Idea/Discussion: Lightweight, Platform-Agnostic OBS Plugin for Steam Streaming (Ditching Steam's Clunky Internal Browser)

[AureliusGemini]

Hey everyone! I was just scrolling around the OBS streaming services dropdown list and saw Steam right there as a native option (alongside all the other platforms).

While it's great that the RTMP endpoint (rtmp://[ingest-rtmp.broadcast.steamcontent.com/app](https://ingest-rtmp.broadcast.steamcontent.com/app)) is technically supported, actually setting it up workflow-wise is a pain. Honestly, I really dislike Steam's clunky internal browser and its terrible built-in broadcast menus. I wanted to pitch an idea for a clean, lightweight native OBS plugin to fix this.

The Core Problem​

Steam’s broadcast backend strictly enforces ownership checks via a dynamic AppID (?appid=XXX). If you try to stream a non-Steam game (like something from Epic or GOG) or send a generic feed without matching the exact game package ID, Steam's ingest servers instantly reject the connection.

The Solution: A Lightweight, Stateless & Platform-Agnostic OBS Plugin​

Instead of running a heavy background daemon 24/7, a native OBS plugin would be ideal because it only runs when OBS is open, keeping things clean and zero-overhead when you aren't streaming. Furthermore, it should ideally be platform-agnostic (supporting Windows, Linux, and macOS wherever OBS and Steam run).

Here is how a stateless/on-demand approach could work:

1. On-Demand Game & Shortcut Parsing: When you prepare to stream, the plugin quickly reads Steam’s local configuration files (shortcuts.vdf) and checks active processes to find the correct official or generated local AppID on the fly.
2. Dynamic RTMP Injection: Automatically append the matching ?appid= parameter to the Steam RTMP stream URL seamlessly.
3. Account & Profile Selection: Read local session files (loginusers.vdf) to let users pick or verify which Steam account/profile is broadcasting.
4. Extra: Ecosystem Integrations (Aitum & Streamer.bot): Beyond native OBS, it could expose simple hooks to play nicely with multi-streaming plugins like Aitum Multistream or trigger external automation via Streamer.bot (to handle things like auto-updating your Twitch category, posting Discord announcements, or managing stream titles when the game changes).

Has anyone built or thought about a native OBS plugin approach for this? Would love to hear feedback from other devs or streamers in the community!