Anyone who has experienced the simplicity of downloading and managing games through Valve's Steam service has probably wished at some point that all computer software could be distributed and updated so simply. It seems Valve may be getting set to grant that wish. That is, if a list of productivity software categories that briefly appeared on the Steam mobile app is any indication.

Last night, a Verge reader seems to have been the first to notice that the Steam mobile app listed a variety of new, non-gaming software categories alongside the usual game genres: Accounting, Animation & Modeling, Audio Production, Design & Illustration, Education, Photo Editing, Software Training, Utilities, Video Production, and Web Publishing. The categories were all empty, but they appeared on both the Android and iOS versions of the store before being removed in the last few hours. It's unclear just how long the categories were listed before then, though they don't seem to have shown up on either the Steam website or the desktop versions of the Steam application at any point.

This obviously shouldn't be taken as confirmation that Valve has plans to add these kinds of applications to Steam (the company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment), but the mere fact that these categories apparently existed in Valve's database is telling. The service's built-in user base of at least 40 million gamers (as of January) could provide instant competition in the non-game software market for both Apple's Mac App Store and the integrated Metro-based app store Microsoft plans to launch with Windows 8.

Steam has tried its hand at distributing a couple of non-game apps in the past: a digital e-book chronicling The Final Hours of Portal 2 was released last year and a downloadable version of Indie Game: The Movie was launched last month.