Why We Built Vaulted.Games
I bought a game for PS5 and realized I already owned it on PC. That would be embarrassing enough on its own. But it was the third time I'd done it.
Three different games. Three duplicate purchases. All because I had no way to remember what I already owned across platforms.
That's when I knew something had to change.
30 Years of Gaming, Zero Organization
I've been gaming for about 30 years, starting with an NES as a kid. These days I play mainly on PS5, occasionally on Xbox Series X, and I've got a PC that can game. I just don't use it much anymore.
Over three decades, that adds up to hundreds of games scattered across Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and who knows how many physical discs in boxes somewhere. I wasn't tracking any of it. No spreadsheet. No app. Nothing. So I forgot what I had.
Sound familiar?
The Search for a Solution
After that third duplicate purchase, I started looking for something, anything, that could help me get a handle on my gaming library.
I found a few game library apps. Some let you catalog your collection. Others tracked achievements or playtime. But none of them solved my actual problem.
What I wanted was simple:
- One place to see every game I own across all platforms
- Price tracking so I'd know when games on my wishlist hit my target price
- Subscription tracking so I'd know what's on Game Pass, PS Plus, and other services, and when games are leaving
- Family sharing to track shared subscriptions and find couch co-op games to play with my wife
- Alerts that actually tell me when something I care about changes
Nothing did all of that. So I decided to build it.
From Idea to Reality (The Hard Way)
The idea hit me in early 2025. By June, I was deep into research and planning. I've been working in tech for over 20 years. Not as a coder, but in architecture, engineering, and cybersecurity. I figured I had enough of a foundation to make this work. I'd built a few side projects in PHP early in my career. How hard could it be?
Then Q3 happened.
I got pneumonia. Not a mild case. The kind that knocks you completely out for weeks. For about six weeks, I could barely work at all. The project sat untouched while I focused on recovering.
Getting back into it after that was slow. When you lose momentum on a side project, it's easy to let it fade. But every time I bought a game and wondered "wait, do I already own this?" or a game left PS Plus before I finished it, I remembered why I started.
By November, I was back at it. December was heads-down building. And now, Vaulted.Games exists.
What We're Building
Vaulted.Games is the app I wished existed. It's built around four core principles:
- Save Money: Track prices across platforms. Set alerts for your target price. Stop overpaying.
- Save Time: One dashboard for all your games. No more checking five different apps.
- Discover More: See what's new on your subscriptions. Find games you missed.
- Stay in Control: Your library, your data, your rules.
Every feature we build has to deliver on at least two of those. If it doesn't help you save money, save time, discover games, or take control, it doesn't ship.
Why This Matters
Gaming is supposed to be fun. It's not supposed to be a second job managing spreadsheets, checking deal sites, and trying to remember which platform you bought something on.
You shouldn't have to buy the same game three times to realize there's a problem. I did that so you don't have to.
Scott Gill
Founder, Vaulted.Games