- 1 year ago
The Life, Embarrassing Death, and Legacy of the Steam Controller
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00:00Welcome to Too Late, Who Gives a Shit, the show in which I talk about old controllers
00:11that weren't popular even when they were in production, controllers that can play Vivaldi
00:15on their haptic trackpads.
00:18The Steam Controller began as part of Valve's Steam Machine project, which was basically
00:21the console version of a PC.
00:23They wanted to make couch play better for existing customers while also making it as
00:27easy as possible for console gamers to transition to Steam, something that they were already
00:31doing in large enough numbers to pressure Microsoft and Sony into releasing mid-gen
00:34Pro systems.
00:36Valve was also worried about the direction Windows 8 was taking and wanted to reduce
00:39their dependence on Microsoft, deriving their own Steam Operating System from Linux.
00:45Valve's consoles needed a gamepad that would be able to play the full Steam library, a
00:48feat that could not be accomplished with analog sticks alone.
00:51And those are all the factors that led to the Steam Controller.
00:54One of the drivers behind us making the controller was actually VR.
00:59Their first instinct was to use motion to simulate mouse movement, but they found it
01:02too tiring in some use cases, so they moved on to trackballs next.
01:06The appeal of the trackball was that large movements could be done on a small surface
01:09area by spinning the ball once and letting it roll, as opposed to swiping a conventional
01:13trackpad over and over.
01:15The trackball needed to be large to provide enough precision and required regular cleaning
01:19though, so Valve settled on a combination of trackpads with haptic feedback.
01:23The advantage of this setup was that the haptics could still mimic the mechanics and
01:26feeling of a spinning ball to a satisfying degree while taking up less space, being more
01:30durable, and also emulating other inputs like analog sticks or scroll wheels.
01:35The final controller also included the motion sensor Valve initially experimented with for
01:39good measure.
01:40But are trackpads in motion genuinely better than sticks, and by how much?
01:44I've learned from past videos that some people are really, really stuck on the analog
01:48stick.
01:49It's hard to get empirical proof that one input type is better than another, but Aim
01:53Lab is about as close as I think it gets.
01:55It's a free game devoted to analyzing your aiming in great detail.
01:59If you're watching this, there's a chance that you've seen Gyro Gaming's comparison
02:02video using the software.
02:03I similarly pitted the Steam Controller against other input types, testing each until the
02:07results plateaued and became consistent.
02:10Analog sticks alone yielded an average score of around 27,000.
02:14They almost require you to get right on target with a single flick, otherwise you'll have
02:18to make small corrections with an input that's terrible at doing that.
02:21The mouse averaged 34,000.
02:23I expected it to perform better, but using the inputs back to back in the same context
02:27like this makes it clear how much better the mouse really is.
02:30It's faster, more fluid, and can make adjustments more easily, which is what the Steam Controller
02:34was setting out to emulate.
02:36So when trying the Steam Trackpads out, I got the worst damn results by far.
02:41I managed to improve to an average of 26,000 with practice, but it goes to show the type
02:46of learning curve the pads have that even after 5 years I'm this bad at handling them.
02:50There is more fluid movement than a stick and there's more potential to improve, but
02:54it's a finicky uphill battle.
02:56Applying any pressure at all will create friction with the pad and thumb movements will take
02:59on a jerky start and stop quality.
03:02Just barely grazing the surface allows for smoother movement, but you often run out of
03:05pad before hitting the target and have to make multiple swipes.
03:08The trackball spin trick works when broadly turning the camera, but not so well when aiming
03:12like this.
03:13I'm sure someone out there has mastered the pads, but I've never found them to work
03:16well enough to aim on their own, and I don't seem to be alone in that.
03:19The consensus I've seen online is that it's best to use the pads for camera movement and
03:22then the gyro for aiming, and to my surprise the gyro scores not only lift the trackpads
03:27in the dust but handily bested mouse input at nearly 38,000.
