About Junk Store
G'day! We're Eben & Annie - a Kiwi couple living on a sailboat, and yep - that's where Junk Store gets built. No fancy office, just a floating home, heaps of coffee, and a shared love of gaming.
Junk Store started back in October 2023 when Eben got frustrated trying to play his beloved DOS games on the Steam Deck. Nothing out there worked the way he wanted, so he did what any stubborn developer would do - built his own solution. As he puts it: "I took matters into my own hands when nothing else worked the way I wanted it to."
What began as a simple DOS launcher has grown into something much bigger. These days, Junk Store handles Epic, GOG, Amazon, and itch games - all without ever leaving Game Mode. We've poured over 8,000 hours into this thing, and we're still going strong.
The Team (All Two of Us)
Eben
The brains behind the code. He's got decades of software development and cybersecurity experience, and he's pretty much glued to his keyboard making Junk Store better every day.
Annie
Handles... well, everything else. Support, content, community - you name it. She had zero tech background when this started, but she's learned heaps along the way so Eben can focus on what he does best.
Our Office
Yep, we really do build Junk Store from a sailboat. Our home is Taleisin, a wooden Bristol Channel Cutter we've been living aboard since February 2017. We're currently on a mooring in North Cove, Kawau Island - north of Auckland.
Taleisin under sail - snapped from the Spirit of New Zealand as she sailed past
Taleisin in the marina
Cheeky - our trusty transport around the cove
No commute (unless you count rowing to shore to visit friends, go walkabout, or pick up deliveries), no office politics, and dolphins, orca, and seals swimming past the window. It's not a bad way to work.
Why We Do This
Our philosophy is pretty simple: your handheld should feel like a handheld. The Steam Deck isn't a mini-PC you tolerate - it's a proper gaming device that deserves proper gaming experiences.
That means everything in Junk Store is designed to work with your controller, in Game Mode, without faffing about in Desktop Mode. If a feature would break that flow, we find a better way. No compromises.
Quality over Quantity: We'd rather get something right than rush it out the door.
Friction-Free Focus: Every feature is built to remove friction and eliminate the need for Desktop Mode.
No Desktop Mode: If it needs Desktop Mode, we're not interested. Simple as that.
Hear from the Developer
Want to know more about the story behind Junk Store? Check out these interviews with Eben.
Interview with Gardiner Bryant - June 2025
Click to watch on YouTube
Interview with dash - July 2024
Click to read the article