam ID becomes visible so you can connect that way.

No worries, your IP isn't stored. To cut down on spam - especially for streamers with public profiles - we track a scrambled fingerprint called a hash. There's absolutely no way to turn that back into your real info. It just means you can't recommend the same game multiple times, even with tricks like incognito or alt accounts.

Just one person - hey, that's me👋. I started building this in 2019 as a way to learn web development with ASP.NET Core and explore new tech. I get bored quickly with tutorials, so as an avid gamer, I built something I'd actually use daily myself. Today, a lot of friends and power users keep helping me sharpen the rough edges. The "we" form includes them, too.