Add games to steam
Adding protonlaunch games to Steam as Non-Steam Games is very easy.
First open your steam account and go to your library.
On the bottom left corner click on ADD A GAME then select Add a Non-Steam Game...
After that, instead of browsing for an executable select any program of the detected list and click Add Selected Program
Get the complete command to launch your game and try it out directly in your computer CLI. For example env PROTONPREFIX="${HOME}/origin" protonlaunch "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Origin Games\\The Sims 4\\Game\\Bin\\TS4_x64.exe".
Its very difficult to debug games launched from Steam, so I encourage you to try on the console first and check thats working.
Go to the shortcut you've just added and right click into it selecting the Properties... option. Here you can replace the name of the application with the name of your game and the TARGET option will be the command to launch your game like above.
Due to the way proton / wine works with working directories you should set the START IN option to the directory where your game / launcher executable is. For most games that option is irrelevant but some games / launchers wont work without setting this option correctly.
You'll be tempted to set Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool inside the COMPATIBILITY tab but doing that makes Steam launch protonlaunch inside proton, which will not work. You want to call protonlaunch as a Linux executable with no layers.
Protonlaunch will handle calling proton and setting the correct proton version and prefix.
Now you can close the properties windows and test to check if your game is running from steam
Like any Non-Steam game your protonlaunch game will look ugly compared to native steam apps. Steam allows you to make this better by setting a custom background and icon.
But I prefer to go another route. By using steamgriddb which is a website filled with banners, icons, logos and everything you need to make your Non-Steam (and even steam) games pretty.
And SteamGridDB has a tool available for Windows and Linux called SGDBoop that allows you to apply any logo directly to your steam from your browser with a couple of clicks.
After a reboot your non-steam game looks awesome. With even animation privileges if you choose.
