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:
ProfessorKaos64 Oct 15
Quoting: CorbenQuoting: 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.
Or just use PortProton, it does everything in one click including adding to steam.
Last edited by Cato-the-younger on 15 October 2024 at 9:58 pm UTC
Quoting: neolithQuoting: 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.
That's not how the world works, easier access being sold is still access being sold.
Last edited by Corben on 16 October 2024 at 9:20 am UTC
Fortunately the EU or someone will eventually force them to allow 3rd party game stores to have the same user experience on the Steam Deck. Right after Apple iOS opens up. 😀
Quoting: basedThat's not how the world works, easier access being sold is still access being sold.
It also doesn't work the way you seem to think it does. It's not access that's sold, it's a client. Do you think Google can sue Hey for "selling access" to GMail?
Quoting: klhQuoting: basedThat's not how the world works, easier access being sold is still access being sold.
It also doesn't work the way you seem to think it does. It's not access that's sold, it's a client. Do you think Google can sue Hey for "selling access" to GMail?
I never cared for these stores, but from what I picked up, a normal user(*) does not have access to Epic store on Steam Deck, and would get access by buying this thingy.
(*) A normal user never goes into a thing called "desktop mode" on a handheld console. And yes, I do think that's the "normal" (usual) behaviour.
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