Steam Deck, the app that united Epic and GOG titles on Steam, has been removed by Valve a few days after its appearance on Steam

Junk Store is a plugin for Decky Loader's Steam Deck launcher. Its purpose is simple: to install games from GOG or the Epic Games Store. Junk Store, developed by SDK Innovation, was announced to be released on Steam as a standalone application, allowing users to play all games from any competitor.

It all sounds convenient, but Valve's reaction is the real question: Junk Store was the first product on Steam to change the functionality of Steam.

Readers, Valve did not like it. The Junk Store Steam page was live earlier this month but has been unceremoniously removed from the Steam storefront. (First noticed by SteamDeckHQ).

The decision to make Junk Store on Steam a paid application was not well received by existing users. This is largely because it would have meant a paid version of software which had been free up until now. To be fair to those behind the project, the free plugin will remain as is (with GOG integration coming soon), and according to a Q&A, "while it'd be nice to give everything away for free, it's the reality that hiring developers costs a lot of money." All those arguments are now moot.

The same Q&A also addressed the uncertainty surrounding Valve's position and came to some conclusions which haven't aged very well. "It wasn't explicitly stated, but Valve's reviewer of the coming soon page said that it was good to go. This is interpreted as 'all systems are go'. Valve has not sent us any official communication outside of this process. We choose to be positive and consider this a sign of approval."

Wups. The Junk Store page has been removed and the Junk Store Team is currently on the ground. The Steam Page is now the Steam homepage.

If you're comfortable with homebrew programming, you can still run the current version of Junk Store. The team says that "this will not be going anywhere." "It's open, it's free and it's a gift we're giving to the community [...] Currently GOG isn't free but is'source-available'. We will release it as open source and free when we are ready.

Valve has a proud history of allowing other people to play with their creations. However, it is not as lenient when it comes to the Steam store. Valve believes there is a huge difference between a Steam-approved remake project such as Black Mesa, and software that combines all the games that you haven't purchased on Steam into your Steam library. Steam Deck users want to be free to play games from other stores on their hardware, without having to jump through hoops. If Valve doesn't want to let the community figure it out, perhaps Valve should consider an official solution.