Official announcement on reddit here
Junk store is a program similar to Heroic in that it’s meant to allow easy installing of Epic and GoG games on the Deck. However it currently works through a Decky Plugin, letting players manage their Epic libraries without ever leaving game mode. They have just gotten initial approval to sell their app through the Steam store, which would would completely remove any need to use desktop mode to access Epic and GoG games.
Here’s the text from the announcement post:
We are super excited to announce this. Junk Store has been approved for sale on the Steam Store!
Wishlist it now if you are interested in following our progress. This will serve to signal to us how many people are considering a purchase and it will also signal to Valve what the community’s appetite is around these types of projects.
Click to follow link - Add to your Steam wishlist
There is one caveat though, Valve will still have to review the software before final release. We do feel like we have overcome many significant challenges already and we do not foresee any show stoppers. We have very clearly signalled our intent to Valve and we feel like we just got the quiet nod of approval (I am sure they will let us know if we misunderstood this).
It should not be taken for granted that Junk Store might be the first plugin for Steam that could make it into the Steam store. Valve is under no obligation to allow this and we will make sure we do the best job possible with our available resources. This could set a precedent and we would prefer that to be a good one rather than a bad one. We will not rush this and we will test it to the best of our ability to avoid spoiling this for any other projects going forward. We cannot overstate the importance of this and what a big responsibility we have here.
We have been working relentlessly for the last few months on rebuilding Junk Store to run without Decky. We have put countless hours into discovering new integration techniques, streamlining and slimming things down to reduce the impact on the steam client as much as possible. This will help with performance, reliability and stability. Having said that, we still have a long road ahead of us. We have solved most of the major technical challenges but we still have to tidy things up, finish some parts and polish everything. Since we’ve rebuilt and reworked most of the code everything needs to have some rigorous testing. We do not want to release this unless the quality is at the very least equal to the current free and open source solution.
While this probably is the most exciting news from our perspective, there’s still a “BIG” thing that we haven’t announced that will be the most exciting from a user’s perspective. We are working as hard as is physically (and mentally) possible to get this all done and will announce this properly as soon as we can. Rest assured we have not been sitting around twiddling our thumbs.
We want to take a moment to acknowledge all those who have supported us and believed in the project over our first year (yes a year has passed since the first line of code was written). Your kind words and financial support has meant a lot to us and was fueling us when the internet behaved like the internet. We cannot express in words the gratitude we have for this. We will never forget this and we will return the generosity in kind.
Some questions we think you might have:
Q: Will this be free?
A: No. This is a completely rebuilt product, using different technologies. The code is not open source. We have had to reimplement everything that Decky provided and more. We need funding to hire developers to provide the features the community wants.
Q: How much will it cost?
A: This is a very tough question. Ask yourself, what is it worth and what value does this add to the user experience? What we aim to do is gauge interest in this project based on wish listed numbers. This will allow us to price it as aggressively as possible while still being able to achieve our goals of hiring a team to take Junk Store to the next level. While it would be nice to give it all away free, the reality is that hiring developers costs money.
Q: When will it be released?
A: When it’s ready. We do not want to rush a half baked product out the door. If you’ve been using Junk Store and followed the progress on the project then you will know that I take a lot of pride in my work. I will not deliver a sub par user experience because I want to get something out quickly. We are still only a team of two, so we ask that you please be patient.
Q: Does this mean that Valve has blessed the project?
A: It’s hard to officially say. It was not explicitly stated, but someone at Valve reviewed the coming soon page and said “This is good to go”. We interpret this as: “all systems go”. We have not had any official communication from Valve outside of this process. We choose to be optimistic and consider this a nod of approval. It certainly wasn’t “knock it off!”
Q: What about existing purchases made via creator platforms?
A: We have gone to great lengths to ensure your existing purchases will be compatible with the Steam version. Once we get an idea of how many users are interested in purchasing this product we can adjust our generosity towards existing supporters in kind. We will endeavour to do what is fair, and more if we can. We are gamers too, we dislike greed as much as you do.
Q: What will happen to the current decky plugin and source code?
A: This will not go anywhere. It’s free, it’s open and it’s our gift to the community. We will aim to maintain compatibility between the two versions for as long as it’s viable. We have already invested a lot of time and effort to ensure that the extensions will be compatible.
Q: What about the current Gog source code, when can we have that?
