There's a bit of unfortunate drama going on right now in Steam Deck land, with the Steam Deck plugin NonSteamLaunchers for Decky Loader getting the boot. Both projects I've covered a fair bit (see plenty in our Steam Deck tag), and they're quite popular, so this is a bit of a PSA on what's happened.
If you've not heard of or not used the NonSteamLaunchers project: it's a way to pretty darn easily install the likes of Amazon Games, GOG Galaxy, Epic Games and various other launchers with Valve's Proton. It can be used standalone on desktop, or as a Decky Loader plugin.
A few days ago, Roy, the developer of NonSteamLaunchers reached out directly to notify me that NonSteamLaunchers was delisted from the Decky Loader plugin store. Something that will end up causing issues for users of it.
Trying to find out what happened is a bit difficult, since the situation really isn't very clear. Speaking to the Steam Deck Homebrew team behind Decky Loader, they provided me this statement:
Steam Deck Homebrew has decided to remove the NonSteamLaunchers plugin from the Decky Plugin Store after being shown statements on Steam Deck-related subreddits from its creator in a report. These appear to show continued harassment of members of these communities. We have also discovered harassment from the creator in our own server. We decided to delist the plugin from our store alongside banning its creator to prevent potential abuse of our community and plugin store.
Decky plugins can be downloaded outside the Decky Plugin Store, but we have decided to separate ourselves from NonSteamLaunchers.
Speaking to Roy as well, they offered this statement of their own to me:
I don't believe I said anything racist or wrong to anyone regarding race or color or bigotry of any type or orientation of any kind. I will continue holding this stance and will not move from it. I still don't really know what I did wrong for my plug-in to be taken away so fast but I just want to apologize to the steam deck community for causing any sort of drama and for failing them as a developer. Unfortunately I don't know what has transpired but I am obviously not wanted in their environment.
Hopefully a resolution will be found for the benefit of the Steam Deck community for these popular tools. For now, NonSteamLaunchers fans will need to grab the tool directly.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Since we still live in a world where it's innocent until proven guilty and the accused seems to not even know the problem and his apologizing for not even understanding what's happening, i'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
It would go a long way if when one say "we've found stuff" to actually show the stuff to all. Without that, it just feel like a personal grudge and an ego trip since we're supposed to believe anybody at face value when stumbling upon drama like that.
Anyway, it's not like i really care about this, but it just gives a middle school vibe to the whole community that it could really go without.
Another "he said/she said" situation, with nobody showing any proof of anything.I was shown some links, but chose not to include them from the Decky team, because it's mostly random Reddit comments that we don't get the full context on (as other stuff seems to have happened in Discords and such), and some seem to have been taken the wrong way. It's just messy, so leaving it with the main statements provided.
we still live in a world where it's innocent until proven guiltyThat may hold before a court of law, but do I really need to say it's all tar and pitchforks on the internet. Even if in rare cases it might end before said courts, lasting damage can be done over spilt milk before you know it, and the Internet doesn't care. Schoolyard vibes indeed.
Last edited by Valck on 13 October 2024 at 1:00 pm UTC
Viesta2015 Oct 13
I am a NonSteamLaunchers user and so already have a little bias in favor of the project. I heard it got blocked from Bazzite and thought that was weird and arbitrary. I'm also a Decky user and I hear Decky has some weird drama going on with the paid version of Junk Store on Steam (honestly I don't know the relationship between those two projects so can't comment). And now Decky blocks NonSteamLaunchers? What is even going on in this community?
Viesta2015 Oct 13
What a strange amount of drama!
I am a NonSteamLaunchers user and so already have a little bias in favor of the project. I heard it got blocked from Bazzite and thought that was weird and arbitrary. I'm also a Decky user and I hear Decky has some weird drama going on with the paid version of Junk Store on Steam (honestly I don't know the relationship between those two projects so can't comment). And now Decky blocks NonSteamLaunchers? What is even going on in this community?
Bazzite should not be blocking any decky addons/plugins as far as i have been told.
What a strange amount of drama!
