# Giant Bomb Games Scraper (`parseforge/giantbomb-games-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes Giant Bomb game entries by search query and returns each one as a flat row with description, platforms, release date, and more. No API key required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/parseforge/giantbomb-games-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ParseForge](https://apify.com/parseforge) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $7.50 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

[![ParseForge](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ParseForge/apify-assets/main/banner.jpg)](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp)

### Giant Bomb Games Scraper

**Scrape Giant Bomb game data by title or keyword, up to a million games per run.** Every game returns with its description, release date, platforms, developers, and genres. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Giant Bomb's official API requires registration and rate limits your requests. This reads the public game database directly, filtered by search query, and returns each matching game in one fixed schema. Get structured game data for market research, content enrichment, or building your own game discovery tools.

| Who uses it | What they scrape Giant Bomb for |
|---|---|
| Game developers | Researching competitor titles and their feature sets |
| Content creators | Enriching game review videos or articles with structured metadata |
| Market researchers | Analyzing genre trends and platform availability across game catalogs |
| Game database curators | Populating a discovery platform with consistent game records |

### What it does

This Actor collects Giant Bomb game entries by search query and returns each one as a flat row.

- 🔍 **Search by title or keyword:** type a game name like "Zelda" or a broad term like "racing", and collect every match.
- 🧩 **Flat row output:** each game arrives as a single record with its title, description, release date, platforms, developers, and genres, ready for a database or spreadsheet.
- 📦 **Up to a million games per run:** set a high maximumItems to pull full catalogs for bulk analysis or data warehousing.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

### What you can do with Giant Bomb data

**📋 Enrich a content management system.**

A gaming news editor runs the scraper on a list of upcoming game titles and feeds the structured metadata into their CMS for richer previews.

**📈 Analyze genre and platform trends.**

A market researcher searches for broad keywords like "battle royale" or "Nintendo Switch" and collects thousands of records to chart release patterns and platform dominance.

**🏗️ Build a game recommendation engine.**

A data scientist scrapes the full catalog by running multiple keyword searches and uses the genre, platform, and developer columns as features for a content-based recommender.

**🎬 Research for video essays.**

A YouTuber searches for a niche series and pulls every entry with its platforms and release dates to fact-check a retrospective.

### Why choose this scraper

| | What you get |
|---|---|
| **No API registration** | Read public Giant Bomb game data straight from the website, no OAuth or developer account needed. |
| **Search what matters** | Filter by any title or keyword, from exact game names to genre terms like "survival horror". |
| **High-volume ready** | Collect up to 1,000,000 games in one run for full catalog exports. |

### How it compares

No other Store actor targets Giant Bomb the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

| | Giant Bomb Games Scraper | Build it in-house | By hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Run it now, zero config | Days of engineering | None, but hours per pull |
| When Giant Bomb changes | Maintained for you | You fix it | You re-learn the page |
| Proxies, retries, anti-bot | Built in | Your problem | Browser only |
| Output | Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export | Whatever you build | Copy-paste |
| Cost | Pay per result | Engineering time | Analyst hours |

### Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a game title or keyword, and set a maximum number of games to collect per run. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

```json
{
 "query": "Zelda",
 "maxItems": 10
}
```

A larger pull:

```json
{
 "query": "Zelda",
 "maxItems": 200
}
```

### Pricing

Pay-per-result: **$0.0085 per result** collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $0.85 |
| 1,000 results | $8.50 |
| 10,000 results | $85.00 |

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

### Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. [Upgrade your Apify plan](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp) to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

### Run it

1. [Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp).
2. Open the [Giant Bomb Games Scraper](https://apify.com/parseforge/giantbomb-games-scraper?fpr=vmoqkp).
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click **Start**.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the **Dataset** tab.

Run it programmatically through the [Apify API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2) (`run-sync-get-dataset-items`) or the [ApifyClient](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js) for JavaScript and Python.

### Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Giant Bomb through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=parseforge/giantbomb-games-scraper"
```

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

### Troubleshooting

**Why am I getting zero results for my query?**

Check the spelling and try a broader keyword. The scraper works against Giant Bomb's live search; if the site itself returns no results for that term, the dataset stays empty. Run a test with a popular title first, like "Zelda", to confirm the actor is working.

**The run finished but stopped before reaching maxItems.**

This means the search query returned fewer total results on Giant Bomb than the maximum you set. Use a more general keyword or check the keyword variation on the site manually.

**Some fields are empty in the output.**

Giant Bomb pages do not always fill every data point. Missing fields like publisher or release date mean that page lacked the information.

**I hit an actor timeout on a very large run.**

Increase the actor's run timeout in Apify's advanced settings. Collecting hundreds of thousands of games is possible but requires a longer execution window.

**The game title I searched for is pulling unrelated entries.**

The keyword query matches against the search index on Giant Bomb's site. A short, common keyword can return wide results. Try quoting a multi-word phrase, or use a more specific, longer title.

### FAQ

| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What data comes back for each game? | Each row contains the game title, a full text description, release date, target platforms, developer and publisher names, genres, themes, and other metadata fields as provided on the Giant Bomb game page. |
| Do I need a Giant Bomb API key? | No. This scraper reads the public web pages directly and does not require any API registration, key, or OAuth flow. |
| Can I scrape more than one game at a time? | Yes. The actor searches by keyword and collects every matching game, up to the maximum number you set, in one run. |
| What search terms work for the query? | Use any word or phrase that would return results in a standard Giant Bomb site search, including partial titles, publishers, or broad genre terms like "RPG" or "strategy". |
| Is there a rate limit? | The actor runs within Apify's platform limits. Giant Bomb pages are accessed respectfully; a high number of games will extend the run duration proportionally. |
| What output formats are supported? | You can export your dataset directly from Apify to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML. |
| How long does a full catalog scrape take? | Time scales with the number of games requested. A hundred games completes quickly; pulling a million records requires a longer run time. |
| Can I filter by platform or genre during the scrape? | The input query drives the entire search. The returned rows contain the platform and genre columns, which you can filter during post-processing in your preferred tool. |
| Does it get DLC and expansions? | The scraper collects whatever the Giant Bomb search returns for your query. If a search term leads to pages for DLC or expansions, those records will be included. |

### Related actors

Browse the full [ParseForge collection](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp) for more scrapers.

🆘 **Need help?** Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ **Disclaimer.** This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Giant Bomb, LLC. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Game title to search.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

How many games to collect per run.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "Zelda",
  "maxItems": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "query": "Zelda",
    "maxItems": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/giantbomb-games-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "query": "Zelda",
    "maxItems": 10,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("parseforge/giantbomb-games-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "Zelda",
  "maxItems": 10
}' |
apify call parseforge/giantbomb-games-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,parseforge/giantbomb-games-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/tK6iWJLUksCfAvH3F/builds/sWex3oUoJn4WZbCfi/openapi.json