Your games stay yours

How Virtual Couch Handles Your Games

Virtual Couch does not provide game files. Users select their own locally stored game files, which remain on the host device. Virtual Couch provides technology that allows invited participants to remotely interact with a host-run local multiplayer session.

The flow

Your device does the playing.
We do the connecting.

YOUR DEVICE
─────────────
Game file selected locally
        ↓
Runs in your browser
        ↓
Virtual Couch connects
your friend

✓ VIRTUAL COUCH

  • session connection
  • controller input
  • A/V transport
  • account/session metadata

✗ VIRTUAL COUCH DOES NOT

  • sell games
  • provide ROM downloads
  • upload your game file
  • store your game library
  • send the game file to your guest
Why it's built this way

The architecture is the policy

There is no game-upload endpoint anywhere in Virtual Couch — not one that we refuse to use, but one that does not exist. Your game file is opened by your browser with the File API, identified by a cryptographic hash of its bytes (never its filename), and played by the emulator running on your machine. The guest receives the picture and sound your browser produces; they never receive the file itself.

What Virtual Couch actually carries is the couch around the game: the invitation, the seats, the controller inputs, the shared picture and sound, and a small amount of account and session metadata so friends can find each other again.

You are responsible for the games you play. Virtual Couch is designed for files you have the legal right to use — your own copies — and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by any platform holder. For the full legal wording, see the Copyright / Disclaimer page. For how little personal data we keep, see the Privacy Policy.

Your games. Your couch. Your rules.

Bring your own game. We'll handle the couch around it.