03:31The advantage of gyro is that there's zero friction.
03:34Unlike a mouse or stick, which have to be pushed out of a neutral position, the gyro
03:37cursor is always loose and in motion, making it faster to move from target to target in
03:41my hands.
03:42The downside is that it's less stable and easily shaken off target by trigger pulls,
03:46but this can be controlled with a little bit of focus.
03:49For the hell of it, I also tested the Switch and DS Forge gyros and got even better results
03:53along with my single highest score of 42,000.
03:56These controllers don't seem to lose calibration as often and were far more sensitive by default,
04:00forcing me to turn down the in-game settings to get the same feel as the Steam pad.
04:04It's hard to say, but Steam seems to be at a slight disadvantage here.
04:07I did some digging on this and actually found the sensors used by the controllers, and uh...
04:12I'm going to be honest here, I don't know how to read.
04:14All these letters and symbols are the same to me.
04:17Of course, aiming alone is just one measure.
04:19The trackpads didn't excel for me here, but they do beat sticks in most scenarios that
04:23need mouse movement.
04:24So yes, when combining the trackpads and gyro, the Steam controller can offer better, more
04:28mouse-like movement than an analog stick, but it all depends on how good you are at
04:32using them and how the game lets you use them.
04:34The best case I've found for the trackpads isn't a Steam game, but the Metroid Prime
04:38trilogy.
04:39With a mouse and keyboard hack, the game is perfectly at home on the controller.
04:42I was a huge fan of Wii Remote aiming, but Metroid missed the boat on customization options,
04:47being locked to slow turning and cursor speeds.
04:50With PrimeHack, the Steam controller trackpads allow snappier turning than a stick while
04:53the gyro does the aiming, and I can only hope that the official remaster that's been rumored
04:57about controls half as well as this.
04:59Okami has native support for the controller and allows much faster drawing on the pads
05:03or gyro, making it arguably the definitive version.
05:07But in my experience, the main benefit of the trackpads isn't accuracy but flexibility.
05:11Unlike a stick, they can easily function as buttons as well as a mouse.
05:15The d-pad directions or ABXY can be set to quadrants on the clickable pad surfaces, eliminating
05:20the need to move your thumbs from them at all.
05:22Movement is a little awkward on the left trackpad, so most people opt to use it as a d-pad and
05:26move with the analog stick instead.
05:28In this no-click mode, the haptics can simulate the feeling of a rocking d-pad with unnerving
05:32accuracy.
05:33It's hard to communicate through sound and visuals alone, but it works better than it
05:37should.
05:38The pad also enables a great toggle for gyro aiming.
05:42Instead of leaving the gyro on at all times like Splatoon, or only activating it when
05:45aiming down sights, you can enable the gyro anytime by resting a thumb on the pad.
05:50Typing prompts can be handled with greater speed and ease than a controller has ever
05:53had before with the trackpads functioning as a split keyboard.
05:57They can also be used as virtual touch screens with on-screen UIs and customizable icons.
06:01I can make all nine item slots in Resident Evil 5 immediately accessible on the right
06:05trackpad, eliminating the need to fumble with the in-game menu at all.
06:10Mode shifting allows features like this to work by altering what the inputs do when a
06:13designated button or trigger is held.
06:16If there aren't enough buttons to fit all the actions of a game, you can switch to entirely
06:19different mappings on the fly and effectively double or triple the number of keys.
06:23The grip buttons on the underside are perfect for this, or for absorbing actions you don't
06:27want to reach down to the face buttons for.
06:30The triggers also double their usefulness by adding a Gamecube-style click at the end,
06:33which can be mapped as a separate action.
06:36Valve's favorite use for this was to combine aiming and firing into one trigger, with the
06:40analog portion going down sights and the button firing.
06:43A fast pull still allows attacking without aiming, leaving the left trigger free to absorb
06:47two other inputs, in this case crouching on the analog pull and diving on the full pull.