I am a NonSteamLaunchers user and so already have a little bias in favor of the project. I heard it got blocked from Bazzite and thought that was weird and arbitrary. I'm also a Decky user and I hear Decky has some weird drama going on with the paid version of Junk Store on Steam (honestly I don't know the relationship between those two projects so can't comment). And now Decky blocks NonSteamLaunchers? What is even going on in this community?
Bazzite should not be blocking any decky addons/plugins as far as i have been told.
They have an automod message on their Subreddit about NSL, basically because it's one wine prefix they don't recommend its use either on Decky or standalone. They also requested that Bazzite be removed from the NSL wiki, but that turned a bit ugly
Viesta2015 Oct 13
interesting.What a strange amount of drama!
I am a NonSteamLaunchers user and so already have a little bias in favor of the project. I heard it got blocked from Bazzite and thought that was weird and arbitrary. I'm also a Decky user and I hear Decky has some weird drama going on with the paid version of Junk Store on Steam (honestly I don't know the relationship between those two projects so can't comment). And now Decky blocks NonSteamLaunchers? What is even going on in this community?
Bazzite should not be blocking any decky addons/plugins as far as i have been told.
They have an automod message on their Subreddit about NSL, basically because it's one wine prefix they don't recommend its use either on Decky or standalone. They also requested that Bazzite be removed from the NSL wiki, but that turned a bit ugly
Maybe their projects and all supporting assets should be forked preventively. This to preserve the code base. Just in case.
Maybe the accusing people should just make a statement that they distance them selves from whatever the creator has said. Instead of denying their users access to a plugin. Just thought.
Last edited by tfk on 13 October 2024 at 4:47 pm UTC
mZSq7Fq3qs Oct 13
Sounds like the usual case of cultists banning anyone who doesn't subscribe to their doctrine, and I'm so tired of that.It has the very distinct smell of that, doesn't it?
However, it could also be a case of people just being extremely thin-skinned - say anything they don't agree with, maybe don't sugarcoat it, and it's immediately harassment.
Some also just really go out of their way to take anything said as a personal offense, especially if they know the person in question disagrees with them about something.
If you refuse to walk on eggshells around people, the internet can quickly close some doors on you.
It's also one of the reasons I don't really communicate much on Discords and such - context gets immediately lost as nothing is really backed up or searchable from the outside.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 14 October 2024 at 6:56 am UTC
Sounds like the usual case of cultists banning anyone who doesn't subscribe to their doctrine, and I'm so tired of that.It has the very distinct smell of that, doesn't it?
However, it could also be a case of people just being extremely thin-skinned - say anything they don't agree with, maybe don't sugarcoat it, and it's immediately harassment.
Some also just really go out of their way to take anything said as a personal offense, especially if they know the person in question disagrees with them about something.
If you refuse to walk on eggshells around people, the internet can quickly close some doors on you.
It's also one of the reasons I don't really communicate much on Discords and such - context gets immediately lost as nothing is really backed up or searchable from the outside.
The Habitually Offended Community finds your comment offensive.
Another "he said/she said" situation, with nobody showing any proof of anything.
This! Looks like "cancelling"…
I was shown some links, but chose not to include them from the Decky team, because it's mostly random Reddit comments that we don't get the full context on (as other stuff seems to have happened in Discords and such), and some seem to have been taken the wrong way. It's just messy, so leaving it with the main statements provided.
Would be nice to see those and the Decky team showing it with a statement: "look, he said that and that and this crosses the line of approved code-of-conduct". Honestly, nowadays people are beyond touchy on any issue and quite often exaggerate...
Besides, have they informed him that the behaviour was incorrect and he should "tune it down" or just did the typical witchhunt?
dziadulewicz Oct 14
How about using some brain? Taking away assets from normal users? Why? These are the majority in this and just want a convenient tool. Because someone somewhere disagreed on something someone somewhere _might have_ said (all the conversations are are clearly not even there for all to see even) is just total boringness for any type of justification
Why not just take their kindergarten type fights some place else in a privatye whatsapp chat or whatever and leave the software out of it.
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