[Feature Request] PortMaster-SteamLink

[JeodC]

As the number of indie ports grows, I've come to realize how important having reliable Steam metrics is to indie developers. I've previously voiced an opinion that I'd love to see a lightweight steamapi to connect PortMaster with Steam for these modern commercial ports, however after some research it doesn't seem too feasible.

Instead, I would like to investigate a possible workaround. Steam has the ability to run a non-steam application as a specific game through a steam_appid.txt file in the same directory as the application being run. The text file, as the name implies, contains only the appid. On running this non-steam game through Steam (steam://rungameid/<game_id>), Steam will believe it is running the appid contained in the text file. We will presumably have to parse the userdata/config/shortcuts.vdf file to obtain the gameid once added to Steam, and then use that for the console command. However, once that's set up, we should theoretically be able to do the following assuming the user is playing their handheld on the same network as the PortMaster-SteamLink listener:

• User launches port
• Launchscript sends appid to PM-SteamLink listener
• PM-SteamLink listener modified steam_appid.txt with the received value
• PM-SteamLink listener runs an instance of itself using steam://
• Steam thinks the game is running, accruing playtime
• PM-SteamLink listener closes its instance on port close

It sounds kinda nuts, but I think it might work.