06:53All of this is handled through Valve's software, which cuts down on latency by actually altering
06:57the controller's firmware to output the desired action directly.
07:00And real-time firmware affords us the ability to take whatever configuration that you have
07:04at launch of the game, bake it down into the controller, so the controller, those keys,
07:08those buttons on the controller actually send those keys.
07:11The range of customization options is dizzying, but clear enough to understand when taken
07:14one at a time.
07:16Previously, different software solutions might have been required to do these things with
07:19inconsistent success depending on the game.
07:22Having all this configuration in one place is a godsend.
07:25Whether making the simplest changes like swapping the triggers around or making complex, multi-layered
07:29reworkings of an entire control scheme.
07:32So if the controller was so great, then why did it end up in the garbage dump?
07:36There's a plethora of reasons for that.
07:39The build quality didn't feel up to a first-party standard.
07:43That Valve managed to get such a fully-featured controller out for $50 is impressive, but
07:47you can feel the shortcuts on it.
07:49The face buttons are mushy and too far out of reach, almost necessitating control schemes
07:53that move their actions somewhere else.
07:55To prevent accidental presses, the trackpads have to be popped down with a fair amount
07:59of force, and the grip buttons even more so.
08:01A look under the battery cover reveals that they're not buttons but clickable pockets
08:05built into the surface.
08:07They work for mode shifting, but mapping frequently used actions to them will tire the hands out
08:10right away.
08:11The bumpers are also ridiculously stiff for no good reason.
08:15The overall shape is very comfortable, but everything else is slightly off.
08:19The larger issue was probably that the controller's big strength of customization could also be
08:23a giant burden.
08:25Gaming on PC already requires a lot of tinkering with drivers, benchmarks, and settings, and
08:29it doesn't exactly need another battery of options to deal with before being able
08:32to play.
08:33With mixed results, Valve tried to cut the hassle by allowing configurations to be saved
08:37and shared.
08:38A finished configuration can be saved as a template for other games to use, or community
08:42configs can be browsed to eliminate the need to ever create any of your own.
08:46But without having decided the potentially complicated mappings yourself, these configs
08:50can be completely foreign with a high learning curve.
08:53A console will likely have vaguely familiar button layouts from game to game, but a Steam
08:57community layout is often a mystery box of tangled actions, layers, and modes.
09:02Official configurations set by the developers should be better but somehow often make things
09:06worse.
09:07I mentioned that Okami supports the controller, but with a clumsy scheme using the trackpads
09:10to emulate analog sticks instead of a mouse.
09:13Because there are so many action layers, a change as simple as moving one button may
09:17have to be repeated five or six times to carry through all of them.
09:20Almost any community config is better, but as is usually the case, none of them were
09:24quite what I wanted and still needed tweaking.
09:27In this case, it was worth sticking through because the scheme I ended up with was great
09:30and utilized everything the controller could do.
09:32But there are plenty of games that don't really need this Steam controller and aren't
09:35worth the fuss.
09:36Any platformer, for example.
09:38The D-pad emulation might work well for quick item swaps, but when put to the test in a
09:42demanding side-scroller, the illusion falls apart pretty quickly.
09:45The pad's surface is so large that even an analog stick feels better in comparison.
09:50For at least half the games in my inventory, the controller has nothing to offer over a
09:53standard gamepad, which I'm assuming most people who own a Steam controller also have.
09:58A heavy keyboard and mouse user would likely feel the same.
10:01Many of the games that can benefit are blocked from doing so by factors out of Valve's
10:05control.
10:06Most games aren't designed to accept random inputs from different controllers at once,
10:10severely limiting what otherwise could be incredible control schemes.
10:14Gyro and trackpad input work best when mapped as a mouse, which rarely ever functions alongside
10:18X input.
10:19Getting the best from the Steam controller's top features means that you either have to
10:22mode shift between controller types, or go all keyboard and give up advantages like analog
10:27movement and clear button prompts.
