NonSteamLaunchers gets booted from Steam Deck plugin store Decky Loader

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.