The original Steam Controller is undoubtedly one of the coolest pieces of gear I ownāand one of the most innovative, too.
I got mine right when it launched in 2015. I wanted to solve a very real problem: I was trying to turn my PC into a console.
You see, Valve had Big Picture Mode, which truly turned your PC into a console-like experience. The problem was that some of my favorite PC games didnāt support controllers. They were keyboard-and-mouse only.
But thenāhere comes the Steam Controller. Suddenly, I was able to reprogram all the inputs. I could take basic keys, like the spacebar, and map them to a button on the controllerālike the A button. And once you did that, you could share your controller configuration with the Steam community, or reuse a config someone else already made. It was pretty awesome.
And those dual trackpads? They were swank. Incredible for first-person shooters and real-time strategy games. They were the next best thing to a mouse. And because of the angle of the handles, it all felt very comfortable in the handāprobably the most comfortable controller experience Iāve ever had.
Itās funnyājust a little over five years ago, gamers hated it. Not because they ever used one, but because it was a failure. And as we all know about gamers, thereās nothing they hate more than a failure. It was dismissed as a noveltyāsomething no one would ever use again.
Well, Valve had the last laugh. A few years ago, they released the Steam Deck. And what do you know? Itās a direct evolution of the Steam Controller. And now everyone loves the Steam Deck.
Just take a look at itāitās got so many of the same things the Steam Controller had: dual trackpads, back paddles, the ability to remap buttons and customize layouts. Having owned a Steam Deck since launch, I can say this confidently: the most killer features on the Deck originated with the Steam Controller.
That said, it wasnāt perfect. There were a few quirks I wish they had fixed. For one, it wouldāve been nice if it had dual analog sticks instead of just one. Using a trackpad in place of a right stick is fine in theory, but letās be real: a trackpad does not replace an analog stick.
Also, unlike most modern controllers, this one didnāt have a rechargeable battery. You needed AA batteries. Now, to be fair, those batteries lasted a long timeābut it still wouldāve been nicer to just recharge it and forget about replacements.
Then thereās the back paddles. Only two of them. In hindsight, yeah, Valve knew they needed to evolve. Iāve grown so used to having four back paddles on the Steam Deck. Theyāre incredibly usefulāespecially in games with lots of inputs. Just good to have.
Still, this was one of the first mainstream controllers to even have back paddles. So hats off to Valve for that.
Honestly, I really wish there was another Steam Controller on the market. I know Hori makes a licensed controller for the Steam Deck in Japan, but itās missing a core feature the original had: the dual trackpads.
To me, the dual trackpads make the Steam Deck experience. Itās something almost no other handheld has. My wife has a Legion Go, and it does have a trackpadābut only one. And honestly? That makes all the difference. Itās fine. But manā¦ it wouldāve been a better handheld with two.
Definitely one of the most innovative controllers ever made.
And yeah, I still use mine. I use it when I dock my handheld. Or when Iām on my living room PC.
I hate this thing with a passion.
Some of it is a me thing. The trackpads hurt me physically. Iām talking immediate pain. Even when it came out a decade ago and my writsts were less busted than they are now they hurt. I know thatās not universal, and some people with similar accessiblity problems have the opposite experience. I donāt question that.
Some of it is most definitely not a me thing. It was plasticky, flimsy, prototypey and trying to make a thing happen that was not going to happen.
I donāt blame people for swearing by it as contrarians. Hey, I am fond of controllers people donāt like (the joycon are the best controller this generation and people like the wrong Saturn controller, and Iāll fight you on both of those). But still, I feel when this comes up it doesnāt get enough pushback mostly because not enough people actually tried it. I own one, I tried it and it was not good.
I donāt regret having one, though. Bit of a collectorās piece. I should go dig it up and make sure none of the plastic has rotted away.
I came from a background of using joystick controllers then picked up a Steam Controller and loved it since. And I still use it along side regular controllers, so probably bit more experience on both than other people.
Build quality isnāt premium, but I prefer it for most of my games over my switch, xbox, 8bitdo, and sony controllers. Love it for games like Doom Eternal, Left 4 Dead 2, and The Finals.
Just havenāt found a controller that provides me with the functionality the Steam Controller offers despite finding alternatives to xbox controllers with first the playstation with it having gyro the xbox doesnāt, and then 8bitdo with additional buttons and TMR sticks the playstation doesnāt. But, still no Steam Controller alternative, so Iām still using it.
I would argue that the reason you havenāt found a controller with the same functionality as the Steam controller is most people donāt like using overengineered trackpads to try to replicate sticks and d-pads that are much better at the job theyāre designed to do. Only Steam keeps messing with this concept andā¦ it really doesnāt work.
