Someone made a system that loads their Steam games using floppy disks, and it's pretty genius

Credit: BlackIceLA Published Aug 6, 2026, 3:15 AM EDT Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. Sign in to your XDA account Summary These floppy disks can boot Steam games by storing Steam run URLs instead of game data. This project uses the Decky Links plugin to read the URL from the floppy disk and boot the respective game. It's a slow but delightful novelty that's well-timed during the debate over Sony's digital-only move. As everyone debates Sony's recent decision to go digital-only, people have been finding fun ways to turn their Steam library into a physical form. We've already seen someone turn SSDs into Game Boy cartridges that load a game when plugged in, which was pretty wild by itself. Now, someone has devised a system where you can load a Steam game with its corresponding floppy disk, and as you may have guessed by now, it uses a bit of trickery to get everything working. Decky Links lets you boot a Steam game via a floppy disk No, it doesn't squeeze Cyberpunk 2077 into a 1.44MB package Over on the Steam Deck subreddit, user BlackIceLA made a system for loading games on their Steam Deck. They've attached a floppy disk reader to it, then created a floppy disk for games in their library. Whenever they want to play a game, they pop the floppy disk into the drive, and it'll boot up on the Steam Deck. So, how did BlackIceLA manage this? Well, when they first got the idea of making a system that accepted floppy disks for Steam games, they knew they couldn't actually load each title onto the 1.44MB of space that a floppy has. Fortunately, they made a smart workaround: That's when I started making (with my friend Claude) a Steam Deck plugin called "Decky Links" to detect QR codes, NFC tags, USB drives and Floppy disks. You pair the media by storing a steam game url e.g. `steam://run/1174180` on the media disk/tag. No game data is actually on the media/tag, only the url. While BlackIceLA is working on other fun ways to boot up a Steam game, this one reads the Steam URL on the floppy disk and boots up the corresponding game. As you might imagine, having the floppy disk drive load up the data and beam it over to the Steam Deck is slower than scanning an NFC tag, but this method comes with the advantage of being really cool, so there's that.