A: When we are ready to release it. Currently Gog is not free, but it is “source available”. When we are ready to release it as free and open source we will.
Q: What about new features or store fronts?
A: As you can imagine, the rewrite and retooling has taken a huge amount of time and effort. We still have plans to add more features and store fronts, but our attention is not on that right now. We are still a small unfunded team (two people) doing all of this on our own time and money. We hope that with the Steam release it will allow us to hire the team we so desperately need to improve production speed.
Q: Will this have cloud saves?
A: This is still the same can of worms we have been talking about all along. There is currently super experimental support with huge risks associated with it. We aim to provide this at some point as a stop gap measure while we build up our resources to hire specialised programmers to help with this task.
Q: Will I be able to migrate from the decky version to the Steam version?
A: Yes, this is already functional in the alpha version we are testing on steam. It will require a lot of testing because we do not want users to lose any data through this process.
Don’t for get to add Junk Store to your Steam wishlist!! Click to follow link - Add to your Steam wishlist
Let us know what you think in the comments,
The Junk Store Team
I mean I get the idea, but if it ain’t open source I’ll just go with the ever so slightly more difficult option of downloading Heroic and adding it as a non steam game.
This is a very tough question. Ask yourself, what is it worth and what value does this add to the user experience?
Like, I like the idea of the project. I’m not even mad they aren’t doing it for free but, like, fuck Man…
“We have not solidified a price point yet.”
Or something. “What value does this add”? Is Steam gonna allow me to decide what I want to pay like itch.io or something? Fuck, that feels like such a “we want to charge the absolute most we can with good intentions we promise,” statement.
I already use hero launcher for this what does this do differently?
It’s similar, but it runs in game mode. It’s user experience is a lot closer to having native support for Epic than the heroic launcher.
Interesting does it allow me to launch non-native games like hero launcher? I gots to be able to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. GAMMA oh and Anycubic Photon Workshop
I launch hero launcher in gamemode already as well as navigate with my controller. Do i still have to launch this to get to the epic store when you say it integrates with gamemode, do i leave the gamemode select screen the same way i do with hero?
Did you try reading the first paragraph?
It’ll be interesting to see how the launch goes. Maybe Decky itself will get onto the Steam store one day…
Yeah, if this is accepted it would set an interesting precedent
I’m a big fan of this project. Had a chat to the dev on discord and he’s pouring a lot of energy into the solo development. It would be great if he was able get some outside help.
Yet again another reason why Steam as a monopoly is not even hurting. If anything, Tim from Epic Games store would take it down rather than Valve.
They seem to be letting the current one stand, as well as HGL, Lutris, etc. so it seems unlikely they would take it down.
They are also not charging for those. As soon as money is involved you get even more into a legal minefield and they will come down hard on you.
But Heroic Game Launcher and Lutris are not on Steam. So there is nothing Valve lets stand at the moment, there is no game shop on Steam to my knowledge. And if they were allowed to do so, its actually amazing.
But I wonder how this works, because people can purchase games from that launcher and not give any money to Valve, even though its on Steam. This is unheard of. Usually on any other game launcher if you buy anything from an app, regardless what type of app or game it is, then you have to pay to the shop 30% (or less). That’s how it works usually.
I was talking about Timmy.
because people can purchase games from that launcher and not give any money to Valve
Unlikely. It will probably be just a launcher to support adding 3rd party games in the Steam library. They’ll have to purchase them externally.
Ah that makes much more sense. So I completely misinterpreted the reply. :D
I don’t fully understand what it looks like yet. Would it allow mixing Epic games with Steam menu in the list of played games, or would you always need to navigate to the launcher first and then launch the game?
The current plug-in let’s you add games to the normal list of steam games.
I do hope they make it available outside of Steam as well…
It’s already available as a Decky plugin.
Right, but clearly it could be more seamless. That’s why it’s being added directly into Steam.
The biggest downside right now is the need to boot into desktop mode and install Decky loader. That isn’t hard by any means, but it does go beyond what someone who isn’t tech saavy may be comfortable doing.
The steam store version will make epic and gog games usable without ever having to step past the “console” part of the steam deck.
it does go beyond what someone who isn’t tech saavy may be comfortable doing.
It’s not necessarily about “comfort” but just some people don’t care enough to be bothered with it. Whereas they might throw $5 at it to have a button to click and it suddenly works.
Plus, the usability will likely be more seamless.