The Steam controller was an attempt to bridge the gap of consolizing PC games back when people still thought of PC games as primarily keyboard and mouse. Itāsā¦ not a great way to play mouse and keyboard games on a TV and itās mostly a step backwards from a normal controller for games with controller support. Which is the vast majority of PC games now anyway.
And yeah, yeah, I know what youāre going to say. You do play mouse and keyboard games on it and love it, and you think it beats sticks because you can spend hours on Steam making overly complicated setups that allow you to macro all sorts of nonses into the trackpads and paddles and whatnot.
Thatās cool, if thatās what you want to do. Go nuts, have fun. But thereās a reason it isnāt a particularly mainstream way to engage with PC games.
Gyro, though, is actually useful for first person shooters. Itās nowhere near a Steam-driven thing or a Steam controller-specific thing, but I do wish Microsoft would start building it into controllers so we could have it on Xinput as a standard and have an easier time using it at the Windows level instead of having to depend on Steam as a translation layer, particularly for non-Steam games.
My argument was never for how it is mainstream, but that I find it more useful than regular controllers which I used before and use now. Iāve found āupgradesā to the xbox, playstation, nintendo controllers with the 8bitdo Ultimate 2. But have yet to find upgrades to the Steam Controller.
And what is mouse and keyboard games these days? Death Stranding, Saints Row, GTA, Dishonored, Uncharted? Doesnāt take me hours to set up either. It might takes hours for you to set up, but for me itās been as simple as using a pre saved template for mixed input or mouse/keyboard depending on support and adjusting the gyro and remapping some buttons to my preference.
Same thing I end up doing on a regular controller like the 8bitdo Ultimate 2 where I map buttons of the grip and extra bumper from game to game when I opt for it over the Steam Controller. And same process for adjusting the gyro.
So my point is yes for you the controller may be useless, but disagree with the instance that people who like it are doing it because they are contrarians. Hell thereās people who take the same stance with gyro trying it out and finding they arenāt proficient at it and insisting it is a gimmick.
It does seem like your hatred of it with a passion as you said is leading to too strong of a bias of rejecting the idea that those who like it do actually like it because for them they find it to be a better controller than traditional joystick controller. I will not disagree with you that it is a bad controller for you. It most definitely is with it causing physical pain for you on top other complaints you have. It is a bad controller for you period.
All I ask is that you open your mind to the possibility that people who do prefer it do actually find it the opposite of what yours is, and they arenāt doing it for the sake of being contrarian. They do actually use it because they do find it better for them.
I mean, for all the quotes you missed the one that explicitly does āall you askā.
The thing with talking to each other on the Internet while disagreeing (respectfully) is that we end up having to parse which of the parts we disagree in to even have an argument about. I donāt mind people liking the Steam controller, but Iām also not shy at calling out the ways in which its rough edges are not a me thing.
I think itās undeniable that itās pretty plasticky. I think I can make a pretty solid argument about its setup and usability being overengineered while not getting to the ostensible goal (mouse and keyboard on a controller format, presumably). And for what itās worth, I think the fact that itās a pretty niche thing goes to show this is the consensus reaction to it.
All of that can be said without taking anything away from the people that like it, I think. Butā¦ you know, that doesnāt mean I donāt think theyāre wrong about it or that those are all entirely subjective observations about it.
Iāll say that my āhate it with a passionā stance is less about the Steam Controller itself and more about how it keeps sneaking into all of Valveās hardware. Iāve said this before: I donāt know whoās still stuck on making touchpads happen, but it made my time with the HTC Vive much harder than it had to be and the Steam Deck didnāt need to have Dumbo ears, so I do think thereās a value to reminding people (and Valve specifically) that this isnāt going to happen and everybody else is not jumping into their touchpad fetish for a reason.
I donāt disagree one that part. In fact, youād find most Steam Controller fans biggest wish is for a more premium update. Thatās been a big wish for a long time with mine being a Steam Controller with better bumpers, gyro with higher polling for high refresh rate gaming, 2 more back buttons, extra bumper buttons like the 8bitdo has, dpad replacing the left joystick, pressure sensitive touchpad that are bit larger, and a much nicer material for the shell.
But, despite the less than premium build quality enthusiasts find the actual functions useful enough to keep using it. Much like the Alpakka controller that doesnāt even have a right joystick or touchpad, but gyro enthusiasts use it because it has the best gyro available right now for controllers.
So basically the stances about build quality and it not being a mainstream device is not something most Steam Controller users disagree with. Thatās not really been the point of contention. Thereās been agreement on that.