This Steam Deck mod turns floppy disks into game launchers

Someone has found a new use for floppy disks. Not for storage, obviously. A Steam Deck plug-in called Decky Links can use physical media such as floppy disks, USB drives, NFC tags and QR codes to launch games from a Steam library. The game itself still lives on the Steam Deck’s SSD or microSD card. The floppy simply tells Steam which game to open. That means a 1.44 MB disk can technically launch a game that’s 100 GB or more. It’s a simple idea, but it changes the way you interact with a digital game library. Instead of scrolling through a list of installed titles, you can insert a disk, scan a code or tap an NFC tag and have the Steam Deck open the right game.

How a floppy disk launches a Steam game

Decky Links works by reading a small file stored on the physical media. That file contains a Steam address linked to a specific game. For example, Steam already understands commands that tell it to launch a particular application. Decky Links reads that information from the disk and passes it to Steam.

That’s really all the floppy has to do. It doesn’t contain game files, graphics, executable data or anything else you’d normally associate with a physical game release. The disk acts more like a physical shortcut.

The implementation uses a small JSON file containing the Steam address. Because the file is tiny, storage capacity barely matters. A floppy disk has far more space than the system actually needs. The Steam Deck then launches the game from wherever it’s normally installed.

Decky Links isn’t limited to floppy disks

Floppy disks get most of the attention because they’re unusual. The plug-in itself supports a much broader idea. Decky Links can also work with NFC tags, QR codes and USB storage. That opens the door to all sorts of physical launchers.

You could put an NFC tag inside a custom game case. A printed card could contain a QR code. A small USB device could launch one particular title. A 3D-printed cartridge could hide an NFC tag inside the shell.

The physical object doesn’t need to store the actual game. It only needs to tell the Steam Deck what to launch. NFC also makes the process much faster. Tests with the system have shown that an NFC tag can be detected in around half a second, so the associated game can start almost immediately.

A floppy drive takes longer. That’s hardly surprising. Floppy drives rely on mechanical parts and were never built for speed. But because Decky Links only needs to read a tiny file, even an old floppy disk can still perform the job.

Removing the media can close the game

There’s another useful part to the idea. Decky Links doesn’t just launch a game when it detects the right media. The current prototype can also close the game when that media is removed. Insert the disk and the game starts. Remove it and the game closes.

That could make the system useful for customised Steam Deck setups where someone wants a much simpler interface. Imagine a Steam Deck connected to a television with a small selection of physical game cards sitting nearby. Instead of opening the Steam library and finding the right title, you pick the card you want and scan it.

The same concept could work with NFC tags built into cases or cartridges. There’s also potential for a restricted launcher mode where only games linked to physical media can be opened. That isn’t the standard way SteamOS works, but Decky Links shows how a physical trigger system could sit on top of Valve’s existing interface.

Why not put the whole game on the disk?

Because that would get expensive very quickly. Even smaller PC games can use several gigabytes of storage. Many modern releases need 50 GB, 100 GB or even more. Giving every game its own large SD card or USB drive would mean buying a lot of storage that you don’t really need.

Decky Links avoids that problem completely. The game stays installed on the Steam Deck as normal. The physical item only stores a tiny identifier. That means cheap NFC tags, QR codes and old removable media can all do the same basic job. The storage format doesn’t matter much. The command does.

It turns physical objects into Steam shortcuts

Decky Links isn’t turning Steam downloads into traditional physical games. The Steam Deck still needs the game installed, and Steam still handles the launch process. What changes is how you start it. Normally, you open your library, find the game and select it. With Decky Links, the physical object becomes the shortcut.

A floppy disk can launch one game. An NFC card can launch another. A QR code could open something else entirely. The floppy version might be the most unusual example, but the wider idea is much more practical than it first appears. Decky Links gives Steam Deck owners another way to build custom controls around their library without duplicating huge game installations or changing how Steam stores the games themselves. And yes, that means a floppy disk can now launch a modern Steam game. It just doesn’t have to store it. It’s all kinda fun.

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