A few days ago I wrote about the Junk Store coming to Steam, a special plugin for Steam Deck to bring GOG and Epic Games compatibility unofficially - but it seems to be a short lived idea.
It is already available as a free and open source plugin for the Decky Loader plugin system, but this was going to be completely standalone, and a paid product for the convenience of just having it right on Steam.
Even though Valve had clearly reviewed the Steam page, and so would have seen what it actually was to even allow the page to go live, it seems Valve may have backtracked on that. It's not clear though if this was done by Valve, or by the developer, the Steam page is just gone. Looking on SteamDB the note mentions "This app has been retired and is no longer available on the Steam store."
Pictured - Junk Store
Perhaps not really surprising. While Valve do allow a lot of weird stuff on their store, a launcher that has a primary purpose of launching other games from other stores might have been a bridge too far.
I've reached out to both Valve and the Junk Store developers to find out exactly what happened, and will update if I get any reply from either party.
Update - 16/10/2024 - 07:20 UTC: the Junk Store developers posted on Reddit that it was Valve who took it down. It was taken down not due to the Epic or GOG features, but specifically because it modifies Steam itself.
Here's what Valve support said to them:
What is surprising is that they wanted to charge for that...
Last edited by pb on 15 October 2024 at 8:16 am UTC
Quoting: basedthe access to their stores being SOLD on Steam
My point exactly. If it wasn't taken down by Valve, it would have been taken down by someone else. It's was the only right move to nip it in the bud.
Quoting: pbValve's legal Team probably barged in the office of the Steam admins screaming "Stop this folly."Quoting: basedthe access to their stores being SOLD on Steam
My point exactly. If it wasn't taken down by Valve, it would have been taken down by someone else. It's was the only right move to nip it in the bud.
Quoting: based[...] nor the access to their stores being SOLD on SteamBut that is not what's happening. It is not that access to their stores is being sold on Steam, it is that easier access to their stores is being sold on Steam. And I don't think that should be a problem at all, because you can just as well access their stores any other way you see fit. They could even provide their own software to help with that, if they wanted to.
TheRiddick Oct 15
Quoting: TheRiddickNot really sure what the issue is since you can add non-steam games to Steam library and also run them with proton.Convenience. Not having to do it manually through Heroic or so. Sure, it's only one or two extra steps, yet the less you need to do on your own, the easier.
Works great through Decky anyway!
Quoting: Mar2ckLooks like they submitted it with AI-generated library assets. Not sure what Valve's current stance on AI is but that probably didn't help.
The current stance is that the dev/pub needs to clearly state the use and scope of use of AI and then it's alright.
Announcement: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/3862463747997849619
Example: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2670630/Supermarket_Simulator/
"AI Generated Content Disclosure
The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:
We used AI to create the capsules for the game's store page."
Another one: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2928520/Recycling_Center_Simulator/
"AI Generated Content Disclosure
The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:
AI is used for store page capsule art and in-game character portrait art creation..."
Last edited by pb on 15 October 2024 at 1:34 pm UTC
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