1.0.21.212, released Feb-12-2021
Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7 through Windows 10.
.NET Framework 4.5.2+ required.


The EmulationStation Gamelist Metadata Editor (ESGME) is not another ROM scraper, rather it is a Game List ROM data manager originally designed for EmulationStation on RetroPie for Raspberry Pi but can be used for all systems EmulationStation supports (Windows / Raspberry Pi / Debian / Arch). Its sole purpose is to help you easily maintain your gamelist.xml file. Forget about using Notepad or some other XML file editor. Forget about having to manually edit it via command-line using vi or nano. Those days will be gone.

It accomplishes this goal in several ways:

  • Easy editing of metadata elements like Game Description, Marquee, Image, Video, Favorite status, etc.
  • Allows you to complete your metadata by quickly filtering your games, for example, by those that have no Description, or no Marquee and so on.
  • There is a special "Research" area with 3 custom buttons that allow you to configure each for your favorite ROM site - clicking them will launch your default browser with the search criteria you specify. Included sites are: Wikipdia, Mamedb, The Games DB - but you can customize it for any URL.
  • You can easily Add New games and Delete existing game info.
  • ESGME makes it easy to identify the Image, Marquee and Video associated with each game as they're all displayed when a game is clicked. You can also play the video or have the video autoplay.
This just touches a few of the top features of ESGME. You can download a copy of the Read Only version here to test it out first and see if it's something that will be useful to you.

ESGME was designed to put you in control of your growing arcade game metadata.


It’s Fast

Finding games in your metadata is as easy as typing. Games will be filtered as you type. There are also optional Quick Filters you can use. If you want to find all games that don't have an Image or a Description, etc. OR if you just want to see all the games you marked as your Favorites - it's as simple as choosing the Quick Filter that meets your needs.

It’s Customizable

Among other program specific customizations, there are also 3 customizable 'research' buttons you can setup. These buttons are meant to help you with game research. Each button can be customized to launch a website of your choosing using the game Name, etc. There are 3 default sites you can choose if you don't want to customize them yourself: Wikipedia, Mamedb, The Games DB.

It’s Flexible

Let's face it, there are a lot of game metadata scrapers out there already. Most do an ok job, not a perfect job, but just ok. Some don't work at all like you want them to. Well, ESGME is NOT a scraper. Rather it's designed to give you manual control over your entire gamelist.xml file from game Deescription all the way to the video preview of your game..and everything in between.

It’s Useful and Helpful

Not only do you have powerful editing tools for your game metadata, you can also export your data to a .csv file for use in Excel or any other software that can read comma separated data.

ESGME will also help you to validate your game files. Using the "Verify Components" button, ESGME will go look for your ROM, Marquee, Image and Video files using the paths you've given and let you know if they were found and what the size of each is. It will also provide you with a MD5 value for your ROM.zip file.

It’s Not Another Scraper

You can open a gamelist.xml file either locally or target a remote network computer. If Windows Explorer can see it, ESGME can to.

It’s Safe

When you buy ESGME you get ESGME. No silly "Pay-as-you-go" or yearly "Subscription". It will never contain viruses, trojans, ad-ware, spy-ware or telemetry. It will never phone home to some random server on the internet. It's just plain, simple and straight-forward software. Like software should be and used to be. You buy it, you keep it, you own it. Period.