10:29The hardware has the potential to do anything you want, but the infrastructure doesn't
10:33exist on the game side to actually use it, and there's a limit to what Steam can force
10:37by itself.
10:39Valve invested a lot to get the controller where it is so that it could improve a few
10:42games, cause a lot of headaches in others, and then die pitifully in the corner.
10:45It's a demonstration of the risks involved with trying to innovate and a clear case for
10:50why the controller field has stagnated so much.
10:52The modern gamepad was basically settled in 1997 and has mostly seen minor refinements
10:57since.
10:58The same could be said about keyboard and mouse, although if I really wanted to push
11:01it I could say that it hasn't fundamentally changed since before most people watching
11:04this were born.
11:06Yes, the new versions feel better, but if you could plug this decades old hardware into
11:10a PS5 it would play most games just fine.
11:13Once something has become standardized it's very hard to break away from it.
11:17Your muscle memory probably makes you shudder at the thought of using a different keyboard
11:20layout, even if it might work better.
11:22It's hard for developers to adopt a new approach to controls and it's even harder
11:26to get players to adapt.
11:27Valve's biggest mistake may have been that they were too ambitious in revolutionizing
11:31input, leaving most who tried the Steam Controller more than happy to slink back to the status
11:35quo.
11:36But the failure of the hardware itself doesn't mean that Valve's larger endeavor was unsuccessful.
11:41Steam Input lived on and absorbed every major gamepad, offering the same level of customization
11:46to more familiar and arguably better controllers.
11:49The criminally underutilized motion and touchpad of the DualShock 4 can work to their full
11:53potential in any game now, and Steam Input can even allow universal native button prompts
11:58to appear for it and Switch controllers when the developer supports the API.
12:01It's been an absolute sea change in terms of how controllers work on a PC.
12:06That proliferation of options seems to have spurned a lot of further innovation by the
12:10community.
12:11Because Gyro can handle aiming on its own, it becomes redundant for the analog stick
12:15to function as it traditionally has, so JibSmart came up with a new way called FlickStick.
12:20The right stick is used to instantly point the camera in any direction.
12:23Pressing left, for example, results in a hard 90 degree turn.
12:27Something like this has the potential to be the next evolutionary step beyond gyro aim
12:31and makes Microsoft's stick-only future look absolutely ancient in comparison.
12:36Valve didn't come up with it, but they kicked the door down, and it seems like the exact
12:39kind of community response that they were hoping to see to their efforts.
12:42The DNA of the Steam Controller can also be seen in Valve's Index, which features a
12:46haptic touchpad.
12:48It may just be pure coincidence, but it's hard to look at the grip buttons and firmware-based
12:52mapping of Microsoft's Elite Controller without wondering if they were looking over
12:55Valve's shoulder during the beta testing phase.
12:58In terms of continuing ripples of influence, the Steam Controller was actually pretty successful.
13:03A few patents have hinted that a second version isn't entirely out of the cards and it would
13:06be nice to have that upgrade, since the Steam Controller has abilities that no other gamepad
13:10has been able to fully replace yet.
13:13But looking at this controller as well as the Wii Remote and Kinect, it seems like the
13:16lesson for developers to take away is that radical new form factors don't survive in
13:20the controller space, at least for non-VR gaming.
13:25Whatever lasting innovations these controllers have made have always been carried on by the
13:29familiar gamepads people already have and know were shackled to them.
13:33At best, it seems like you can make one major change at a time before people get turned
13:37off.
13:38But that doesn't mean there aren't giant leaps left to make.
13:41That Valve tried when no one was asking them to and when no one else seemed willing is
13:45a tremendous credit to them as a company, but maybe things are better this way, with
13:48the spirit of their innovation evolving well beyond their own hardware.
13:54Finds a way.
13:59I'm not wearing underwear.
14:24I'm not wearing underwear.
14:30I'm not wearing underwear.
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