Consider implementing the Big Picture API for store data
smiley opened this issue · 2 comments
There's currently no officially supported way for third-party developers to ask Steam, programmatically, for product details. For example, there's no way to ask "Team Fortress 2" and get the appid "440" in return.
However, there is the Big Picture API, which uses standard HTTP. I've avoided implementing that because it is, after all, a private API that can change at all times. Even worse, since Steam auto-updates and requires having the latest version to connect, Valve can change the entire Big Picture API layout overnight and not break a single thing.
But it also seems pretty stable. SteamDB uses this for live store data and by the looks of it (no further posts about it) they didn't run into any private-API issues.
So it comes down to thinking it through (and hopefully hearing someone else's opinion on this -- this is your cue watchers/starrers!).
imo,
Have it as a distinct section/module/package, and don't base any of the main module's logic on the big-picture api/module, so if the private api changes, it will only affect the private api based packages
having more data to make toys with is always welcome
If I get that right this is the "Storefront" API. @FrancisLab implemented this in his fork (I don't know how complete that is, just stumbled upon hif code as I was looking for something else):