Phase 8.8 — Games management

Gaming has outgrown being a handful of separate things, and it now needs a platform of its own.

What already exists. ThinkSteam and ThinkRetro are live and carry a large, curated library between them — digitised physical games, Windows and Linux titles, and retro systems, all behind semi-automatic pipelines.

What shipped. ThinkPlay, the dedicated game-server management platform, and its first world, Valheim — join straight from the game, with crossplay across Steam, Xbox, Game Pass and the Microsoft Store. Minecraft and Garry's Mod servers, plus web-playable titles including Diablo and Half-Life, follow on the same platform.

Why this needed a phase. Each of those was its own island: its own way of being started and stopped, its own place to look when something breaks, and no single page that told you what was running or how to join. That was manageable for two services and unmanageable for ten.

This phase delivered two halves:

• A management platform — one place to run the game servers from: start, stop, update, back up, watch resource use, and see who is connected. Adding the next server is a routine action rather than a bespoke deployment.
• A front end — one place for players: what is available, what is running right now, how to connect, and the browser-playable titles in the same catalogue as everything else.

Delivered September 2026.