Junk Store is an existing plug-in for Steam Deck’s homebrew launcher, Decky Loader, and its purpose is plain: it allows you to install games from GOG and the Epic Games Store. It was recently announced that The Junk Store will be available on Steam as standalone software, allowing gamers to play all of its competitors’ games, and SDK developer Innovation claims it allows you to “install and run games directly in game mode without switching to a desktop computer or relying on external launchers.”
This all sounds quite convenient, but the gigantic question is whether Valve would agree to it: the nature of the Junk Store would make it the first product available on Steam that changes the functionality of Steam itself.
Readers: Valve had nothing frigid about it. The Steam Junk Store page launched earlier this month, but has now been unceremoniously removed from the Steam Store (first spotted by SteamDeckHQ).
The decision to make the Junk Store a paid app on Steam was quite unpopular with current users, almost entirely because it would be a paid version of software that had previously been free. However, to be fair to the developer, the existing free plugin was left unchanged (with GOG integration coming), and the Q&A section pointed out that “while it would be nice to give it all away for free, the reality is that hiring developers costs money.” But all these arguments are now moot.
The same Q&A touched on the uncertainty of Valve’s position, reaching some conclusions that haven’t aged well. “It wasn’t explicitly stated, but someone at Valve looked at the coming soon page and said, ‘That’s good.’ We interpret this as: “all systems are working.” We have not received any official communication from Valve outside of this process. We decided to remain sanguine and take this as an acknowledgment.”
Oops. The Junk Store website is gone and the Junk Store team is gone for now. Existing links to the Steam page it will simply take you to the Steam home page.
Valve has a long and proud history of letting others play with its creations, but it’s not as flexible towards the Steam store itself. For Valve, there’s a gigantic difference between an approved remake project like Black Mesa and software that connects all the games you didn’t buy on Steam to your Steam library. However, it’s clear that a certain percentage of Steam Deck users really want to be able to play games from competing stores on their hardware without having to jump through annoying hoops. And if Valve won’t let the community solve this on their own, maybe they should consider an official solution.
