com.samsung.android.game.gamehome Copy

Gaming Hub, formerly Game Launcher, Samsung's games app on Galaxy phones and tablets. Samsung's Common Criteria application lists record this package as "Game Launcher" on the Galaxy Note9 (the Oreo-era N960N list, at 3.3.07.3) and on the Galaxy S20 (the R-era G981U list, at 4.3.03.5), and this site records it under both "Game Launcher" and "Gaming Hub" labels, on Samsung devices only. Samsung's support documentation describes Gaming Hub as the feature that "houses all your gaming apps and includes settings to improve your gaming experience". That page documents the feature rather than naming this package, so the tie between the two rests on the label. Samsung's documentation gives three points that matter on a managed device. A Samsung account is required to use Gaming Hub, and play time and gaming history sync between devices signed in to the same account. Once it is set up, games "automatically appear only in the Gaming Hub", unless the Show game apps setting is changed to show them on the Home and Apps screens as well. And Game Booster, the in-game panel documented separately on this site as com.samsung.android.game.gametools, is described as "a separate app from Gaming Hub, but the two of them work together": the Game Booster settings, including the Performance, Standard and Battery saver game optimisation modes, are reached from Gaming Hub's More options menu. Samsung has also used the app to deliver games. A Samsung US newsroom release of March 2024 describes "Gaming Hub for mobile" as "the evolution of the Game Launcher feature on Galaxy devices" and says its cloud gaming-enabled Instant Plays feature lets users play games "without the need to download them first"; at that date Instant Plays was in a limited beta with select games in the US and Canada. Whether it is offered in other regions, or on the builds recorded here, could not be sourced. The 49 permissions recorded on this site fit an app with a store-like role rather than a plain folder of shortcuts. They include INTERNET, QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES, PACKAGE_USAGE_STATS, REQUEST_DELETE_PACKAGES, SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW, WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS, the advertising ID and AdServices permissions, a Samsung in-app purchase billing permission and a Samsung account permission. This site aggregates permissions across observations rather than per build, so which builds request them cannot be established, and a requested permission is not evidence that it is exercised. Where this site holds signer data it is signed by Samsung OEM keys that also sign the Android framework, platform-level keys. It has a launcher entry in 12 of the 28 observations recorded here; why the others have none could not be sourced. For Android Enterprise, EMM and kiosk use no enrolment, policy or management role for it is identified in the sources cited here. On a work fleet it is a consumer feature that asks for a Samsung account and, per Samsung's own documentation, changes where game apps appear on the Home and Apps screens once set up. The rating below is caution rather than safe because Samsung documents it as working together with Game Booster and as the place the game optimisation settings are reached from, and what happens to those, or to the placement of game icons, when it is disabled is not documented. Test on one device before disabling it across a fleet. Version note: the name changed with Android 14. SamMobile reported on 30 October 2023 that on devices running One UI 6.0 "Game Launcher is now called Gaming Hub", and quoted a Samsung notice saying the service would be named Gaming Hub "starting with Android OS version 14", that earlier OS versions would be updated sequentially, and that on some of them the two names may be used interchangeably in certain menus. That notice was read as quoted by SamMobile, not at source. The same report quotes Samsung as saying this is a separate service from the Samsung Gaming Hub on Samsung TVs. On this site the package is recorded on devices from API 28 to API 36, and this site's roll-up reports version strings from 6.0.15.3 (oldest) to 8.0.03.6 (newest); those figures do not establish which version carried the rename.

• Use Gaming Hub and gaming options on your Galaxy device - Samsung Support →
• Samsung Gaming Hub for Mobile: Discover and Play Instantly on Your Galaxy Phone - Samsung US Newsroom →
• With One UI 6.0, Game Launcher is out and Gaming Hub is in - SamMobile →
• Galaxy Note9 (N960N) application list - Samsung Knox CC Mode documentation →
• Galaxy S20 5G (G981U) application list - Samsung Knox CC Mode documentation →
• Package provenance for com.samsung.android.game.gamehome - Android System App Database →

• Signed by the device maker's own signing key (Samsung), so it is an OEM preinstall, but 2 different certificates appear across the fleet, so OEMs ship their own builds of it. It also signs the Android framework, so it is a platform-level key on its device(s). Inferred from the certificate appearing only on Samsung devices (580 packages, 11729 observations).
• Its largest observed manifest declares 49 permissions: 5 runtime (user-granted), 9 signature or system-level, 10 install-time and 25 vendor or uncatalogued.
• APK size ranges from 13.4 MB to 42.3 MB across the reporting device profiles, so the build differs substantially between them.
• Reported as an updated system app in 7 of 16 observations - a newer build was installed over the one in the system image. Multiple observations can come from the same device profile.