Game Vault

Privacy policy

Last updated 22 October 2026.

Game Vault is made by Pikeworks, a sole trader in Northern Ireland. It keeps track of the games you own and play. Your library stays on your device. A few things go online only when you use a feature that needs them, and this page lists every one.

Your library

Your games, copies, playthroughs, play time, ratings, notes, tags and shelves are saved on your device, inside the app. Without a Pikeworks account I never see any of it. You can save a backup file or a spreadsheet of it whenever you like, and those files go only where you put them.

What Game Vault collects

Nothing by itself. It has no analytics, no crash reporting, no adverts and no tracking of any kind, and everything in your library works offline.

Searching for a game

When you search, the words you type go to the Game Vault server, which asks IGDB (a games database owned by Twitch) and sends back the matches. Cover pictures then load straight from IGDB's image server, which sees your IP address the way any website would. With each request the app sends a random code made when it was installed, so the server can stop any one device from overloading it. That code is not linked to you, your account or anything in your library.

The server runs on Cloudflare, a company in the United States. For each request it keeps only what kind of request it was, whether it worked and how long it took: not the words you searched for, not the code and not your IP address. Search results are kept on Cloudflare for up to a day so the same search is quick for everyone.

Steam

If you bring in your Steam library, Game Vault never asks for or sees your Steam password. Either you sign in on Steam's own page, which tells the app your public Steam ID and nothing else, or you paste your profile link. The Game Vault server then asks Valve's Steam Web API for the games, play time and achievements your profile already shows publicly, and sends them to your device. Your Steam ID is kept on your device so you can bring achievements in later; you can unlink it in the app. The server keeps a library it has fetched for up to an hour, and the list of a game's achievements (the same for everyone) for up to a week.

Shop mode and the camera

Shop mode uses the camera only to read the barcode on a game's case, and only while it is open. The barcode is read on the device. No picture is taken, kept or sent, and the barcode is only looked up in your own library on the device.

The Pikeworks account (optional)

You can sign in to a Pikeworks account from More. Without one, nothing above changes. With one, your library's backup file is saved to the account so you can get it back on a new device, and saved again a minute after you change something. The account keeps your email address (sealed, used only to sign you in and for account security messages) and the backup file. Both are stored by Cloudflare in the European Union. Signing out never removes anything from your device. Deleting the account, which you can do in the app, removes it and every backup it holds within 30 days.

Feedback you send

The More screen has a feedback form. Nothing is sent until you tap Send. It contains what you write, your email address only if you add one so I can write back, the app's version, whether you use Android, iPhone or a computer, the model of device and its system version, and its language.

It goes to the Pikeworks feedback service, which runs on Cloudflare and keeps what you send in the European Union. Your IP address is used to stop abuse and is never stored. A copy is posted to a private Discord channel that only I can read; Discord is a company in the United States. Feedback is kept until it has been dealt with, and deleted within six months after that. You can ask for yours to be deleted sooner using the address below.

Permissions

• Internet, for searching, Steam, the optional account and feedback, as above.
• Camera, asked for only when you open Shop mode's scanner.

It asks for nothing else: no location, no contacts, no microphone, and it cannot read your photos.

Children

Game Vault collects nothing from anyone unless they search, link Steam, sign in to an account or send feedback, and every one of those is a choice.

Deleting your information

Your library is on your device, and uninstalling the app removes it. If you used a Pikeworks account, delete the account in the app (More, Pikeworks account) to remove the cloud backup too. Feedback you have sent is deleted on request: email the address below.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask me for a copy of what I hold about you, to correct it or to delete it, and you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes and the new version replaces this one. If Game Vault ever needed to send anything else anywhere, this page would say so before that version went out.

Contact

Email gamevault@pikeworks.co.uk with any question.