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Add Community Game Specific Media Packs to LaunchBox’s Media Downloader

LaunchBox for Windows

📋Summary

Expand LaunchBox’s media download functionality by introducing a Community Packs tab, allowing users to browse, preview, and download curated media packs for games directly from within the app—covering both platform media and individual game media shared by the LaunchBox community.

❗Problem

While LaunchBox can currently download media from the Games Database and EmuMovies, there are many high-quality, community-created media packs available on the forums that aren’t easily accessible within the app. Finding, downloading, and manually installing these packs is tedious and discourages many users from taking advantage of the rich community content available.

Additionally, users have no easy way to preview community media packs before downloading, or to prioritize highly rated, trusted packs.

💡Proposal

  • Add a “Community Packs” tab to the existing “Download Media” window

  • Allow users to browse available packs organized by platform or media type (e.g., SNES)

  • Include thumbnail previews for each pack, showing sample images

  • Allow user ratings and reviews for each pack to help identify high-quality content

  • Enable selecting specific community packs during media downloads, optionally blending them with LaunchBox DB and EmuMovies content

  • Support versioning or updates to packs over time

This would work similarly to how the Games Database and EmuMovies options currently integrate, but extend it to the vibrant content from the forums, specifically for games

✅Benefits

  • Greatly expands the amount and variety of available media

  • Reduces friction for users wanting highly customized or themed artwork

  • Helps newer users find trusted, beautiful media without digging through forum posts

  • Strengthens the connection between LaunchBox and its community creators

  • Provides a better, more polished frontend experience for all users 🌟🎨🕹️

Posted by gboava ·
Status: Open To Community5 comments

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Comments5

  • AstroBob

    Team•

    Apr 21, 2025

    Hi there,

    Thanks for the great suggestion here. I wanted to call out that there is a certain implementation of this available in the 13.21 beta release. With this release, you can download certain packs for other media types within LaunchBox.

    You can read more about it here

    https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/89925-launchbox-1321-beta-thread/

    While it doesn’t contain everything avaliable on the forums (and it’s unlikely we' would include that, since we want to include only vetted and media packs that we can guarantee will work well) within the app, it would be great to hear if there’s any types of media not included here that you feel should be.

    Let me know and i’ll be happy to update this request.

    Cheers,

    • gboava

      •

      Apr 21, 2025

      Hello, AstroBob!

      I saw this new feature and thought it was fantastic! My suggestion is to extend this functionality beyond platform media to include ROM media as well. Unless I misunderstood, I believe ROM media packs aren’t included in this feature from version 13.21, right?

      Best regards,

      • AstroBob

        Team•

        Apr 22, 2025

        Hi there, that is correct it doesn’t include ROM media, however I’m curious to know what you’d like to get out a ROM pack of media that you can’t already download via the LaunchBox games database, since you have the option to specify which media types you download along with the regional priorities.

        Or are you thinking you’d rather have a fully curated set of media for games that meets certain standards? If so I’d love to learn more and can fully flesh out this request.

        Cheers,

        • gboava

          •

          Apr 22, 2025

          Hello, AstroBob!

          Please correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I know, the ROM media packs stored on the forums are not available for direct download through the “Download Media” option in LaunchBox, right?

          My suggestion is to create, in addition to the “LaunchBox Games Database/Storefronts” and “EmuMovies” tabs, a third tab called “Community Packs”. In this third tab, the user would have the option to choose which packs to include in the download. For example, when using “Download Media” for SNES, this third tab could display options such as: “Package 1 [Box - 3D]: SNES Ultra realistic 3D Boxes”; “Package 2 [Clear Logo]: High quality Clear Logos for SNES”; etc.. In addition to selecting which packs to use, the user could also have a “Preview” button that, when clicked, shows image thumbnails from the pack. Another interesting idea would be to let users rate the packs, with the community rating shown next to the selection option.

          The goal of this feature is to expand the amount of media available to users and to create a direct link between LaunchBox and the media shared on the forums. Right now, it’s pretty tedious to search for good media packs on the forums (since there’s a lot being posted there). With this feature, everything would be easily accessible directly from LaunchBox, with community ratings and a small preview.

          Thank you!

          Best regards,

          • AstroBob

            Team•

            Apr 27, 2025

            Fantastic, thanks for the update. Used this info to flesh it out and the post is now open for discussion